… with the purchase of this film scanner on Yahoo! Auctions.
This is the old model, although I heard it is better for scanning b/w. Amazingly, it is still shrink-wrapped and was never powered on! While I am mostly happy with scans from my Epson 3200, I wanted something I can carry into the living room and connect to the iBook, if necessary.
Next step is to sell some things.
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Taken at Uniqlo in Kashiwa using my “new” 24mm/2.8, inexpensively bought from a very friendly individual on Yahoo! Japan auctions (sent me the hood and a polarising filter with it; can a polariser be used on a digi? Suppose so. Realise more and more that the digicam behaves mostly like slide film). The guy said something along the lines of that this lens works great on film cameras, but a bit blurry on a DSLR. Not sure what he meant by that, so far I find it very crisp. It is also very compact making the camera and lens a small and nice package. Lens looks ancient thought (90s design and well used), but works well. I found myself using the low end of my 28-105 most of the time, i.e. for the more interesting pics, so why not go fixed lens altogether? And yes, the 24mm should make a nice length on a film camera as well… another time.
Gitzo 1370M 3-way tripod head
No, it is not what you think from the title of the post, although that wouldn’t be to far off either. Err, what am I on about here? I acquired, via Yahoo! Auctions a new tripod head. In the past I never able to figure out what those 3-way heads are supposed to be good for, as they are slower to adjust than the more common tilt and pan heads with only one handle.
Well, I have seen the light and this is exactly what I need to work with the monorail. It is very time-consuming to level the camera with the one handled head and it doesn’t give you the flexibility to quickly pan the whole camera for example, without inadvertently loosing the other adjustments. With the 1370M I only have to loosen one of the handles for the axis I want to change, and that’s it. I have to take the gadget out for a spin this week!
The Japanese word for this piece of equipment is é›²å° [ã†ã‚“ã ã„], which means camera platform.
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We are going on a backpacker-ish trip to Thailand next week and the question apart from where to go and stay is what camera to take. Pickpockets are an issue, as well as other things, and the last thing you want to do on your holiday is worrying about stuff like cameras. So I did an impulse purchase on Yahoo! auctions for this nice Yashica Electro GX (I made the picture a little more colourful to emphasise the happiness of the seventies, when this camera was produced. Don’t think I am just another superficial foreign photographer in Japan). Turns out it is a rather rare camera, according to one source not even listed in the “Japanese Camera Collectable” guide books. But that was a coincidence, because if it is valuable, then I am back to my original problem, aren’t I?
Anyway, I realised that the camera is not in such great shape after all. With the rather humid Japanese climate, the lens of this camera fell victim to the dreaded kabi (fungus) on the front and second lens element [pics]. I will try to take off the front element according to some repair instructions and clean the second element. Although if that turns out not to be possible, then that’s fine too. At the moment the camera is sunbathing on the balcony to let the sun’s UV rays kill the nasty spores.
I have been meaning to mention how great using Yahoo! auctions is. It must be one of those aspects of Japanese culture where one can feel safe and trust the people, but maybe that is just my illusion and wishful thinking. Anyway, I have made 3 transactions in the last 2 months and with a little Japanese language skills you can go a long way in buying and selling some nice things. The best part is the delivery. We have all seen the Kuroneko vans cruising the streets, but the home delivery network in this country is just a marvel. You can drop off your package in any convenience store and it arrives the next day for a not too high a charge, and most of the time it is best to send it chakubarai, where the receiver pays for the postage. No excessive quoting and calculating payments. It is a pure joy. This comes at the same time as my first bad eBay experience.
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Kashiwa girls, Konica Pan 400, 17.5min in Xtol 1:2
Today I developed my own film for the first time in what must be over 5 years. It was fantastic and it is remarkable that I haven’t forgotten that much. The reels I managed to buy on Yahoo auctions for my new tank arrived today, so it was time to test. The Paterson reels are a lot easier to load compared to what I had before. Loading the reels in warm and humid weather was a real pain and difficult because the film expands a little and gets sticky, and so would I in a small darkroom. Anyway, those new reels work great, no problems whatsoever!
The film came out OK, maybe slightly overdeveloped, because of the warm summer temperatures right now. I cooled things down to around 17 degrees before pouring it in, but on exit I noticed that the temperature was now 25 degrees. Add to that the lack of information about developing my current type of film (Konica Pan 400) with Xtol, and you have slightly off results. I also have some water stains so maybe I have to get some wash aid.
However, it was just so much more enjoyable than plugging a USB cable into the computer, and I had forgotten about that.
Update: the film is dry and I noticed I have increased grain. Now this could either be due to the developer/film combination, the high dilution development or the over-development. Or it could be that stop and fixer are room temperature (around 30 degrees), causing some effects, but then the jump from 25 to 30 is not great, or is it? I am planning to switch to Neopan 400 soon anyway, but I have some remaining stock of Konica Pan to use up, so I would really like to correct this at least a little bit.