Category: the fora

all that stuff people say online

Sparks Fly

Posted on Posted in da net, Getting Stuff, overnight notes, the fora

when amateur experts collide. If nobody is right… let’s have a fight.

Power Struggles

Does the answer matter as much as winning, dominating among, what are essentially bullies in boast mode. Aging forums traverse a standard decay. It takes very little to cause the inmates to stomp and shout. So, what happened?

technology designed to serve industry across many nations with differing standards of safety.

Professional labs often operated all day, every day. One workstation was used by different operators on different shifts.

Design standards matured. Knowledge among users of different products was passed to all the involved vendors.

Salesmen talk. Hard to keep secrets that are for sale to anyone at a trade show or a reception room.

Could it get you there? The knowledge thread. Only if you already knew the answer; you’d do fine picking through the several pages collected over many years. And read German. The fact is, most of the knowledgeable from the chemical era began retiring in the 80s. Those most successful labs were being sold by the late 80s. It was clear that growth was over. By 1990 anyone with an accountant knew: the best is done. And asking: what comes next, if they were too young or too poor to stop, to make the next step.

Enlargers are elegant solutions to a simple need. Make this bigger. Make a projection. A light and a lens is all that’s needed.

Mechanical engineering improved over several decades to hold and position the film to be enlarged. How to do this cheaply yet durably. Divide the market into the casual and the commercial. From the 50s onward safety standards matured, so did manufacturing experience and supporting industry with more and more solutions.

The hobbiest’s casual darkroom is likely a converted space, perhaps a shared space. The car, the bar, the enlarger, that spare freezer, all stuck away. And subject to accidents. Water makes a great conductor.

hard to get agreement among them, when they don’t even keep agreement with themself. over time they switch opinion — seems to be based upon who they agree with not that it matters. none of them are the ones who have to fix the broken, possibly dangerous, device.

Lonely, a bully, and a know-it-all meet online to answer questions of the naive. Bullfrogs at a roadside puddle.

Resources

http://www.luigipasto.com/pages/resources/

http://www.jollinger.com/photo/enlargers/chromegatrol_repair.html

http://durst.loremi.com/

Click to access Durst%20TRA450%20Wiring%20Diagrams.pdf


http://www.jollinger.com/photo/enlargers/other/Changes_to_My_Chromegatrol.pdf

Amateurs need to explain, more to themselves than to others, why they ended where they did. It can’t be because of their lack, it must be something you’ve done.

“Galdston was surprised that Evans made better pictures than he did, even though Evans didn’t know much about f-stops and shutter speeds.”

The difference between Iago Galdston and Walker Evans is obvious.

Saving Photography

Posted on Posted in overnight notes, the fora

Their first impulse is to denounce as not possible, not worth doing. by killing the young, they Stop them from taking their place. They lost their way so long ago, they don’t know where the path is.

They are stagnate. Small ponds do that.

/– / NEW ENLARGER — ART OF FOTO.. LFF. Heiland. https://heilandelectronic.de/enlarger

Sep, 2016.. A new 20×24 enlarger project announced — 2 years later it was delivered even though the forum experts offered this:

–“Without a glass carrier ? How do you expect to achieve any focus accuracy worthy of negatives this big in the first place? Same goes for wide-angle enlarging lenses. Other than the LED light source itself, why try to re-invent the wheel? Big horizontal process cameras could easily be retrofitted for this kind of application.

I once threw out something like that, superbly made, just to cannibalize the suite of Apo Nikkor lenses.” AND “Anything autofocus reminds me of power windows on cars …. sooner or later you’ll wish there was still a traditional hand-crank. And metal changes dimensionally, so fine tuning the focus would be essential, which they have allegedly provided.”

[ you can’t because I couldn’t. — if you can, then I won’t be as important to my imaginary friends as I want to be]

/–/ intrepid, camera [2014 ,LFF 11-Aug-2014, 13:59 ], enlarger]] https://intrepidcamera.co.uk

On one forum accepting to roll film the announcement is greeted with:

Counting the travelwide, ferrania, new55, P6 petzval, CL81, plus a few Lomography lenses and probably a lot that I don’t know about, that’s a lot of combined love for Film around the place, makes me all warm and fuzzy…

However, for those Large Format Folks came offers of help:

“the body seems rather deep.

My thoughts also. I don’t see any reason why the back part can’t be half as deep as it is.

Look at current designs, old designs, prototype over and over. It really does seem more like an early prototype than an actually useful camera. Goodluck nonetheless.

AND the best after months of comments:

“I do hope all the nay saying is not putting you off. Most of the blather about movements is posturing anyway. Not many folk use them even when they have an abundance of them. Your pricing is attractive. The camera looks good enough to use. You might want to work on the knobs a bit to make them look less crude. Apart from that, if it is quick to set up in the field and doesn’t weigh a lot it will be a fine outdoors camera. Make sure the materials can withstand the rain…”

/–/ cinestill  2013 first chatter on photrio ]] https://cinestillfilm.com

  • “All they’re doing is removing the remjet. I can do that myself.
  • Too expensive. Where can you process it
  • The colors won’t last. Hues will be wrong. Maybe okay for the ‘lomo’ crowd.

Of course cinestill is going strong — now providing 120 film, with 4×5 color negative expected to be coated in November. They are delivering enough product that Kodak 38 is surviving.

All of these companies are making product, even though the major forumatti of film didn’t think the products worth their interest. Probably partially explains why they, even with their years of ability, couldn’t develop the products they love to discount.

they start with a NO because they’re certain they KNOW more than you.

If at first they don’t succeed… they don’t want you to either. They don’t want to do it, and don’t like those who do, even tho too cowardly to say those words. instead, they say: but you can play [like permission to children]. or, ‘to each his own. no accounting for tastes [bad tastes]’ —

They never had a vision of the future so now they must cling to a fantasy past.