My new Pentax MX, and first test roll.

Hatchetman said:

Oh my mistake! I thought the Canon was a flatbed. Sorry. They looked really good, no wonder!

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Here's an example of the first one scanned on the school's flatbed, though you probably won't be able to tell any huge difference when it's resized for the web.

I have a Pentax Super-A as they are called in the UK, and an ME Super. Learned on my Dad's old K1000. Love them both. I have tried an MX and loved it apart from the shutter lock on the wind on lever. I just couldn't get on with it, is there any way aroind this? I'd like a fully mechanical Pentax so I'm considering an LX, but prefer the size and shape of the M cameras.

flavio81 said:

Typical problem on many lenses. Just a bit of dirt / lack of cleaniness on the internal cam that sets the aperture diameter will make f22 appear the same as f16. Even f16 equal to f11 in some cases.

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Well I got my f/22 back on the Pentax-M 50mm, used an air bulb between the cam gap and what not... but then I kicked up some dust in the lens now lol.

So it's not "cosmetically" perfect anymore even though I know a little dust usually doesn't hurt anything. Didn't want to go much further than removing the rear element and the aperture ring. So I just did a cleaning of the rear and back of the mid element. Blew out what I could between gaps. Put a tiny bit of new lithium grease around where the click-stop ball is and re-assembled the back and checked it in the camera via the DOF preview button to see an obvious change from 16 to 22.

I would have liked to make it click-less so I can use it on my old GH1 for video with a smooth change in aperture, but if I do that then the aperture on the film body will never of course stay at one of the higher or lower aperture cuz it'll just spring back towards the middle, so I left the click in it. Though one of the adapters I have, has a twist ring for wide-open to stop-down (to wherever the aperture is set) which can be gradually closed, I just won't know exactly which aperture I'm selecting as I twist the ring (technically doesn't matter since you're watching the monitor and histogram live anyways).

Edit got it cleaned up in the front area too, found a shot glass that was the same diameter as the front ring, and used double sided tape to unscrew it off, thus allowing me to get the front element off and clean up the dust around the aperture area. So that's all good now along with f/22 being back (and the higher apertures are probably more 'correct' now if the cam was restricting their movement).

jeztastic said:

I have a Pentax Super-A as they are called in the UK, and an ME Super. Learned on my Dad's old K1000. Love them both. I have tried an MX and loved it apart from the shutter lock on the wind on lever. I just couldn't get on with it, is there any way around this? I'd like a fully mechanical Pentax so I'm considering an LX, but prefer the size and shape of the M cameras.

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What don't you like about the shutter lock knob? I'm *kind* of used to it already, outside of the fact it's really firm when trying to change it (probably a good thing if you don't want accidental shots). But at the same time technically "film is cheap", and would be better to get a shot than to miss a moment trying to unlock it.

I think the shutter lock is more useful for keeping the battery from running down in a bag or something because the meter gets activated if the shutter button is partially depressed (the lock prevents that as well), but course it's just as easy to knock the winder out a little also turning on the meter.

Actually come to think of it, if that shutter lock knob wasn't right there, it would be easier to change the shutter speed without having to pull out the winder a little just to get two fingers on.

Some scans :





For this third one, in photoshop, if you were to add a hue/sat or flat color blended layer, and double click the layer under "Blend if...", you can drag the black slider down to around 124, then hold alt and drag the left half of it back down towards 10. What will happen is that color will only show when the image's luminosity is above that range (in this case the highlights which in reality are bright red lights), the alt+click makes the transition smoother rather than just clipping right off when it hits a certain threshold, then you do another, but for the white pointer, kind of one non-destructive way to do split toning digitally.

Kb244, I don't like it because nomally when I shoot my thumb rests on the end of the winder. I feel like I have no purchase on the camera when my thumb is tucked behind it.

Hey Karl, no pens ???

No, not on the film shots no... But here's a shot of the camera itself.

One odd curiosity. When I try to align/level the viewfinder to the scene so that it's perfectly straight like looking down a hallway. The image on the negative always looks like I tilted a little to the right by about 10%. Is the edge distortion in the viewfinder a possible cause for it to throw me off like that?

Those images look rather aggressively oversharpened - the grain/ scanner noise is hyper defined in a way that HP5 (whether darkroom printed or scanned appropriately) is not.

Should add that choice of developer has very little to do with this behaviour.

Lachlan Young said:

Those images look rather aggressively oversharpened - the grain/ scanner noise is hyper defined in a way that HP5 (whether darkroom printed or scanned appropriately) is not.

Should add that choice of developer has very little to do with this behaviour.

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Maybe you can elaborate with examples? Trust me that's the way the emulsion looks, using a dedicated film scanner with no unsharp mask going at 4000dpi.

kb244 said:

Maybe you can elaborate with examples? Trust me that's the way the emulsion looks, using a dedicated film scanner with no unsharp mask going at 4000dpi.

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Here you go - 100% crops of 135 on left at 6300ppi, 120 on right at 3200ppi, Hasselblad X5 with the USM turned off correctly. Scanned as 16bit TIFF, post process adjustment for black point only & saved as JPG, whites kept unclipped. That buckshot grain you display above is characteristic of an overly aggressive USM at the scanning stage. For what it's worth, ID-11 1+1, the 135 dev'd to a fairly stiff CI somewhere in the mid 0.6s, the 120 to mid-low 0.5s.

For whatever reason the upload has been somewhat altered by the site software - I can send you the actual file if you're interested.

I had Unsharp mask turned off as I mentioned before.

Also bare in mind it's a 1920x1280 resize, always a little bit of sharpening done in resampling down.

This is 100% at 4,000 dpi. (The Software being Vuescan as no modern software works with a scanner that old).

Likewise, here's Arista EDU Ultra 200 (aka Foma 200) in Microphen 1:3 at 100%.





Flatbed scanners on the other hand if that's what you're using is going to be quite a bit softer straight off the bed compared to a dedicated scanner which can focus right on the grain of the emulsion rather than relying on a fixed distance.

The above in both HP5+ and AUE 200 is pretty much the kind of grain I see when I focus in the enlarger with a grain focuser (showing me the microscopic grain to focus on as opposed to trying to focus the image itself).

kb244 said:

Flatbed scanners on the other hand if that's what you're using is going to be quite a bit softer straight off the bed compared to a dedicated scanner which can focus right on the grain of the emulsion rather than relying on a fixed distance.

The above in both HP5+ and AUE 200 is pretty much the kind of grain I see when I focus in the enlarger with a grain focuser (showing me the microscopic grain to focus on as opposed to trying to focus the image itself).

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I don't think you know Dead Link Removed. Suffice to say that short of a well done drum scan, you will really struggle to find a better scanner. The image on the left represents a section of what would be a print 20x30 inches at 300ppi output or 60x90 inches at non-retina screen dimensions. The files are exceptionally sharp with realistic grain when appropriately printed.

Maybe under a condenser enlarger you might see 'crisper' grain, but the proof of the pudding is what it looks like when printed at 20x.

Frankly, I have better things to do than waste my time arguing about this.

Lachlan Young said:

I don't think you know Dead Link Removed.

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I know what it is!!!

It is the coveted object of my sexiest desires.

Lachlan Young said:

Frankly, I have better things to do than waste my time arguing about this.

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Point is, that's what's off my negatives. I don't know why my hp5+ don't look like your hp5+, I'm not oversharpening, though over scanning could soften it if it's beyond the resolution of the emulsion or lens...

Edit: These have been my VueScan filter settings since day one.