what waS your last photography related purchase?

[eli griggs]

I used to do this because my tap water was leaving residue on my negatives...

Distilled water is cheap enough to be used in Ilford Method Washing, but if you use tap or well water, at least do your final wash with distilled.

That is the common advice I've seen most of the time bfor many years.

 

[Philippe-Georges]

A set of 3 30x40 cm developing dishes.
The hole and the cracks in the old ones couldn't be repaired anymore nor the stains could be removed, after more than 35 years of intensive use...
So I ordered a new set but this time made of very thick, solid and heavy plastic.

 

[JerseyDoug]

Why do you wash with distilled water?

I find that my 35mm negatives are much cleaner than those I developed before switching to this regimen, and they have absolutely no water spots.

It also saves a huge amount of water. From the time I take my film developing kit out of the old Kodak Duraflex tray where it lives until I put it back again to air dry I use a total of 1.25 liters of distilled water and never turn on the tap water.

I do use an additional 0.8 liters of distilled water when I mix a new 1 liter bottle of working strength fixer, which lasts me almost six months. (I average about one 12-exposure roll of 35mm film per week.)

 

[BMbikerider]

I have just bought a really, really nice Tamron Adaptall 2 35/135 lens to fit on my recently acquired very late model (October 1979) Nikon F2a. I have had one film through the camera so far and honestly it is as sharp as anything I have ever used from that era. All shots were taken with the camera on a Manfrotto 55B tripod which surely proved the point to me I took good advice. It included an AIS Adaptall mount and a genuine lens cap plus an original lens hood. They make a very good matched set when out walking.

 

[bjorke]

Bought a Lumix S5ii, in anticipation of Leica SL-3 if it has PDAF -- but I expect that to be unreleased until next April when they have 70-jahre marketing for the M series

 

[Roger Thoms]

Just bought a Berlebach mounting plate for my wife’s Zero Image 69. Yep, she’s my partner in crime.

Edit: Just ordered a used Nikon AR-3 cable release for the above camera.

Roger

 

[MTGseattle]

I scooped up some expired 8x10 film. My 1 mistake is probably in buying the box of Ilford XP-1. I don't even understand the whole c41 monochrome angle? what was the marketing schpeel with that idea?

 

[MattKing]

XP-1 is pretty old - my limited experience is with the current XP-2.
C-41 monochrome means that it can be developed in many more places, and very quickly. 8x10 means it would have been aimed at people who had access to the commercial processors who served the professional world - high quality and consistency , fast turn-around.
Unlike classic black and white emulsions, increased exposure means decreased grain.
And in these modern times, the negatives scan very well, and Digital ICE works with them.
IIRC, @Ian Grant had a fair amount of experience with XP-1, and can describe in detail the improvements in XP-2.

 

[jay moussy]

Overwhelming bucketful of photo stuff today!
Two Minolta SRT101, 50 and 200 mm lenses
An Xtsi and its AF lenses
A dozen expired Fuji and Kodak 135 rolls, Superia, Super HQ, T64 Tungsten, Gold
Two Weston meters, a Sekonic L-188
An Ensign Cupid, circa 1922, it seems- takes 120, makes half frames, guillotine shutter (hmm?)
A pristine Kodak Bantam in its factory case
A Falcon Miniature
A Kodak bullet, minor crack on bakelite back
I also will not need cable releases in this lifetime!

Well, the local estate sale online sales photos only showed the jumble at the top of the bucket, not its depth.. so nobody bid much.

I got a lot of work to do!

 

[Petrochemist]

Overwhelming bucketful of photo stuff today!

I got carried away as well, at the first boot sale I picked up:
A pile of 16 camera magazines
A wray 3.25"/4.5 enlarger lens (m39 mount)
A 400mm/6.3 telephoto in T2 mount
A Petri 2x Teleconverter
a Cullmann Table/shoulder pod
& a 13-25mm/1.3 zoom projector lens

For the vast sum of £1 each.

The second boot sale was much less successful I only got another high power LED torch to use when painting with light.

 

[Philippe-Georges]

Yesterday on a garage sale: a perfectly working Germany made electromagnetic stirrer and a Schott Glass Duran 1 800 ml beaker for € 10.-, I really couldn't resist

 

[Donald Qualls]

the improvements in XP-2.

Sadly, these don't include cutting in sheet film sizes. I guess that made more sense to the Ilford of the 1980s...

 

[Philippe-Georges]

I bought a set of new colour printing filters for my Chromega D4 enlarger at a US eBuy seller.
Last Sunday I managed to mount them in the colour head's wheels that hold these filters, a rather nasty job, but I succeeded, yesterday a did some B&W printing and it went well.
Now I can use the Chromega for printing B&W negs that don't go well on the D3 Variable Condenser...

 

[eli griggs]

Coffee, in Nashville, Il. so I can stay awake for any photographic opportunity from the 74mph SUV im riding in, Carolina bound!

 

[gordonrgw]

Shutter release for my Rolleicord Vb, I have been looking for one for a while and found one online at a shop not too far away. Big surprise when it arrived ias it was still in it's original factory packaging!

 

[Sirius Glass]

Shutter release for my Rolleicord Vb, I have been looking for one for a while and found one online at a shop not too far away. Big surprise when it arrived ias it was still in it's original factory packaging!

Life can be hard sometimes when it deals you a blow like that. Enjoy it and shoot more film.

 

[TheFlyingCamera]

a bipost-to-PC sync cord. In this case, a two-piece bipost-to-household-to-PC sync cord. And I found it in the store I would have thought least likely to have such a beast- it was in the newest location of a local camera store. The oldest camera store in the area (been in their shop since at least the 60s, if not before) not only didn't have one, but the sales clerk who is older than me by at least a decade if not more had never heard of a bipost flash sync.

 

[Andrew O'Neill]

Adox 66

 

[Sirius Glass]

Dumpster Bound. Nikon Lot: N60, F70, 2x Quantaray Aspherical 28-80mm , Tamron 28-200mm 3.5-5.6 Aspherical​

Awaiting shipping

 

[Thesecondone]

Nikon coolscan iv ed

 

[BMbikerider]

A set of 3 30x40 cm developing dishes.
The hole and the cracks in the old ones couldn't be repaired anymore nor the stains could be removed, after more than 35 years of intensive use...
So I ordered a new set but this time made of very thick, solid and heavy plastic.

If your new ones get very stained, pour in about half a cup full of household bleach and leave for 24 hours. They will come out spotless.

 

[gordonrgw]

Life can be hard sometimes when it deals you a blow like that. Enjoy it and shoot more film.

the contortions I had trying to winkle it out of it's packaging with a pair of long tweezers was a bit 'Krypton Factor'. On second thoughts probably more 'Taskmaster' ..

 

[mshchem]

Ancient Kodak Blue toner

 

[Philippe-Georges]

A pod of 1 kg of Sodium Thiosulfate for making Farmer.
1 kg was the smallest packing Billini had...

 

[Donald Qualls]

1 kg of Sodium Thiosulfate

When I buy this, I usually get a bigger bucket than that, but I get it at a pool and spa supplier, sold for reducing chlorine in the water.