Moving right along…the gray and damp are persistent relieved somewhat by rolling cumulus clouds. This AM at around 6:00 the big diesels rolled up at the small house down the hill, and the occupants of six other cars emerged to peel-off the roof. Re-roofing asphalt shingles is an ambitious project in this weather and one that might leave the residents a bit chilly tonight even with sheets of TYVEK vapor barrier and fresh roofing felt in place underneath a tarp. However there is a “For Rent” sign on the house and the Big Guy with the diesel Dodge, while rather young seems to be the resident/owner running the show. I wish them well even thorough the early noise and truck clatter is a bit of a nuisance.
In other news Muslim madmen killed some 130-some children at a grade-school in what was once their safe-haven, because they claim local Police and Army have been insufficiently impressed with their willingness to be utterly barbaric and insane, and have even targeted the raving lunatics… It’s a sad day all around because the kids didn’t have a chance with either set of parents or the frothing cretins who set upon them in an orgy of hatred and bloodthirsty deathlust. I hope the insanity has reached a fever pitch and the former safe-haven now becomes a cannibal death-wallow for the Islamist savages.
When I was a callow youth I spent a lot of time in the darkroom. Seriously, a LOT – to the point I lost my swim-team/water-polo constant tan, and .later even as a callow post-grad I worked in the Biz making big negatives and slapping artwork together. It’s dark in the darkroom, and lonely. There were things of sheer lust besides fair maidens, and Tam had the temerity to remind me of such desperate wishes I had in those bygone days of 80’s pop-music and insufficient income: I wanted a silver ‘Blad. (I already had a black ’67 Nikon F.) Now I am just Bald instead. Oh well, can’t juggle so many things at once anymore, either.
Not Clauswitz 
Yeah, but you can get a pristine 500cm off of flea bay for just a few hundred bucks. I’m watching for one I can snipe, bye an bye. When I get one, it’s going under a Lexan cube, as shelf-art. But, I’ll still run a roll of 120 through it every year, just to keep it’s moving parts, moving.
Pity I sold off my Nikon F2a mega system a few years back. With it’s backup FE body, eleven prime lenses, one zoom and related accessories, if filled up a Lewmar bag and a Halliburton case.
What I lust after now in the digital world? Check out the Nikon Df, Digital SLR. Instead of endless drop-down LCD menus, it uses pretty much the same shutter speed, ISO and other dials that we’re used to from when cameras recorded with chalk on slate images.
Twennysevenhunnerd dollars worth of lust, but I wants…..I wants.
Oh, and while Tam’s Leica is indeed, lustworthy…… the ‘blad trumps, and trumps hard.
Jim
Sunk New Dawn
Galveston, TX
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Maybe I’ll do that lexan-cube thing, and one for my Nikon F too. All mechanical. no electronics (or batteries). What I crave in the digital world is a CMOS reciever with lots of light (and dark) layers for the shadow world. A friend who stepped-up from a Graflex has a Fuji X100 he likes a lot. If it’s got a screen on the back I don’t need to stick my face in a viewfinder. Wonder if they make a waist-level finder though?
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I’m so out of touch with what’s going on in the larger digital imaging world, that I wouldn’t know where to turn as regards medium format equipment. I know that Hassleblad prices make a good down payment on a house, though.
Curious… does anyone make a digital replacement for a 4″x5″ or 8″x10″ view camera film pack? I know where there’s an old, but excellent Cherry 4″x5″ view I could get for way cheap. It’s gorgeous….and it’d be great to use it with a digital pack behind the groundglass.
Jim
Sunk New Dawn
Galveston, TX
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I think the big Fashion-stuff almost switched straight across seamlessly with the Glamour-guys shooting fabric and zits on 5th Avenue running it – and at a price/cost-basis for Advertising that Wall Street could gladly parlay. But that’s how upstream-things looked to me as a bottom-feeder shooting races and getting processing done at Costco – before I could get it digital.
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Yeah, you can buy sweet film cameras. But for a reasonable price (considering 20 or 30 years of inflation) you can buy a fairly nice digital camera today. And not really have to worry about running short on film, or paying for processing, or having the airport police xray your expensive IR film.
Someone once told me that a frame of Kodachrome 64 had about 25 megapixels of information. If that is true, you can buy digital Kodachrome. For about the inflation-adjusted price of that Nikon (or Tam’s Leica) when it was new. And save on the film forever after. And you can either opt for the old-style mirror that has to slap up out of the way (and cause vibration) or go mirrorless and get about 30 Megapixels.
It is like the photos of the Superbird Tam had on her blog. It might have been the bomb back-in-the-day, but then once upon a time, the Model A from Ford was a wicked ride. Some collectors might want one today, but I like air conditioning, stereo and air bags too much to drive one.
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Well said, Deb! Also because I managed to live without it, make it less of a touchstone today. Even with my lust-guard down, I don’t want it for a pillow because it wasn’t one back then. And working in a dark-room with a stack of five or six *20 x 30″ inch negatives, making one composite – how many megapixels is that today? It’s commercial grade machinery stuff, I wouldn’t want to build or have a darkroom like that, it’s enough for me to build a reloading bench… I get by with my 1.) point-and-shoot 2.) *underwater* camera that 3.) zooms-out and 4.) stitches-together panoramas and sky-scapes, and 5.) can focus to 1-cm – that’s crazy advanced technology the big old Hasselblad never had with only one lens. 🙂
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