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Utah Bob #35998

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The wife drags my old Ricoh SLR out of the deep darkness of a little used closet. “Oh my God! Feel how heavy this thing is!”, she says. I hefted it and yeah. It’s a brick. I haven’t used it in probably 15 years. It took me a while to remember when I got it.  June of 1970 I think it was, at the PX in Phouc Vinh, RVN. Used it during the last couple months of my tour. Great camera. Took some decent pics. Nothing automatic about it. Sure is heavy though. Didn’t even know I still had it. It’s a relic.....like me. :lol:

Still had a roll of film in it. I had to think hard to remember how to get it out.

For you youngsters, film is a thing you used to put in cameras. Then you had to take it out and go drop it off at the drugstore and a week later..Bingo....you had your photos. Amazing 20th century stuff. :P

ECA39DFE-4B70-41D8-B9FA-522FB976442E.jpeg

 

B04EEB99-F0AB-4F8F-AA40-444FADDDAA56.jpeg

3F4F55DB-5113-4042-8C00-9C6CC66BFF96.jpeg

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Look.  Up in the sky>  It's a bird.  It's a plane.  It's a Huey gun ship.

 

I still have my ASAHI Pentax Spotmatic II.  (Sold in this country under the Honeywell brand name.) Drug it out a couple of years ago, got new batteries and had it checked out and then priced 35mm film. Way expensive and Kodak no longer makes film, I guess.  At least I couldn't find High Speed Ektachrome any more.

 

It's back on the shelf.

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Bob,

Are those shots from the film that was left in it? If so, glad you were able to get them developed. 

 

That reminds me. I have a roll of film we found during our last move that  needs developing. Hardly anyone does it any more and those that do won’t return negatives. They want to put the shots on CDs or a jump drive. ^_^

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I have my Pentax K-1000 that I've had for ages still. I thought about a career in photography because my father was an avid amateur photographer. I used to develop my own film and photos in his darkroom. Some months ago, my father gave me a large bunch of his old cameras, including a couple of very cool large format cameras. I need to get some sort of a curio cabinet to display them.

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6 hours ago, DocWard said:

I have my Pentax K-1000 that I've had for ages still. I thought about a career in photography because my father was an avid amateur photographer. I used to develop my own film and photos in his darkroom. Some months ago, my father gave me a large bunch of his old cameras, including a couple of very cool large format cameras. I need to get some sort of a curio cabinet to display them.

I worked as a photojournalist back in the 80s and early 90s, my Nikons are now living room decorations..........

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Utah,

 

I feel stupid having to ask, but I'm just ignorant:  What are the empty looking tubes in the second photo?  Were they containers for some type of shell?  And why do they look so nicely stacked in a couple places but the boxes in the background look just jumbled together?  I'm guessing those boxes once contained a couple of the tubes and are now empty?  I see a stack of those boxes on the far right that I'd guess are still full.

 

I feel like a dummy, but my curiosity overrode my fear of looking like an idiot.

 

Educate me, Sensei.

 

Thanks,

 

Angus whose-only-gunfight-was-with-the-PD-and-we-didn't-have-that-type-ordinance McPherson

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I've always wondered about the long-term survival of today's .jpg and .avi files for pictures and videos, given how they all require an electronic device, storage drive and electricity to view. Some day all those pictures we've been taking of the world will be gone because they were never converted to any form of hardcopy. Maybe archaologists 5000 years from now will assume we all blew ourselves up in 2005 A.D. because nobody took any pictures on film cameras after that time.

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1 hour ago, Black Angus McPherson said:

 

I feel stupid having to ask, but I'm just ignorant

 

Ignorance can be cured through education.   At least you know enough to ask questions. 

 

Heck,  I just noticed the aiming stakes. 

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Silver halide is about the only photo component that will last for the long haul.
I have B&W prints I made in the 60s that are 100% today.
Ditto for Kodachrome slides.
Keep them dry, keep them in the dark, keep the cold.

I learned this the hard way.. we moved from CA to Cape Cod, and I stored a bunch of negs in the basement.
Mold ate them all and destroyed them.

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13 hours ago, Pat Riot, SASS #13748 said:

Bob,

Are those shots from the film that was left in it? If so, glad you were able to get them developed. 

 

That reminds me. I have a roll of film we found during our last move that  needs developing. Hardly anyone does it any more and those that do won’t return negatives. They want to put the shots on CDs or a jump drive. ^_^

No. I used the camera for years after I got home. Film might be 10 or 15 years old.

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3 hours ago, bgavin said:

Utah Bob,

I worked one up in Photoshop to get rid of the color cast, but it is still a long way from optimal.
 

 

Yeah I know the firebase one needs work. I just haven’t gotten around to fixin it yet. I have dozens like that.

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4 hours ago, Black Angus McPherson said:

Utah,

 

I feel stupid having to ask, but I'm just ignorant:  What are the empty looking tubes in the second photo?  Were they containers for some type of shell?  And why do they look so nicely stacked in a couple places but the boxes in the background look just jumbled together?  I'm guessing those boxes once contained a couple of the tubes and are now empty?  I see a stack of those boxes on the far right that I'd guess are still full.

 

I feel like a dummy, but my curiosity overrode my fear of looking like an idiot.

 

Educate me, Sensei.

 

Thanks,

 

Angus whose-only-gunfight-was-with-the-PD-and-we-didn't-have-that-type-ordinance McPherson

Those are 105mm shipping tubes. No doubt one of the Redlegs here can explain it in detail. The 105 round has a warhead and brass case. The warhead has a fuze screwed into it before firing. The case is loaded with propellant bags, the number of them depends on range being fired. The unit that supplied us with arty support was B Battery, 1/19 Artillery. They were very good.

 

F7B9B4FF-6F47-419C-9214-F8288A23A2B0.jpeg

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OK, so the tubes hold/held the 105 projectile and the boxes hold the projectiles in the tubes.  When I put my glasses on and get real close to the screen I can see there are a couple howitzers in the photo, too.   :)  Oh, and I see some projectiles next to the upright tubes!  Maybe I should get a 65" computer screen.

 

I thought it was something like that, but I didn't see any big guns or mortars when I first looked.

 

I feel smarter now.

 

Sometimes I feel like my grandfather.  He had to wear glasses and use a big magnifying glass to read the news paper.  :( 

 

Thanks,

 

Angus

 

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14 hours ago, DocWard said:

I have my Pentax K-1000 that I've had for ages still. I thought about a career in photography because my father was an avid amateur photographer. I used to develop my own film and photos in his darkroom. Some months ago, my father gave me a large bunch of his old cameras, including a couple of very cool large format cameras. I need to get some sort of a curio cabinet to display them.

Interesting you should mention that. My oldest granddaughter just got married and one of the photographers was a young black man. As the wedding was winding down so was his picture taking and we were both outside getting some fresh air and I asked him about his digital cameras. Anyway we talked for quite awhile and I asked him if he was old enough to have  taken photos with old film cameras and he told me that he loved old cameras and had quite a collection. He told me that estate sales are excellent places to find very good old cameras at very reasonable prices and then he proceeded to show me some pictures of his office/man cave and three walls were lined with very nicely done shelving with hundreds of cameras on display. He told me that he had taken pictures with everyone of them and still prefers the 35mm film camera to the new digital ones. The company that he works for requires him to use digital cameras. He told me also that he bought out a large cache of 35mm film from a large chain department store for pennies on the dollar. Very interesting young man.

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2 minutes ago, Yul Lose said:

Interesting you should mention that. My oldest granddaughter just got married and one of the photographers was a young black man. As the wedding was winding down so was his picture taking and we were both outside getting some fresh air and I asked him about his digital cameras. Anyway we talked for quite awhile and I asked him if he was old enough to have  taken photos with old film cameras and he told me that he loved old cameras and had quite a collection. He told me that estate sales are excellent places to find very good old cameras at very reasonable prices and then he proceeded to show me some pictures of his office/man cave and three walls were lined with very nicely done shelving with hundreds of cameras on display. He told me that he had taken pictures with everyone of them and still prefers the 35mm film camera to the new digital ones. The company that he works for requires him to use digital cameras. He told me also that he bought out a large cache of 35mm film from a large chain department store for pennies on the dollar. Very interesting young man.

Vinyl records are the new hip thing maybe 35mm film will be. I got interested in basic photography when I was with Special Forces in the 60s in Germany. We had Leica cameras issued to each A team for target surveillance. Learned how to make contact prints under a poncho. We had a great photo lab on post too. After getting out, I did a lot of fiddling around in my own bathroom dark room. A lot more fun than digital stuff.

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3 hours ago, Utah Bob #35998 said:

Yeah I know the firebase one needs work. I just haven’t gotten around to fixin it yet. I have dozens like that.


Working from 72 dpi web images is mostly unsatisfying for quality.
If you have 300 dpi scans, they provide a lot more meat for quality work.

Since 1968, I have thousands of negs to scan to hi-rez digital.
I shot commercially for years... have RZ67, C330s, Pentax 6x7, Crown Graphics, Nikons and Sinar systems that are all safe queens now.
I don't have the heart to ditch them, as they don't have much value anymore.
My wife has bugged me for years to sell my 4x5 enlarger.. can't.. same reason as above.

I have enough 4x5 and 220 in the freezer to last 200 years.

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