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Post by Peter S. on Apr 18, 2007 12:54:04 GMT -5
Dear Edward, I think You got plenty of comments on the camera bodies. But when it comes to Minolta not the bodies are the big asset but the plenty supply of good and inexpensive lenses. A decent kit of primes (2.8/35 no matter which, 1.7/50 - 55mm filter thread, 2.8/135 no matter which, MC Rokkor 4/200) can be collected for less than 100$$, and another 100$ could buy a MC W.Rokkor 2.8/24. The only difficult item is a short tele, where my personal favourite is a Tokina 2.5/90 Macro. The Minolta 85's are expensive as the 1.2/58 monster normal is. As a rule of thumb anything that says "Rokkor" on it, is at least a decent lens. The older MC Rokkor lenses are said to be a bit inferior when it comes to their coatings. I do however doubt, whether those difference do matter. Indeed I prefer the older lenses, since those got a silky feeling of incredible precision. The rubber grip is the only non-glass or metal piece of the whole lens. In case You want to seek informations on Manual Focus Minolta gear, be shure to surf to those two places: www.rokkorfiles.com/and members.aol.com/manualminolta/index.htmI am afraid, that I can't supply You with corresponding information to Pentax - but from what I hear those got a similar dedicated community of users. Best regards Peter
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Post by Peter S. on Jun 14, 2007 3:14:17 GMT -5
The piercing force of the XE-1/7 is tremendous. It even could be increased however by adding a MC 3.5/100 Macro Rokkor to its front... definitely the most dangerous weapon shown on Your photo, Randy! Peter
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Post by Peter S. on Apr 23, 2007 14:03:27 GMT -5
Hi Michael,
You should try out an XD. The XD-7 has the full information in the viewfinder - if You don't need that, the XD-5 is the way to save a bit of money. The XD(-7) is my absolute favourite camera (together with the Hassie...). It got a metal body, and that incredible silky metal blade shutter. It is pretty small (the same size as the X-700), but much more convenient to operate.
I took my Paris photographs with a XD-7. I did not bring any too rare or expensive lenses - but I could not make the compromise in bringing a different camera as the XD-7. The fact, that I only missed a very few exposures out of five films did justify my selection.
At the moment I got a X-700 loaded, I bought with a 3.5-4.5/35-105, a Tamron SP 3.5/70-210 and a photobag for the ridiculous amount of 50 CHF (ca. 40.-$). But I have to load a SR-T when reading this...
BTW: some of the SRT line camera's offer mirror lock-up. This can be an argument, if You own a longer telephoto. No later manual focus Minolta got this feature :-( .
Best regards Peter
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Post by Peter S. on Mar 2, 2008 18:20:28 GMT -5
Hi there fellow camera collectors, I had a short visit home - to check, what kind of model railroad gear my father had collected since my last visit. The first thing that catched my attention was a beautiful Prussian P10 - here approaching the main station: I tried a lighting setup with a Metz CL5-45 fired as slave to the on camera flash of my Oly C8080WZ. I think it worked out pretty good here. And, so sweet, he collected a lot of other stuff... ... not all new, but quite a bit. Best regards Peter
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Post by Peter S. on Oct 17, 2007 10:53:25 GMT -5
Dear Peter,
I second Randy - You are the best Peter! ;-) Happy Birthday!
Peter
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Post by Peter S. on Oct 3, 2007 6:02:48 GMT -5
I have now used that Spyder2 colorimeter on two monitors.
For the Eizo S2000 I use at work the difference was only a slight one: the calibrated and color managed monitor looks a wee bit warmer than it did before.
Against that the visible impact for the old Samsung Syncmaster 180T (which did cost me a lot of money five years ago) was dramatic. Images tweaked on that machine do need to be re-adjusted.
I will calibrate my other monitors (an Eizo S2100 on my main machine, an HP LCD and a Compaq P910 on two more machines) starting today, one monitor per day ;-) . And I am very curious, whether the uniformity that is advertised will really be achieved. But my first impression is that it was money well spent.
Best regards Peter
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Post by Peter S. on Sept 27, 2007 6:46:49 GMT -5
I would like to report, that I ordered a Spyder2 a week ago. But it has not arrived yet. I ordered it in the US - because of the low Dollar rate ;-) If anyone is interested, I can tell You about my experiences when I came beyond my very first real feedback. The background to my journey into all that color management stuff is the first few series of scanned slides I let print out some time ago. I tried a few shops. But the only satisfactory results were done on a minilab in the shop of a small and kind photographer. He let me look on the screen of the minilab, tweaked it while discussing with me, whether there were some color cast or not, I could add some additional sharpening on one, and we did generally reduce contrast a bit. The pictures that came out did look _very_ good to me. So I decided that I want to gain a tighter control over the color in my scanning and processing chain. I knew that there is scanner calibration/profiling via IT-8 targets. The only hustle is that one needs specialized scanning S/W, that either is horrifying expensive (Silverfast for Nikon LS9000 is about the price of a Epson 4990 or two) or are said to be buggy, instable and plagued by fundamental design flaws (Vuescan). I started reading what I could find on color management (e.g. www.rit.edu/~med2823/colormanageproject/index.html). And I decided to start it up with the monitor first. Then in the next step I will try to tweak the Nikon scan S/W to get the color gains and gammas matched (those seem to be slightly off). And then IT-8 calibrating/profiling may even become unnecessary (that is at least what I hope). Best regards Peter
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Post by Peter S. on Mar 17, 2008 19:25:50 GMT -5
peter, what can I say? I thought I had an obsession!? You have Rokkormania my friend. Dear Tommy, Your finding don't comes too surprising... ;-) Well this term should describe a fisheye that exposes a circle on the film. The focal length is typically 7..8mm for a 35mm film camera. Thus a whole hemisphere is taken in this circle. Against that a full-frame-fisheye does expose the whole frame. Typical focal length' range from 15 to 18mm. The 15 and 16mm ones have 180° on the diagonal of the frame. There is however this fancy 6mm fisheye by Nikon that can watch a 220° segment! You could make a deal with Your wife - You sell this mostly useless camera in order to save money for a Minolta or Sigma fisheye. You don't need to tell here, that it takes You five to ten Lomo's to make up for one Minolta or Sigma. One has to elevate against the level of these kind of reasoning. I suppose You don't refer to me here... Best regards Peter
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Post by Peter S. on Mar 16, 2008 7:00:06 GMT -5
Tommy, I have no objections against full frame fisheyes. You know I got at least two good images from it. But I can keep my Minoltamania under minimal control, i.e. I realize that a circular fisheye does comaratively more harm to my bank account than it would give me worthwhile images. My current collection of Minolta cameras is 2 SR-T 101, 2 SR-T 303 (one dysfunctional), 1 XE-1, 3 XD-7, 2 X-500, 4 X-700 (two of them bound to the bay of evil). As I only got four other cameras (two 500c/m, 1 digital P&S, 1 4x5") I think, my collection is under control - as far as cameras are concerned. The big issue however is this: www.serbe.ch/~peter/pics2/rokkore.JPGcaveat: the file is 3.6MB - but at least one can identify the goodies. At least when one knows them ;-) Needless to say, the image is from last summer. I had planned to bring down the number to 50 - I sold about ten lenses - and acquired, maybe thirty (the 16mm fisheye being one of them). :-( So the least thing one could say, is that I got a rough overview on the Rokkor range of lenses Best regards Peter PS:er, forgot two XG-1...
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Post by Peter S. on Mar 14, 2008 13:55:18 GMT -5
Tommy,
sorry for the verdict: Your exposure to M has resulted in an irreversible syndrome. On the other hand: You are not subject to the worst from of Rokkor-mania. Believe me I can tell from that ;-) .
Best regards Peter
PS: Monday evening in the German bay-of-evil: an irresistible beautiful MC Fisheye Rokkor
4/7.5, i.e. a circular fisheye, went up to skyrocketing 1.014 €. That's more than 1.5 k$. I decided to bid up to 300 €. :-( The bad thing about that: a circular fisheye is not far from being useless - it is just a matter of collecting.
PS2: oh, yes, I feel the lust for an Autocord...
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Post by Peter S. on Feb 20, 2008 10:40:16 GMT -5
Hi Alex, great work! I'll find one for myself at some time, too. The Rokkor lens got a reputation for exceptional performance. Plus it is said the Autocord were one of the smallest TLRs available. A friend of mine has set up a small page about it: wstar.dyndns.org/oep/equipment/MinoltaAutocord.htmAs for the replacement of the leatherette the usual recommendation is cameraleather.com. It does cost You a bit - but in case You decide to use it more frequently this is for sure an justified expense. Best regards Peter
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Post by Peter S. on Feb 13, 2008 13:16:45 GMT -5
Hi Alex, I am a total Rokkor lunatic! And a Minoltian to the bone. I like the leatherette of the XG-1 - but my working tool is the XD-7. Besides, for all that are interested: I accepted the honorary appointment of a co-admin of a flickr group specializing in the XD series of cameras. There I can run riot in my lens addiction... You may peek a look here: www.flickr.com/groups/xd-11New members will personally be welcomed either by me or the group founder Roger "Tigersight". :-) Best regards Peter
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Post by Peter S. on Aug 19, 2007 14:59:17 GMT -5
PS2: for shure the red pad was completely ill-performing on my red/black XD-7 ;-)
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Post by Peter S. on Aug 19, 2007 14:58:20 GMT -5
Hi Dan,
I am happy I'm a lens collector rather than a camera collector. Otherwise I could not stand my envy ;-)
Best regards Peter
PS: maybe a blue pad were better - but even that red pad is looking like hell :-)
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Post by Peter S. on Jun 12, 2007 12:00:03 GMT -5
Dear Galenk,
the 2.8/24 (see the crop from my Eiffel tower picture in one of my Paris posts!) and the 100mm marco are two exceptional lenses. I think I could live with a ten lens setup - but luckily enough I don't have to ;-)
Best regards Peter
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