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If this is all just about background compression, you might end up owning a long heavy tele and seldom actually use it. Usually it's the other way around, involving the challenge of taming the...

Here you go again, Interneg, making a claim utterly contradictory to not only how film manufacturers made different films with distinctly different curve structures for a reason, but also...

TF-4 seems to be the Neanderthal species approaching extinction due to the presence of a more efficient species. Just like Neanderthals, it tended to settle down too much, and was resistant to...

Foma "200" is the only "straight line" film still on the market, although TMax films at least come close to that designation as well. So one can get distinctly better shadow gradation out of Foma 200...

Prior to the TMax revolution, it seems every Kodak b&w sheet film I tried had a decent retouching tooth. Just the newcomers like Tech Pan were slick. HP5 went through at least three reiterations,...

Largely agree, with one exception. D100 distinctly has more native toe than TMY or TMX, but less than TX. To match the practical linearity of TMX100 you need to boost the shadow exposure of Delta...

I have a 760 Apo Nikkor process barrel lens. It's big and bulky and ridiculously sharp, but would require a huge no.5 shutter; yet it's not as bulky as a tele covering 8x10 would be. Enormous image...

It is simply more expensive to make a precisely machined accessory with good optics and a replaceable front surface mirror. As the complexity of features goes up, like a tilting head and longer...

I was out washing the car and didn't even notice. Only a small bite out of the sun here on the West Coast this time around. The most I've ever personally seen was around 80% - critters and shadows...

How much bellows extension do you actually have with your 8x10? I sometimes use a Fuji 600C on my 8x10, which is a lot more compact than any tele. Long lens work is a lot easier with 4x5 format,...

Well, have a nice time, Jim. I'll be slightly lower down in the canyons and back roads of the hill country instead.

Zzzzzzz .... snore .... zzzz.

I might watch U Tube if you tell me how to link onto your Fishing tutorials. I think you need better bait.

Just as true today as back then. If I mixed up with and without solutions ten minutes from now and printed the same image using each respective developer, it would still be a valid statement. ...

Michael - Benz restrainer (vs KBr) DOES typically print shift image color cooler. This has been known for a very long time, and I've personally experimentally known about it for decades in relation...

Yes, and the expansion/contraction differential between moulded acrylic aspheric elements and real glass is probably the reason the functional size of such "hybrid" lenses is rather limited.

But...

Much of this " formula this versus formula that" debate ignores how the respective emulsion layers of a VC paper shift in relation to each other not only with respect to exposing light color, but...

All kinds of specifics which they once had on public file have now been mothballed by Schneider, but might be still accessible with some serious digging. Back during the incident itself, I actually...

Hi again, Mark. I'm obviously not an engineer myself. But as a materials provider, I interacted with the owner of Tinsley Labs several times a week, probably the most advanced maker of aspheric...

Of course it's not fair to compare the capabilities of a price-is-no-object custom contractor which has specialized in high-end aspherics for decades with consumer optics, even from Leica, which is...

The flawed cementing issue was said to be related only to the earlier serial numbers of the 80 XL and 110 XL, not the 210XL. Schneider replaced them for free only up to a certain cut-off date; so...

It has a bad reputation for long exposures for a reason. You'd actually have to do a lot of work to factor in how just a few common contrast filters affect that. I gave up on Foma 200 for quality...

The "real reciprocity" of Foma 200 is so abominable that you might want to avoid long exposures with it entirely. You'd have to make a tabulation for every different contrast filter you might use,...

Depends on what you're trying to do. You should call a bulb specialty supplier like Bulbs Direct. I certainly wouldn't use any substitute LED screw-in bulb if you have color printing in mind. You're...

Oh gosh - a place so popular you have to enter a lottery to get a pass? But why not a few more shots to add to the 10,000 already taken there. I've even seen digitized psychedelic color versions of...

No gimmick. Multi-coating is another design tool potentially allowing additional corrections; yes, at a little more price. Whether this makes any difference in the final print or not all depends....

I don't see it on their current listing. I tried BW-65 once long ago and it was a fine convenience product. According to them, it was a unique formula designed to reasonably mimic the image tone of...

What I found is that with Cooltone per se, and certain other papers, you actually get a more consistent cold tone by developing it in ordinary 130 first, then by gold toning it afterwards (similar to...

Serious water temp controllers are available from Scientific supply houses - too serious for typical darkroom budgets. Print washers aren't that fussy. I never did get around to hitching up a...

Interneg - you're mixing up marketing incentives and chemistry per se in your last glycin comments. The FACT is that the demand IS there, and specifically for sake of photo related purposes needing...

Depends on the storage conditions, whether hot and humid or cool and dry. I prefer sealed frozen storage. But even the TMax 400 might still be usable. The TMax 100 single sheet sleeves are probably...

I've been there three times when that Badwater lake was over 35 miles long and several feet deep. What is amazing is that it is so salty that there is no evident life in it like other temporary...

GGNRA extends well beyond the city of SF itself, and merges into both "Mt Tam" State Park and Pt Reyes National Seashore. 95% of that area is quite safe. Even most of the Pacific shoreline of SF...

What a cynic! I found amidol quite useful in a manner not duly served by typical MQ and PQ developers back when Bromide graded papers were still around. Not much anymore during the current reign of...

LOTS of people use glycin, Interneg. That is no coincidence. Fresh glycin is easy to get from Formulary. But any reserve of it should be kept frozen or it will shift. But going back a few decades...

A lot of the side roads are still closed, washed out. Hard to say what this next round of storms, hitting right around now, will do. But rain is not forecast to go as far east as Death Valley....

The key ingredient of 130 is glycin. And 130 is NOT as cold tone developer, although you can tweak it a little cooler by increasing the hydroquinone and substituting benzotrizole for the KBr...

The only paper I've ever gotten a blue-black out of, without blue toning per se, was Polygrade V combined with a special MQ developer I brewed up for that exact purpose. I wouldn't call the ole...

Sounds like an old style El Nikkor. Maybe you should check it for internal haze too. You'd see a similar subtle improvement between the old chrome Componons and the later Componon S. Coatings...

Classic ole Barge Cement was the predominant shoe repair shop glue for a long time; now there are various alternatives, including Pliobond. But many glues won't remain elastic. And the sad thing...