Knuckledragger

Ugh. I weed-whacked the back 40 two days ago. I actually started it several weeks before, but house repairs and a trip to MV, not to mention this endless rain kept me from resuming it. I was chopping down weeds nearly as tall as I am. An alarming number of them were wooden at the bottom, which wreaked havok with my weed whacker. I don't use a line head, I have one that has three plastic blade. I went through two sets this year so far. I'm going to have to go back out there with a hand saw and take out a few dozen would-be saplings. There was more than a little poison ivy out there, and even though I showered immediately after I finished, using Dr. Bronner's peppermint soap, I still have a few itchty spots on my arm. Truth is, I'm rather lucky that's all I got. Home ownership is overrated. Land ownership, even more so.

I was going to link you to this post, but that won't work of course.

Nice icon, ASR.

(Almost) four years on head-fi: 175 posts 10 months on head-case: over 700 posts. @EOF.

I had Iris Photo scan the slides. They offer three resolutions of scanning, base (300dpi @ 4x6") which is $8 for a CD, or a free upload to their server for members, and uh, two higher rez. ones, which are $15 and $20 respectively. I dun remember the size because I haven't had my coffee yet. I opted for the middle one on this first roll of Velvia. After looking at the slides, they didn't get the contrast as right as I would have liked, but the results are still quite good. I to eventually plan on buying a slide scanner. I cannot argue with this, your logic is impeccable.

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3176/2739362909_0d65827ff8.jpg[/img Velvia 50 lives up to its reputation. This is the first frame off the roll. Jernegan Pond, which sits at the edge of my property on Martha's Vineyard, is one of my most covered subjects. I've shot it with a Sony Mavica (blech), Canon PowerShot S60 (regular and HDR), EOS 30D (ditto), several different film stocks, and a menagerie of lenses. This might not be the best picture I've ever taken of it, but it's effin' close. I suspect if there's a better shot, it's somewhere on this roll of Velvia 50. I haven't uploaded any other pix from the Velvia roll yet. I'll try to get to that in the next couple days. I've uploaded some shots taken with the Vivitar Ultra Wide & Slim as well: http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3022/2727779127_2f0bf75c11.jpg[/img http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3103/2727993347_23f1b1bde1.jpg[/img http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3268/2728619814_d7dd2ea575.jpg[/img Film was some generic ISO 200 store brand. There's a couple more shots on my Flickr page. Those are nice shots you posted, Cankin. That last one illustrates a fun aspect of the camera: the wacky flare it produces when you shoot it into the sun. Do you remember what film stock you used?

I'm mobile, stealing wahrless internets from some unsuspecting donor, so no time for a proper reply. The $3 price for the Vivitar per unit in lots of 100, I am afraid. I got one of eBay for $12. I ran a roll of junky ISO200 print film though it. Results are amusing, I'll post some examples later. Re: developing film myself. That is definitely in the future. I am currently in the process of renovating my house. I'm going to turn the downstairs bathroom in my house into a darkroom. Initially, I'm going to teach myself to develop black & white film, but I plan to work up to color film, and then cross processing. That will all take time of course... Now, the real subject I meant to post about: I just got back the slides and scans from the first roll of Velvia 50 I ever shot. It is officially the best film stock ever. I have never seen blues or greens the beautiful before. I'll post results when I'm at home.

I scored 3 rolls of Velvia 50 from Iris, at $6.50 ea (teh cheep) as well as a roll of Fuji Sensia 200. It turns out Velvia 50, besides being the best film stock in the world, also stands up to the rigors of cross processing quite well, and at half price, it becomes a comparative bargian (the Sensia was $10.50.) I'm going to expose the Sensia using my Vivitar Ultra Wide Slim pocket camera. It's a step above "trashcams" but not by much, it has a fixed shutter speed, aperture, and (duh) focal length. It's 1/125 and F/11 (which is Sunny 16 shifted one position) and a 22mm lens, which is really wide for this class of camera. The Ultra Wide Slim is famed for its massive vignetting, and fun effects when pointed straight into the sun. Shooting slide film with it is a benighted idea at best. Cross prossing said film is an even more demented undertaking. I can't wait to try it.

Watchmen in trade paperback. I have all the original comics from the 1980s, which I haven't read in over 15 years. I'm surprised how little I remember of the story. I didn't want to manhandle the now 20+ year old originals, so I coughed up $21 for the TBP. I also, uh, bought a lot of photography-related stuff, but I'll post on that elsewhere.

After a frustrating experience with Ritz Camera, I just got off the phone with Iris Photo. They do cross processing of film, but only slide film as print film. I probably should have known this, but slide-as-film is how 99% of cross processing is done. Film-as-slide processing is "reverse cross processing" and almost never done, as it's bad for the chemistry of the developer, and generally wrecks the film. As a bonus, Irish has an overstock of Fuji Velvia 50, and is selling it for $6.50 a roll. Of all the film stocks to have an excess of... wow. I'm leaving shortly to buy them out get a few more rolls for my MV trip. Apparently, Velvia stands up very well to cross processing. Canon EF 17-40mm F/4L + Velvia 50 + cross processing = psychedelic landscapes.

Mad Scientist Lights

Nice. That's one funky display on the top.

[OT] Blumenkraft ...nice. That's one of my favorite psy-dub albums. I've listened to Skylon (his new one) a few times, but I haven't found it to be similarly engaging as his first.[/OT]

Got a 12exp roll of Fuji Superia X-Tra 800 developed, and bought used 12" of Der Dritte Raum's "Hale Bopp"