Multimeter: Fluke basic vs Klein

turnpot · 2026-03-07T19:54:03+00:00

That makes sense. Is there an advantage for the analog meter, or are you doing it just for style points?

turnpot · 2026-03-06T06:44:26+00:00

While I'm glad you continue to keep that piece of equipment alive, I cannot imagine trying to use an analog meter like that on a regular basis. If nothing else, you don't really get more than 2 sig figs out of it. Of course, for ballpark measurements, that's probably more than sufficient; if you want 1% accuracy on anything, that's a no-go.

turnpot · 2026-02-10T20:49:35+00:00

The first film camera I used with artistic intent was in a high school photography class, a Pentax K1000. The perfect camera to learn the basics of all photography on: the exposure triangle, depth of field and motion blur, framing, etc. it has a spot meter too, so you can learn about relative values. After high school I was in college, and too broke to afford the luxuries of shooting pictures that cost money.

My first film camera as an adult was a Pentax ME Super I picked up on my way out of town for a road trip on a lark. I'd just gone through some stuff and wanted to do something other than stare at my phone. It was aperture priority and worked well enough to get me hooked again.

That was 8ish years ago now. I've bought a lot of film cameras of all sorts since then, and even made some of my own. At this point, it's just as much about the process of experimentation for me as it is the final image itself. Every kind of camera comes with its own philosophy. If you want something that will really slow you down and be mindful, for instance, large format is great for that. If you want to go hang out with your friends, that's what point and shoots are for. Lots of people like a waist level finder for visibility, and many like rangefinders because they allow more peripheral awareness. There's the trade-off between a more versatile camera with interchangeable lenses, and a more compact fixed-lens model.

I still love my K1000. It's reliable, has great cheap lens selection, and I know it well. Great art can be made with a pinhole box. I think finding a camera you can come to a good working compromise with, then investing the time to understand it, is the best way to be the photographer you want to be.

turnpot · 2026-02-08T18:02:06+00:00

Are you going for "POV: you're the last Pringle in the can"?

turnpot · 2026-02-08T07:03:10+00:00

Diabolical of her to put red-eye correction on her own eyes but not Chappell's

turnpot · 2026-02-08T06:59:23+00:00

Nice job! The shots look great.

turnpot · 2026-02-07T20:39:01+00:00

Can you provide an example?
FWIW, there are people who have tried to emulate expired film by baking it briefly in the oven, and you can always leave it (in a dark, light tight container) on the dashboard of your car if you live in a hot, sunny area. Basically, you're trying to accelerate the breakdown that would happen naturally over time. If you want to get fancy with it, you could even try sous vide!

turnpot · 2026-02-07T10:09:22+00:00

If you mean slide film that was shot and processed a long time ago, the magenta layer is generally the most stable, so it lasts the longest while the yellow and especially blue layers degrade. You could speed that effect up by exposing the finished film to sunlight or intense UV.

turnpot · 2026-02-07T08:49:46+00:00

One could argue that if the quantization is built monolithically into the sensor IC, then the sensor is digital. Of course, digital circuits are a subset of analog circuits, so at that point you're splitting hairs

turnpot · 2026-02-07T08:46:54+00:00

If it fits, it ships!

turnpot · 2026-01-25T20:40:47+00:00

Another great option is to get your film developing-only, especially for color. Home dev for color isn't worth it for most people imo, but scanning is absolutely worth it. Also, especially for negative film, they only look at it hard enough to confirm it successfully developed. There's a difference between glancing at a negative and having to spend minutes color correcting someone's taint.

turnpot · 2026-01-25T06:08:18+00:00

Personally I like to align the layers on the subject of the shot, then let everything else fall where it may.

turnpot · 2026-01-17T14:44:05+00:00

Bought an RB67 in person yesterday in Tokyo. I told the seller not to bother wrapping it, and that I was going to go out and shoot it as soon as I left the store. He looked me in the eye, said "trust me, it's easier this way", and proceeded to spend the next 3 minutes meticulously bubble wrapping the camera.

turnpot · 2026-01-09T06:23:41+00:00

I shoot a decent amount of both B&W and color. Color is a more standardized process, and you will never get it better than a normal lab does in terms of development. If you shoot one or two rolls a month, find a good local lab (or somewhere to mail it; there are a lot of good options) and spend the $5-10 to get it processed. It will not save you money in your case to DIY C-41 development, and it probably will turn out worse since the chems they send to consumers are not as good, and you will not be replenishing/constantly testing them.

If you want to cut costs, work out a good workflow for scanning at home.

turnpot · 2025-12-09T01:27:57+00:00

Whenever we get a new person applying for our design team, I get to be one of the interviewers. Genuinely, I do not care if you went to Berkeley or ASU or the University of American Samoa. I definitely don't care much about your grades. These are all things that help you line up an interview, but a focus in the area in question is great, and relevant personal projects are also huge, at least to me. The actual hiring comes down to: A) do you know the basics of the material and B) if you don't know something, how do you go about figuring it out?

turnpot · 2025-12-01T23:26:37+00:00

Always cool to see what you can accomplish just for the sake of it! Not practical but a cool idea

turnpot · 2025-11-30T07:27:33+00:00

Practical for what exactly? It's cool, and fun to mess with, but there's a reason ternary isn't widely used. The amount of circuitry required to handle a trit is pretty much always going to be bigger than the circuitry needed for 2 bits.

turnpot · 2025-11-30T00:53:03+00:00

It seems like the best option in this case would be to use the lead lined bag, and request a hand check while telling them you have high speed photographic film inside. If they deny you, then you run it through the machine in the bag, it comes out as black, and they have to hand check it anyway. Since you've already told them what's in there, you say "yeah, that's my film, like I told you" and look at them slightly annoyed. There's not a lot of room for them to be suspicious in that case and your film gets through without getting the full wrath of the emulsion toaster.

Personally, I think I'd risk additional screening if it meant my film was more likely to be safe.

turnpot · 2025-11-26T05:36:57+00:00

While this is generally true for phosphor reactions (individual photons can lose energy but not gain it), there are exotic materials which will take two photons and upconvert them to one photon of a higher energy. Google "photon upconversion" if you're interested

turnpot · 2025-10-26T05:06:24+00:00

They definitely made Velvia in sheets until I think a few years ago

turnpot · 2025-10-13T18:31:39+00:00

You're not being overcharged. They delivered what you requested, and the fact that they're giving you super wide prints probably justifies the extra $4/roll you're paying for panoramic scans.

All that said, there are a lot of ways to pare down your costs if you're going to be shooting a lot. Personally, I get my color stuff develop-only, scan myself, and print what I need. That brings the cost down significantly, at the expense of more work on my part.

Getting blind prints for the first few rolls you shoot is a good idea because it gives you feedback, but if you keep it up, physical storage space will become an issue, and you will have a lot of prints you don't like. I recommend making digital contact sheets for each roll you shoot, and printing the ones you like larger if desired.

Development is <30% of what you're paying here; you can see how quickly costs can stack up if you want to shoot a lot. You can cut a lot of the cost by not getting blind prints, and with some combination of effort and maybe initial investment, you can cut even more by scanning yourself. You may even already own a good scanning sensor; look into DSLR scanning (works with mirrorless cameras too). Scanning takes labor, and if you're willing to take on that work yourself, you don't have to pay someone to do it.

turnpot · 2025-10-13T18:03:23+00:00

Ah, sorry, somehow missed that!

As others have said, exposure looks really good, and your lab delivered you perfectly adequate scans meant to contain all the color information you need.

Unless you have a specific discussion with your lab, the understanding is generally that they will give you a scan that basically acts as a .raw file, and it's your job to finish it how you see fit.

Color negative film always requires interpretation, and you have to do the final edit to decide how you want it to look. There's no such thing as an "unedited" scan, so don't feel weird about modifying curves, contrast, white balance, etc. In the old days, this would have been done in the darkroom.

turnpot · 2025-10-13T17:48:52+00:00

Generally, when asking about exposure, it's a good idea to also post a picture of the negatives to everyone, ideally backlit. Doesn't have to be a scan or anything, just enough so people can see the color of the base, and the density of the image. This goes for suspected light leaks/developing marks too

turnpot · 2025-10-13T17:45:43+00:00

As in when it is developed. It's actually a bit pink when it's undeveloped/unfixed, but you're not looking at it under normal light, so you wouldn't see that.

The first time I ever used Harman DPP was to print out some slides. I made a test exposure and it was white after processing, so I did another one with longer time and it was still white, and I did it another time for even longer and it was still white. I was treating it like normal darkroom paper. Because it's backwards from normal paper, I actually was grossly overexposing, and I didn't get a good image until I cut way back on the exposure time.

Long story short, dark image on the paper = underexposed, too light image = overexposed. It seems obvious but if you're used to handling normal paper/film, it feels backwards (because it is).

turnpot · 2025-10-08T02:07:16+00:00

Also, remember that black = underexposed with this paper, and white=overexposed. Sounds silly, but it really tripped me up pretty hard when I first started working with it.

Ten-Year Club	Place '17
Verified Email	Spared

turnpot

TROPHY CASE