Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 1998/11/13
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]Beautiful area, Bill!! Been there, generally don't like California, but your area makes it worth the trip! Yeah, I've heard that when coated lenses came out, the "old-time" 35mm journalists didn't always like them. Even though the transmission was higher, the contrast went up, and you didn't get the "fog" in the lower values (hence "raising" the threshold!!) They thought the new lenses were actually slower at times without this "fill"!! Way before my time, but I had an 80 year old instructor who had spent 33 years with Time/Life, mostly in central and South America. He told me the above story, and MANY others!! (BTW, his name was Peter Anderson, from Scotland, and he went to the big city desk in the sky in l986--It was a privilege to spend a coupla years knowing him and some shooting with him-- Great STORIES.....) He liked SPs and Fs tho......gave me hell about my "jewelry" -- M4 etc..... Actually, I understand they used to fog film sometimes, with a controlled safelight, to accomplish the same thing-- offset press people still do -- on halftones. Brings up the threshold, effectively increasing "speed" and bringing the contrast range down..... sound iffy, never tried it on "real" film.... Thought you might like to give it a try -- maybe we could turn back the clock a few decades and do some "real" journalism?? Have fun and let us know what develops -- bad pun, Walt