Other collecting activities?

From: Tony Duell <ard_at_p850ug1.demon.co.uk>
Date: Mon Apr 19 17:36:33 2004

> >I find that hard to believe, the Xerox process is essentially
> >electrostatic. I've never heard of it being used in a normal camera.
>
> I don't -- I believe it's called Kirlian photography, and it works by
> passing a large amount of electricity [I don't know if it's voltage or

It's high voltage (around 30-50kV IIRC -- a lot higher than that used in
photocopiers).

> current based] thru the object to be photographed, with an
> electrostatic-sensitive plate or paper close to that object.

The plate/paper is conventional silver-based film normally, I think.
AFAIK the process is fairly different from Xeroxography -- Kirlian
photography does not depend on toner sticking to charged areas of an
object (the photoconductive drum in a copier or laser printer).

> >Depedns on what it's for. If it's to remind me which order to connect a
> >bundle of wires, then I'll want a colour picture ;-)
>
> Which, of course, is another *extremely* good use for a digital camera -

Well it would be if I had a way of either printing colour digital images,
or a colour monitor near whatever I was working on. Since neither is the
case, I'll just make notes on a bit of paper. Old-fashioned, but reliable.

> keeping a record of disassembly of an item, especially if you've never had
> one apart before.

Apart from details like 'which way round to these 8 wires go', I never
have a problem putting things back together with quite minimal notes. I
did my first ASR33 (total strip-down) without any official manuals, and
the only notes I made were things like the order of the rails in the
stunt box. I think about 4 sheets total.

>
> BTW, when you mentioned home film-based camera repair, you may have never
> attempted to replace the shutter in a Canon T50 camera. (My wife put her

I also mentioned I keep well away from modern electronic cameras!
 
> finger thru the shutter of mine, 2 weeks before vacation [holidays]). I
> have, and I'm not too big a man to admit that I'm not able to do it, but at
> least I tried. ;-) I bought a broken T50 on ePay for $12, and used my
> Epson digital camera to record all the parts as I took apart my "test case"
> - turns out replacing the shutter mech. in that unit is, well, near
> impossible. It's at the *very core* of the camera, and getting all the

Normally the front panel (used to be a casting, presumably plastic now
:-() and mirror box come out as a unit. Assuming this is a
vertically-mounted metal shutter, it'll then come out from the body (OK,
a few Minolta and Leica SLRs have the shutter on the back of the mirror
box). You'll almost certainly have to peel off the leatherette covering
from the body first, and you may have to desolder wires and/or the
flexiprint.

> Another really good use for [admittedly very-high end] digital cameras:
> Sports Photography. Sports shooters generally toss a lot of photos anyway,

I didn;t say that digital cameras have no uses, just that I have no use
for one. I take almost entirely static subjects, and I want high
resolution (to be honest 3.1 M pixels is worse than 35mm (I estimate that
as being about 12M pixles), let alone medium or large format).

> and in the long run it can be a lot less expensive with... say... a Nikon
> D1H (which I've had the pleasure to use - at 3.1 megapixels, it will take a
> very nice 8x10). Granted, with a couple of lenses, you'll be about $7000
> poorer, but hey... ;-)

Plus the PC and printer, and software. It's getting towards 10 grand. You
can get a very nice large format camera, enlarger, and a lot of sheet film
for that amount of money!

-tony
Received on Mon Apr 19 2004 - 17:36:33 BST