Here is a quick tip list
on letters for the HELP! desk:
Please confine yourself to only one question per letter. Both postal
letters and e-mails are fine, although we prefer e-mail as the most
efficient form of communication. Send your e-mail queries to editorial@shutterbug.net
with Help in the subject header. Although we make every effort, we cannot
promise to answer every HELP! letter.
When sending a response or suggestion that refers to a published letter
please include the month and page of the original question.
All postal letters to HELP! must be accompanied by a stamped, self-addressed
envelope to be considered for reply. We will respond to e-mail queries
with an e-mail.
George Schaub
Editor
1950s Kodaks
Q. Members of my family are in possession of two antique Kodak cameras—Kodak
Pony II and Six-20 Brownie E. I would appreciate if you could let me
know of any interest that people might have in acquiring these cameras.
Ramesh Daga
Chennai, India
A.
My 11th edition of McKeown’s Price Guide to Antique & Classic
Cameras, 2001-2002 shows your Six-20 Brownie E is a box camera made
from 1946-1953. It is a metal camera that uses 620 film and has vertical
stripes on the front by the lens and finder windows. It also should
have flash contacts for plugging in an external flash. The value is
$12-$20. The Bakelite-body Pony II was made from 1957-1962 and has an
identical current value.
Half-Frame Repairs
Q. I’m hoping that you can help me with a problem. Many of our
members use the Yashica “Samurai” and we were told by Yashica
that none of the repair departments are doing any servicing of this
camera now. This is a real blow. I’ve tried many outlets in the
UK, Europe, and U.S.A., but nothing has come up. Please, have you any
repairman in the U.S.A. who can service, etc., our “Samurai”
cameras? Thanks for the “plugs” you have given us.
Fred and Pam Adcock
The Half Frame Group
Gloucester, England
A.
I just spoke with a person at Kyocera, the importer of Yashica/Contax
products in the U.S.A. Although they do have some Samurai parts, they
do not do repairs. But, they told me this firm does: Nippon Photo Clinic,
920 Broadway, Suite 703, New York, NY 10010; (212) 982-3177. You might
want to contact them to determine if they can fix your members’
half-frame cameras.
Tri-X Modern Developing
Times
Q. Has Kodak gone mad? They’ve changed Tri-X 400 to a new version
“400TX,” with changed processing that doesn’t work.
The development chart wrapped around the film canister tells us to develop
with HC-110 Dilution B, at 20ÞC for only 33/4 minutes, down from
71/2, which had been my old reliable for decades. I did as instructed,
meticulously as usual, and lo and behold, weak negatives—drastically,
grossly underdeveloped! To say I am outraged is speaking mildly. Those
shots were treasures of my 3-year-old granddaughter and her kitten and
are totally unusable. Kodak suggested, in print so tiny I needed a magnifying
glass to read it, that development less than 5 minutes might be unsatisfactory.
Gee, thanks Kodak. Then what business do they have recommending 33/4
minutes in their published chart? I think this is egregious irresponsibility
on their part. They suggest we do our own testing to find a usable development
time that might be satisfactory. Why should we have to do their work
for them? It will cost us good money for the test film and chemicals,
not to mention the time needed, none of which should be necessary whatsoever.
And how to go about this? I have never seen in myriad photo books and
three college courses any instructions on finding your own developing
time. Well, I have vented my disgust and wonder if you have received
other complaints. For me, it is enraging to look at that strip of 24
useless almost negatives and think of the lost expense, time, and effort
in getting good shots for the family albums, shots that cannot be recalled,
with more time and expense ahead.
Frank Lewis
Roque Bluffs, ME
A.
I sympathize with you but this just helps drive home the point that
before you undertake first use of any new product, be extra careful
to read the small print. And in this instance, even better, actually
process a roll of non-critical film prior to processing something that’s
not replaceable. It does seem that Kodak is expecting quite a bit of
experimentation on the user’s part instead of providing a good
benchmark processing time to try on the product instruction label. I
suggest you give Kodak’s information hotline, (800) 242-2424,
a call and explain your problem to them. Hopefully, they can give you
better, more accurate, time/temperature suggestions to use in the future
with their new 400TX in HC-110 developer.
Depth Of Field Query
Q. Recently I took some wildflower pictures here in Texas. I used my
Rebel 2000 and the 28-90mm lens that came with it. I swear I shot 98
percent of my pictures at f/8, f/11, or f/22. But when I developed them,
there was an obvious plane of focus in the pictures and everything out
of this plane was out of focus. I know I used an aperture with a lot
of depth of field (I set it manually myself) so what happened? Would
my problems be solved if I buy the 200mm f/2.8 lens? HELP! I need lots
of depth of field for projects. Thanks.
Matthew Schott
San Antonio, TX
A.
First, the depth of field will be considerably less if you switched
to a 200mm medium telephoto prime lens (or a zoom lens including 200mm
focal length), so I don’t believe that would help at all. If you
were taking your wildflower pictures at apertures of f/8 to f/22 you
should have a good depth of field, especially at f/22. Were you shooting
in aperture priority mode when you set the aperture yourself, then the
camera selected the correct shutter speed? This would be preferable
to using program automatic mode when a wider open aperture is often
chosen. Try using aperture priority at f/16 or f/22, and also switch
over to manual focus and manually set the focus for a plane about 1/3
back from the nearest and furthest points you want in sharp focus, to
get the greatest depth. If the shutter speed the camera selects is not
suitable for handheld exposures (typically 1/125 sec or faster), then
use a tripod. You could also activate the depth of field preview on
the camera to see an approximation of depth of field before you shoot.
The obvious plane of sharp focus you obtained is typically a result
of shooting with the lens about wide-open, probably f/3.5 or f/4 on
your zoom lens. I’m puzzled that this happened at the small apertures
you said you were using.
TLR Film Wind
Q. I have a technical question I want to ask. I have a vintage Ciro-flex
with my TLR. The old-style film for this camera isn’t made anymore.
My question is, with modern film how many turns of the film advance
knob is required to advance the film for the next exposure?
Arthur De Cesare
via Internet
A.
Boy, that’s a difficult TLR question to answer. I really don’t
have any idea how many turns it would take to advance the film the proper
distance for the next exposure as I have never used this TLR and my
Rolleicord IV has internal measuring of the film advance distance. Your
older camera should allow you to advance the film with the camera back
open. If so, you could load an expendable roll of film and then make
a pencil mark on the paper backing at the bottom of the mask opening.
Now wind the film forward until it just clears the top of the opening.
Keep track of how many turns of the winding knob it takes to advance
the film past the mask. Just to be safe, you might want to add a half
turn extra. This might give you only 9 or 10 exposures per roll, instead
of the normal 12 square exposures, but at least you should not have
any overlapping. If any reader has a better technique or method of estimating
the number of turns and lets us know, we will pass on the suggestion
to you.
