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I guess this means I’m going to get a submitted link…

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If you have photoshop, you can automate this sort of thing, to an extent: First record the steps for the watermark as an action, then you can use File > Automate > Batch to run the action on, say, a folder with all the files you want to watermark in it.

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let me say it once more. shot some chrome once you have a feel for the camera. it’s a hoot.

Yup 😀

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Can’t remember what setting you’d use that would be the same as the meter on the Yashica (probably center weighted–anyone else know?)

The meter on the Yashica is external to the lens, so it’s probably more of an overall average of the metering area (not sure if the metering area is equal to the film area or not, the one on the 124G seems to be a good deal smaller). It’s probably not going to match exactly any of the metering modes on an SLR, but if you get fairly close to a uniform subject (an evenly lit wall or something) the difference in metering systems shouldn’t be significant.

You can also use the “Sunny 16” rule – a middle toned subject in direct sunlight should give a shutter speed about equal to the film’s ISO at f/16 (i.e 1/125 for 100 speed film, or 1/500 for 400 speed)

It doesn’t look like the LM takes 220 – there’s a scan of the instruction manual here: http://www.kyphoto.com/classics/instructionmanuals.html
(the manual itself is password protected, but the password is listed on the page there)

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For a medium format camera, anyway, TLRs are fairly small, light, and unobtrusive. They’re excellent if you’re going to be wandering around somewhere all day, and don’t want to carry a bunch of extra lenses and stuff – put it around your neck, stuff some film in your pockets and you’re good to go.

They’re less good, in general, for close ups (for one thing, the parallax between the viewing and taking lens starts to become an issue) – it’s not impossible, but an SLR is way more convenient.

The light meter in my yashica (124 G) is very erratic. I would check it against something reliable and make sure you can trust it (or not). I usually take a little handheld meter with me instead.

If your camera can take it (my Yashica can, but my Minolta Autocord can’t) I like using 220 instead of 120 as you get 24 exposures.

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“Match color” in Photoshop is not the same thing as “selective color”, which is the tool that allows you to globally modify specific colors in an image (or rather, one of them, Photoshop has several ways of doing just about anything). What “Match color” does is to take the color information from one image, and uses it to modify the colors in a second image to match.

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Phew, it seem’s to be loading better now: Runtime: 0.27 sec

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renko – where do you get your film hardware? i’d like to get a medium format setup but don’t have big bucks. any ideas?

I’ve put together a pretty nice kit around a Bronica SQ-Ai mostly getting things from ebay, plus a couple bits and pieces from http://www.KEH.com. The camera + metering prism + 80mm normal lens was less than $400…

http://flickr.com/photos/awrose/tags/bronica/

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You aren’t really pushing film with diafine the way you can with a normal developer. Diafine may give you a different speed than the rated ISO, but that’s pretty much the speed you get – time and temperature don’t have much effect on development*.

That said, you can get pretty decent results even with significant overexposure, especially with films like HP5 that have pretty wide exposure latitude anyway. I expect shooting HP5 at 400 wouldn’t pose a major problem, although you may lose a little detail in the highlights compared to shooting it at 800 (recommended speed).

(* I have seen some examples of pulled film, where the film was removed early from bath b, but I’ve never tried it. I believe you’d have to be much more precise about the time and temperature that the normal diafine process, and at that point you might as well get some d76 or some other standard developer…)

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I know A and I will do cross processing (http://www.aandi.com), but I haven’t ever used them for it, and they aren’t exactly cheap. If you’re trying to get black and white transparencies, you might also want to take a look at DR5 (http://dr5.com/main.html) – they have a process that makes positives from several kinds of standard black and white film. Again, though, I haven’t used them.

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Extension tubes have a fairly extreme effect on wide angle lenses, I wouldn’t get one for a super wide angle unless you want to focus *really* close to the front element of the lens. My shortest tube is 12mm, and on a 24mm lens it focuses about an inch from the front element at infinity. On a 16mm lens it would be even closer (magnification for a tube of a given length increases as the focal length decreases), and you might not be able to focus it at all – the focus point could conceivably be inside the lens.

You might be able to get an older and cheaper all manual tube that fits the lens mount if it’s a t mount or M42 thread, though. Given that it’s an all manual lens you don’t need an AF screw or electronic contacts.

If you just want to get a bit closer, a Close up lens is probably a better option. They are the opposite of tubes in that they decrease in magnification as focal length decreases, so to get super close with a wide angle lens you need a fairly high diopter power – that will tend to degrade image quality more than a moderate diopter, especially at the edges and/or when the lens is wide open.

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I know the MD/MC mount is a bayonet (Pentax K is too). I was saying they can both use M42 Screwmount lenses *with an adapter*.

Edit: Oh, and on the topic of adapters, if you want to use MD/MC lenses on a digital body, there is an adapter for the olympus/panasonic/leica 4/3rds mount, but it’s pretty pricy (like $200)

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There are a ton of screwmount cameras out there, and the lens mount itself is cross-compatible between brands, but there are compatibility issues with open aperture metering – the meter systems varied by brand, and you generally have to stop down to meter if you’re using a different brand lens and body. Older gear didn’t have open aperture metering at all, though, so it might not be a concern. And, if you’re open to stopped down metering you can also get screwmount lens adapters for some other bodies (pentax K, minolta MD, etc)

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Another reason to keep shooting film

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Yes, it seems to be working.

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