Hello,
I am not sure anyone is still communicating out there with this group. I have a Pentax system from 28-300 with Spotmatics, ESs, and other bodies that I may use to teach fundamentals of photography to my daughter. I use Nikon DX and FX digital for 35 mm and film for 6x6 cm to 4"x5" with various SLRs and RFs.

I will not setup for printing in a darkroom as I did 35 yrs ago, but will have film scanned (develop my own film in darkroom) and use the technical stuff available to print. A 35 mm slide or negative requires a special film scanner. I am thinklng about using one for B&W film from the Pentax system and also for the 1,000 of old chromes I have. No Kodachrome is a disappointment, but I have not tried Fuji Velvia 50 yet, so it may be as good or better. Has anyone used a 35 mm film scanner for there negs and chromes?

Thanks.
Joe

I use a Minolta Dimage scan III which scans at 2800 ppi and am very please with it. I would say it really does resolve that much ppi, whereas the flatbed scanner I have for larger formats only really resolved around 1200 of the announced 4800 ppi. All in all a scan yields a 12 megapixel file, which I find is good enough.

The only problem I have is that with ISO 400 films I get very "noisy" images because of the grain, and removing this noise kills a lot of details, so I am yet to find the right combination of film and developer to get good ISO 400+ scans. Similarly in color 400 slides do not scan as well as provia 100F, not sure why. There seems to be a nice match between scanner resolution and grain size at ISO 100, whether color or b&w.

Good morning;

Yes, there are still people out here who are doing things with this group. I offer the following:

Just yesterday there was delivered to me an ASAHI OPT. CO. JAPAN Super-Multi-Coated TAKUMAR 1:4.5/500 long telephoto lens. This lens has a good reputation, and it will be used as a standard against which I can compare all of the 500mm f/8 mirror lenses that are around here. No, I cannot really give you a truly good logical, rational reason why I have all of those 500/8 mirror lenses, except to say that I like them, and so did Herbert Keppler. Now I need to see just how well they really perform.

The rest of the Asahi Pentax Spotmatic cameras are still here, although they have not seen that much use in recent times, nor have the Vivitar, KMZ Zenit, and other M42 mount cameras, nor most of the other 35mm cameras around here. For some reason, the medium format cameras using 120 roll film have been taking up most of my time with film in the last year or so. The 35mm cameras should not complain too much; the 4 by 5 cameras have seen even less use.

Then there have been the other things in life that are not predictable. There have been a couple of surprises in the last year.

Enjoy;

Ralph
Latte Land, Washington