Value of money and cost of technology

[mechanic]

Have you fitted Olympus lenses or are you using Panasonic ones? My Lumix GX7 is using Olympus lenses from another camera and they seem fine. Not that I'm printing to 10x8 or some such though.

[Tim Watts]

I started with Panasonic lenses on the basis they were most likely to behave nicely with things like image stabilisation (well the tele anyway).

But I'd be interested in trying some alternatives - maybe second hand. I could probably dry run some at the London Camera Exchange on the Strand as I walk past it 3 times a week :)

I can't see much going wrong with a non stabilised lens (focussing is a fairly basic operation) and I have sensor stabilisation too.

Is Olympus the generally best maker of lenses or is there another brand I should look at too?

[tim...]

Yup

Ektachrome was the reversal film process that local labs could develop for you (or DIY if you were really really keen)

tim

[Tim Streater]

Yes, it was a complex process, unlike other colour slide film, and seemingly very temperature sensitive. At the end, there was just the one Lab left in Armpit Nebraska or wherever it was that had the franchise to develop kodachrome.

We went to the Azores for our honeymoon in 2004, and I took a couple of even then out-of-date rolls of kodachrome which I thought ought to be OK, but the colours were a bit off. Last ones I ever took.

[Martin Brown]

I think the new generation have no idea how tedious it is to set up and maintain a decent vinyl record playing set up and how prone to hum and acoustic feedback they can be. Not to mention clicks and pops from scratches. Unlike CDs vinyl records need very careful handling. The only plus side is that you get a decent sized album cover with the vinyl.

You liked having blank skies, motion blur and the red layer visibly standing out from the rest of the image?

Fujichrome could give any Kodak film a serious pasting. That and the fact Kodak refused to properly develop digital cameras despite having invented them sealed their fate. I had one of the first Mpixel DC120's (it looked like a tricorder) in the UK bought at a reduced price under £1k because they launched the DC210 a few weeks later confusing the hell out of their dealers. It ate batteries drawing nearly 2A from 4xAA's.

It paid for itself inside a year. Back then the cost of commercial slide scanning was huge (a service also provided by Kodak in its PCD format). They had the lead in digital imaging at one point but squandered it.

[mechanic]

It's mainly a question of the lens mount, Olympus and Panasonic/Lumix being the main players for that system. Lumix lenses should be sharp enough if the focusing system works. No idea if independent lens makers offer a selection in micro four thirds, or you could consider an adapter (but that adds more bulk to the camera). That would enable you to use a lot of other maker's product.

[dennis]

Olympus like many make different quality lenses for different markets. You need to know what quality you want and how much you want to pay.

reviews lenses with photos you can look at.

You pay a lot more for weatherproof lenses from olympus.

[Vir Campestris]

I'm still using my 2004 vintage Kodak DX6490. 4MP isn't a lot these days, but I never take anything above 10x8.

It's taken ~12,000 shots so far!

Andy

[whisky-dave]

really have you never taken a picture of a human or a building ?

I wonder what of, are all your subjects less than the size of an A4 sheet of paper ?

[DerbyBorn]

Never understood why people processed their own. I used to do B & W printing as I could manipulate the image, but slides were just a Time and Temp process.

[whisky-dave]

something to do with DIY, when I was a a member of the camera club we did allow professional D&P but the judge or whoever gave out points had to be told so they could judge accordingly if need be.

With Ektachrome you could push process it, so that was an advantage to some, it could also be quicker if you were in a hurry.

I did too and did cibachrome and B&W slides making up my own developer and fixer and reversal stage.

[spuorgelgoog]

Some people collect stamps, thimbles, ants, or other small things.

Owain

[whisky-dave]

yes I know but I don;t know anyone that restricts what they take photos off by size.

from

[John Rumm]

I used to do my own film developing for a while... (not printing - I would scan the film and carry on digital from there)

The original motivation was I got fed up with the quality of the work the labs were doing - too many negs / slides with scratches / splashes on them etc, and it was reasonably cost effective (at first anyway) if you wanted just developing. I did both C41 negative, and E6 slide processing.

[Bob Eager]

At one point, when I was at school, I did a lot of B&W reversal for slides.

[whisky-dave]

That's where I learnt how to do it it, as I was working in the science lab to develop it but it was for the art depatrment that had the darkroom. So it was infact an art project carried out in the physics/chemistry labs.

[Bob Eager]

I learned at home, as I was just curious about the process and got a load of developing kit for my 14th birthday.

I did use it at school; we did a very interesting set of fill-in classes on town planning, and it was the cheapest way of doing a load of slides.

[whisky-dave]

B&W slide was as expensive as colour the only film I remmeber was agfa dia- direct and was 32 ASA or something similar and wasn't easy to get, well not from locak shops. I still have the jar of potassium permanganate I used, and I rember sodium metabisulphate or was that just 'fixer' . Who would believe one could have so much fun with chemicals :-D

The reversal process was risky the physica teacher told me that when he fir st did it, a drop of water splashed onto the photoflood he was using as the reversal lamp and it exploded and he was lucky to not be blinded by it, wh ich is why he made sure we had a safety screen in place, which I might not have though of doing if at home.

[Bob Eager]

I used ordinary B&W film. Develop once (with a small dose of sodium thiosulphate to limit the contrast). Then bleach with potassium dichromate. Sodium sulphite wash to remove dichromate staining. Wash and expose to bright light to convert the rest of the halide. Develop again. Stop and fix as normal.

Some films were better than others, and I mostly used Ilford FP3 (100ASA AFAIR).

So it was only the extra cost of the permanganate, as I remember. Much cheaper than colour slides.

[Bob Eager]

I meant dichromate, of course.