"Vert and Toky"
Vert and Toky are my faithful teleconverters that have taken on a life of
their own. Unfortunately, for Acer, I have since lost the origional
postings on the saga of Vert and Toky. Maybe somebody on the list still
has them and will repost them or something. They were from early and
mid-1998. Vert is serving faithfully as an auto-extension tube and Toky
was spared the knife. There WILL be another episode emerging soon.
"On Leicas and other fancy jewelry"
To add to Doris' lines: Vinyl is just as good as leather in car interiors.
Seriously folks, this is a pretty lame argument all the way around.
Aren't we kinda oddballs just because of our strict adherence to the
'OM-Way'? Liecas are quality cameras and the price is representative of
that. I've been casually looking at vehicles lately as we are planning on
replacing the Suburban with something newer, more reliable and comfy. Has
anybody looked at the price of a Toyata LandCruiser lately? Is a Toyota
worth THAT MUCH more than a Chevy Tahoe? Well, what is build quality,
safety and reliability worth? The fact that a LandCruiser is a "status
symbol" is terciary in our vehicle search. I want my wife to be
comfortable driving a larger vehicle and I want our children to be as safe
as possible. And I want a vehicle that WILL start and go anywhere when
needed. Same thing with cameras: A Leica is an extremely well built and
engineered camera. If you absolutely MUST get the shot, and it absolutely
must be a "no-excuses" camera there are only a few choices in the world and
Leica comes out at or near the very top. The reality is that a new Leica
outfit isn't out of line when compared to a Nikon F5 outfit or Canon EOS-1N
outfit -- or how about medium format equipment? These are tools, and you
spend as much on a laptop computer that will last 2 years if you are lucky.
"On Canon cameras..."
Sorry to kick a dead gift horse in the mouth when it's down, but I must
relate some recent "discoveries". Yes, I still suffer aggrivation of the
Carpel-Tunnel when using the Canon A2, but using a stroboframe helps a
whole bunch. The viewfinder in the Canon is much better than my OM-2S when
aimed at bright lights as the OM's submirror and viewfinder optics have a
tendency to flare more. That said, I am having difficulties with the small
'image size' of the Canon. The image is so much more distant than the OM,
I am having trouble seeing people's faces to know when I can shoot. I have
developed a "two-eye" approach to taking wedding formals where I look
through the viewfinder with one eye and keep my other eye open for watching
for blinks during the exposure. I can't do that with the Canon as the
viewfinder size doesn't come anywhere near my normal vision. I finally got
around to messing with the custom functions on the A2 and I hope this next
wedding goes a bit better. I changed the rewind to fast (I missed an
important shot at the last wedding thanks to syrup slow rewind) and
disabled the focus-assist light. That bright red light is extremely
distracting to people and really unnecessary for most wedding work.
Besides, I don't always like to let people know I'm taking their picture.
"Contax 645"
Still drooling. This is a camera I truly feel at home with. For me, it is
THE logical progression from an OM system. Of course, I'll still have to
keep an Olympus around as a "backup". An interesting side note: I recieved
a survey from Contax asking about digital stuff and they listed occupations
that you could fill in. Not one option was "photographer" but Physican,
Upper Management, Lawyer, etc., was well represented in the choices.
Wonder where their primary customerbase is?
"Minolta IV-F vs. Polaris Flash Meter"
In the wedding equipment I use, there is a IV-F that I spent some time
doing serious comparisons with my Polaris. I did some controlled testing
with each along with my old Luna-Pro and the OM-2S. The Polaris is as much
(but no more) than 1/3 stop low when the sole light source (bare bulb) is
greater than 110 degrees off axis of the dome. Otherwise, it is always
within 1/10 of the Minolta, but strangly enough closer to the Luna-Pro in
every ambient light measurement. The Minolta has the analog scale
reprentation which is very nice, and averaging along with a slew of other
features, but for the price, the Polaris is a fine Digital Flash Meter and
every bit as accurate as the Minolta. Nice thing about the Polaris is that
the dome slides over and it becomes a reflected light meter (highly
accurate in my tests), whereas the Minolta requires another attachment to
be a reflected light meter. (DO NOT USE the Minolta as a reflected light
meter without the attachments as the reading is WAY off).
"List humor"
Or is that "humour?" I appreciated Giles' "Wood-Worm Highrise" post. I
thought for sure that the list was in good hands. But NOoooooo! Do I have
to come back around from time to time to beat some life back into you all?
Is that the role that I must play? Must I be the "enforcer" of
light-heartedness? Good grief, I can't leave you alone for a month without
things turning sour. We can't take ourselves too seriously--after all we
are in love with a camera system that has pretty much been abandoned by the
manafacturer and marketplace. We are dinasours hanging on desparately
trying to survive the global climate change caused by the Canon Asteroid.
Yes, we are all destined to extinction and there isn't anything we can do
about it except trot on down to the local tar pit and fall in. What is
that you say? We are not totally dead yet? That is true, but our fates
have been decided and we are just waiting to be obliverated when Mount
Olympus blows. We are carrion in this photographic world.
There! I hope you all feel better now.
Ken Norton
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