Randy isn't kidding...OC filters for Kodak "beehive" safelights are now $92 from B & H or Adorama. I can remember when they were like $6.
Randy isn't kidding...OC filters for Kodak "beehive" safelights are now $92 from B & H or Adorama. I can remember when they were like $6.
One can't plan their life on what-if's, merely upon common sense probability. You could be twenty years old and mangled in a traffic accident. Old age attrition is
inevitable, and will undoubtedly slow me down, but so what... gotta keep moving. I don't backpack as fast and far as I used to, but still get over high passes and way off trail with LF gear. Enjoy it while I can. My dad had the same miserable fingers as me but made the mistake of ornamental rock work as his retirement hobby. That sure ruined his finger; but otherwise he was pretty active and independent until his mid-90's, when things fell apart quickly. I don't do just keyboard,
but a lot of heavy lifting too, which I choose to do, but which has to end. Enough is enough. One more year to go. Meantime, I want to darkroom set up in its final
state.
I shutter to think
Tin Can
Gosh, beehive dkrm lights are what you fish out of the scrap metal box at the salvage yard. There's no incentive for dealers to carry these things because there is still so much used stuff around! Some of the old gear was built to last. Most new stuff isn't. That's true of all kinds of machinery, and even of the kinds of lenses and cameras we use. Another thing which is killing off darkroom is the sheer price of buying property. The middle class is getting squeezed. You can say digital is the culprit, but that's really a secondary issue. The population is bigger than ever too, and people want art/craft options. But that kind of thing can be discussed over on APUG. If I want twenty LF enlargers, I can have them. I don't. I only want two. And every enlarger and camera and lens I've got will outlast me. What then? Maybe try to sell my whole property to a photographer, dream darkroom and all? In an area like this, it's not all that unrealistic. Or maybe my wife will just purchase adjacent burial plots : one for me, the other for an accursed enlarger.
I want 25 nice Beehives with the wall holder. But don't need the filter...
Tin Can
Yikes! I've got one of those.Originally Posted by MrFujicaman
"I would feel more optimistic about a bright future for man if he spent less time proving that he can outwit Nature and more time tasting her sweetness and respecting her seniority"---EB White
Given the potential size of the China market, it may be premature to completely write off new lens, shutter, camera, film, darkroom, paper etc. production. My guess is those industries won't restart in the U.S., but in China? Who knows... It may be easy to dismiss them as a stumbling marketplace, but if an upstart nation like the U.S. can build the photographic industry in 100 years, why not China? They are an ancient society with a long, long history of culture, trade, and art.
Now I don't feel so bad owning two complete D2's and two Zone VI type 2 5x7 enlargers.
--- Steve from Missouri ---
WOW Good for you! My own Mom is still with us, at 95, but she's not kicking.Mom is still kicking at 94. I may go today...or not.
I'm only 64, though, so I'm not sure if she'll stick around till I get old.
It's like a tide, things come and go feast or famine style. For example, I kept looking at the 35mm mixing chamber for my LPL 4550 at B&H for awhile and wondered if I should bite at $250 because I had seen a couple on eBay go for less than half that, it adds 2.5 stops of light. Then I see nothing for a few months on the bay and put in an order at B&H. 4 months later, I get an email saying they are no longer made, B&H pulls the listing off their site.
That was years ago....I have not seen one since, as in gone, poof! I ended up buying a 6x7 mixing box and slapping one together with a condenser lens from a slide projector, not perfect but I gained 1.5 stops. So I have spares of damn near everything, don't trust it will be around tomorrow, have a lifetime supply of enlarger bulbs for the LPL and color head for the 45MX.
On my bucket list are a couple more 20x24 trays and a set of 30x40 trays.
My grandmother taught public school till she was 80, then signed on to teach difficult special ed kids for another five years. My aunt taught art history and technique in major universities until she was 92. An uncle retired as a Peace Corps engineer at 90 then went to work for the CIA. My brother in law just turned 70 and signed a new contract to keep teaching full time at the Naval Postgraduate School. My dad read two books a day in his 90's, alway a whodunnit and nonfiction, generally US history. We dragged him off the ranch at 92. He was still driving faster than a teenager until he broke a hip (trying to lift roll roofing standing on the
tractor seat!). Stubborness is a virtue.
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