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It could be the cable release itself getting stuck due to a kink or tight lock. Have you tried it with a different cable release, or not at all?

I drove thru Danville a couple days ago, getting a decent hike halfway up Mt Diablo with the Sinar Norma before the weather turns too hot; the week before too, to photograph the "Chinese Wall" using...

There are also certain East Bay locations which deal with them, where film can be dropped and handled for a nominal surcharge. For me, that convenience is worth it. Even though the difference in...

Well, I had a Sinar in the pack the first overnight crosscountry ski trip I ever took - as a lousy beginner skier! Good thing snow makes for soft landings! It didn't take me long to learn that...

I could have bought a lovely Dorff 4x5/5x7 Special reasonably many years ago, but was glad I invested in the Sinar system instead, for around the same price - way more versatile.

The Bay Area is back in the game. Underdog Film Lab in Oakland now offers both C41 and E6 processing up to 8x10. Best prices I've seen anywhere. Basically, the same folks that have shifted from one...

You really do gotta get in your dream trip through our Great Basin area, Michael, if only to actually taste the water at Stovepipe Wells. You can't drink water just anywhere around salt flats,...

Best flavor of ice cream? Hard to tell unless you taste them all. And tastes differ.

Well, I certainly wouldn't use the water at Stovepipe Wells in Death Valley!

You can generally wash film in well water if there's an appropriate line filter in place (preferably gently running water that gets continuously exchanged for ten minutes or so), and if you give a...

By far the best microfiber cloths I've found are little dimpled ones made by 3M. I'll never ever go back to any kind of lens tissue. At some point, I'll test out the best manner to truly clean and...

Ordinary lens hoods are nearly worthless if you're using a wide-angle lens aimed toward the sun or other bright illumination. You want a fully adjustable shade which you can check the position of on...

If I need fluid, ROR on a clean 3M microfiber cloth is my choice. If just blowing dust off, my compressed air lines are triple-filtered down to extremely small particulate sizes. And I only use...

Ditto. Drums make sense for color chemistry and RC papers, not for FB black and white work, if that's what you have in mind. Lots of brands are acceptable - for tiny 8x10's my favorite are the...

The biggest money commercial studio photographer I'm aware of in this whole area still uses Sinar view cameras just like he has the last half century. Some differences of course, mostly 4x5 rather...

Pizza rack bicycle, Tuco? That's one mean praying mantis giant insect instead! Surreal. Belongs in a Japanese B horror movie versus Godzilla.

Either velcro tabs or a couple or ordinary clothespins help tame a darkcloth in the wind. There are times the darkcloth operating as a cover actually reduces the impact of wind vibrations on the...

I've never done that kind of thing, but have often had people of all ages ask permission to look under the darkcloth. I accommodate them. Around here they tend to be very polite as stay at a...

I think the option for faux mildew dots is already a standard cell phone camera app. You can tell that the above photo is not a real antique because the lady is rolling her eyes ..."Ya gotta be...

Enlarging lens falloff equates to lighter corners, which nobody likes, unless you're talking about direct-positive paper like Cibachrome. But yes, there is that antique trick of using the same...

Well, I can literally stand on top the vacuum easel of my biggest enlarger without deflecting the plane. It's that well built. But most people don't use machined steel easels weighing several hundred...

Well, Yosemite is a pretty big place overall. You probably wouldn't be welcome driving the spike feet of a Ries tripod into the floor of the Ahwahnee Hotel, or brushing into someone climbing the...

It's there, Luis. The practical effect diminshes at smaller f/stops. People who shoot wide-angle lenses a lot might not notice the falloff in the print because the falloff of their taking lens itself...

Yep. Don't even go there if you haven't practiced tilts first. Don't even come here if you haven't. We have plenty of flat farmland of our own, between the mountain ranges; and much of it is very...

It's always been the same thread. If you don't think so, just get any old Sinar handbook and see how they describe the original topic - one of the best learner resources you can have, whether or not...

Latest news - Yosemite is going back to a mandatory reservation system for anyone wanting to enter to prevent covid-related overcrowding risk. It might start May 1st, but check their website for...

The nice thing about the Sinar monorail system is that you've got all the options; and the same gear works well for architectural use, studio usage, and typical landscape applications. And it's...

Expect quite a bit of falloff, so you're either going to have to grind a diffuser thicker at the center than the edges, or burn in the corners proportionately during exposure. It also seems that...

In the high country I have accidentally stumbled onto a few of AA's exact tripod positions, simply because it involved a wet meadow with a single conspicuous big flat rock as the only logical tripod...

Beautiful day yesterday, and I was out on a long open ridge with the Norma, carrying both b&w and color film, relatively simple near-to-far subject matter. Pretty much just front tilt control, no...

Sinar P and F cameras, and later certain other brands of monorails, had certain built-in methods of approximating depth of field in relation to tilts and swings, along with asymmetrical controls. I...

Unless you are using a precision vacuum or adhesive filmholder, f/22 might not compensate for even potential film sag, at least with 5x7 and larger formats. It's less of a factor with smaller 4x5...

I've stumbled onto almost new "mint" Pentax meters for that kind of price. George charged $75- $100 for internal cleaning and recalibration. Not bad, since a couple of them accidentally got dunked in...

I grew up right across the San Joaquin River just to the south of Yosemite. We called it "the city". I can't recall taking more than six pictures in Yosemite Valley itself in my entire life; but at...

Don't neglect what lies outside the Park down in the foothills Mother Lode gold country. To me, it's even more photogenic than Yosemite Valley itself. With luck, some of the Spring bloom might be...

I've always thought of the Canham 5X7 as the sweet point in his wooden camera lineup. But if price were no object, and I could juggle yet another format, I would bag an Ebony. More realistically, I...

Those are old Wratten gelatin filter numbers, and the selection of panchromatic films has itself changed. Sometimes in AA books you find the even older "K" classification of Wratten filters. I...

Without an accessory tempering valve, on-demand water would potentially be way off. These kinds of tempering valves were once routine for darkroom sinks. They are still readily available either new...

Just fine until you find little loose specks of it require you to spot your prints down the line. I rather use black primer, which sticks better, then a harder clear finish over that. The flatter the...

Mine too. My sarcastic comment about Kansas was based on a spoof topographic map I gave to a co-worker from Nebraska, next to Kansas. I would particularly like to visit the Sand Hills region, which...