Recent content by IOWA CAMERA GUY

It's hard to tell exactly from the photo, but those look like water droplets which condensed in the lens as it was moved from cold to warm(er) higher more moist conditions. The moisture can either condense as an overall fog or sometimes (rare) droplets. Once or twice of the move from cold to...

You may have one of 2 problems going on here: The focusing mechanism may be out of adjustment - that's possible, but unlikely. The camera's focus is adjusted at the factory, and unless the camera was dropped and things got 'out of alignment', they are probably OK. By out of adjustment, I mean...

"On the long edges of each frame is a subtle area of increased density which runs the length of the frame. " It's very hard to say definitively. There can be some excess density added around the sprocket holes with over-agitation. The developer slows in handout through the sprocket holes...

I worked at a camera store in 1968 between college grad and Army. Came back after Army 1971 and worked in another store on and off until 2018. Managed and/or owned 1971 - 2018. Photo was fun, we did everything in processing except Kodachrome and movie film. Started out in Physics and...

The Bogen/Manfrotto 3047 is a good choice, classic large format head. In short, big, heavy, solid..... I used to do astronomy, had a small refractor telescope. To add stability, I used a sledge hammer head, hung from the bottom of the tripod spider, to add mass and lower the center of...

WALMART DROPPING COLOR FILMS AND STOCKING ONLY SINGLE USE CAMERAS: This probably isn't news to anyone here, but when you evaluate sales per sq. ft., and how much room a full display of 'film' takes up, due to the variety for limited sales of each type, it is a loser in terms of gross...

"I know both options are not the best for large format”: OK, WHY, exactly, do you not think either of those two meters are not satisfactory? They both meter in different ways, but as to grabbing a light reading either one does the job. PICK ONE METER, and learn to use it properly and...

What I cannot figure out is why the wanton destruction? We had a break-in at my store (University Camera, Iowa City, Iowa, now closed), many years ago. They came in, took some stuff rom our back stock and a couple of items from the front counters (we never kept huge amounts of stock on hand)...

I would agree, they seem to maybe have mixed up exposure density with contrast but who knows? Good to see people back at it with film again, they seem to be having some fun going through the process of getting it right.

I have just stuck with D-76 1:1, 68F and the 8 to 8-1/2 minute times as I noted, for my own work, mostly because D-76 was available EVERYWHERE and a good, solid developer. Control of temperature throughout the developing process is paramount, thermal shock can up the appearance of grain...

I don’t know if you got the correct information on what is causing your contrast issue. There are 3 parts to developing b/w film - assuming you have properly mixed the chemistry (duh!): Time, temperature and agitation. Generally speaking time and temperature control the DENSITY of the...

The recessed counter-bore allows you to focus some lenses with a shorter back focus for larger size images. The larger the image, the closer the lens has to be to the negative (DUH!) The counter bore only puts the lens a small amount closer to the negative plane, but in some cases it does not...

You could probably pick up a 40mm EL-Nikkor or something similar for pretty cheap. That would give you about a 20% maximum image size with the same head height. Wall-projection printing ‘on a whim’ is more trouble than it is worth. Just buy a shorter focal-length lens and be done with it...

You could probably pick up a 40mm EL-Nikkor or something similar for pretty cheap. That would give you about a 20% maximum image size with the same head height. Wall-projection printing ‘on a whim’ is more trouble than it is worth. Just buy a shorter focal-length lens and be done with it.