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The Reduction

Godfrey

Well-known member
On getting comfortable with the M-P, I said I envisioned the goal of a lot less gear cluttering the closet by the end of the year. I meant it.

My first round of equipment sales has been successfully completed. All but one of fifteen items sold at or above the expected value, a nice lump back in the bank after all sales fees are taken care of. Round two is up now—the GXR kit which I haven't used much since I bought the M9.

Feels good. Less clutter, less mental weight.

Carrying the Polaroid SX-70 today... :)

G
 

Tim

Active member
I've had GAS and acquired gear, now having a F.A.R.T. (Freeing And Reduction Therapy) session getting rid of items that just clutter thinking.
Having some $$ available will be welcome when the next grand, must have item rounds the corner.

You carried the SX-70! I scanned some Pentax 110 film the other day...
 

Godfrey

Well-known member
I'm up to exposure six on the pack of black frame Impossible SX-70 B&W film I loaded the SX-70 with. I have a pack of round-frame 600 B&W (and the required ND filter) to go next.

I like this pace of picture taking ... :)

Second round of sale listings seems to be going well. No BIN takers yet, but every item has had a decent number of views and multiple watchers now. Couple more days to go.

Sony A7 and accessories, Leica X2 and accessories, Leica CL and accessories up next ... A couple of the R lenses that I don't use, the chrome Leicaflex SL body, maybe the Hasselblad 500CM kit too. Haven't decided about the E-PL7 yet. Yes, I really want to cut it all down to a manageable "just a little too much" rather than "gross excess" ...

G
 

iiiNelson

Well-known member
How do you like the SX70? I was checking out all the different Mint versions and the new TL70 the other day.
 

Godfrey

Well-known member
How do you like the SX70? I was checking out all the different Mint versions and the new TL70 the other day.
I love the SX-70! It's one of my all-time favorite cameras. I've owned about a dozen of them since 1973, almost all of them given to me for one reason or another. They're quirky, clumsy, weird, and delightful. A technological tour de force, the most advanced camera of its day.

This Polaroid advertisement from about 1971 is a period piece:
https://youtu.be/5jaiq_ZZ_eM

Currently, I've got two SX-70s and three SX-70 Sonar AF models, and one of MiNT's re-vamped "SLR670m" cameras. The one I like the most of this lot is the one my uncle gave me ... He bought it new in 1972 and it is in pristine shape. I shoot mostly Impossible Project SX-70 B&W film with it.

A truly unusual and wonderful camera, very different from anything else before or since... Don't get involved if you value your pocketbook ($3.50 per print) or are looking for ultra-crisp, modern photographs.


enjoy,
G
 

iiiNelson

Well-known member
Cool. Thanks for that... 1971!?! That's before I was born. I had a couple of Polaroid instant cameras growing up but I can't remember the model numbers without Googling. Just remember one was black and the other was blue. I was eyeballing the Mint SLR670m for the shutter control... or the TL70.
 

Godfrey

Well-known member
Cool. Thanks for that... 1971!?! That's before I was born. I had a couple of Polaroid instant cameras growing up but I can't remember the model numbers without Googling. Just remember one was black and the other was blue. I was eyeballing the Mint SLR670m for the shutter control... or the TL70.
Since I have the SLR670m, I'd have to say if I were going for one of the MiNT SX-70 derivatives again, I'd go for the SLR670a instead. The advantage of this model is that it takes the Impossible 600 film, which is a better emulsion than the SX-70 version (as well as two stops faster, ISO 600-640 approximately).

The manual time control in the SLR670m model allows exposure adjustment in one stop increments through the range, and you're locked into f/8. That's not precise enough for best results, particularly with instant color film. The main reason for the SLR670m is access to manually controlled exposure time for long exposures as the Auto setting is much more precise for more normal lighting (and lets both aperture and exposure time work together). The SLR670m metering is calibrated for SX-70 film speed, which works better for long exposures (less reciprocity); it's ISO 150 nominally.

I'm also looking at the TL70. It would be fun. However, it also means stocking yet another film. I'm not sure I want to get into that. I'm already stocking SX-70, 600, Spectra, and Fuji FP-3000b and FP-100c pack film for Polaroid Land 350 instant camera... There's a limit! :)

G
 

4season

Well-known member
Just for fun, I thought I'd carry my Sony RX100 as primary camera for awhile and see what developed. Mind you, this is a camera I purchased last year, only briefly used, and had been on the verge of selling. ("Nice gear but not quite the shooter's camera")

And now I'm thinking that if there was any weakness, it was due less to the hardware and more to my rapid-fire buying and selling of gear without really getting to know it as well as I should. I reconfigured it a bit, and gosh it's feeling more soulful already :LOL:

This is a roundabout way of saying that it probably wouldn't kill me to shoot more and spend less time buying and selling gear.







 

Godfrey

Well-known member
Just for fun, I thought I'd carry my Sony RX100 as primary camera for awhile and see what developed. Mind you, this is a camera I purchased last year, only briefly used, and had been on the verge of selling. ("Nice gear but not quite the shooter's camera")

And now I'm thinking that if there was any weakness, it was due less to the hardware and more to my rapid-fire buying and selling of gear without really getting to know it as well as I should. I reconfigured it a bit, and gosh it's feeling more soulful already :LOL:

This is a roundabout way of saying that it probably wouldn't kill me to shoot more and spend less time buying and selling gear.
...
Nice pix!
I think we're on the same wavelength. :)

G
 

Tim

Active member
Just for fun, I thought I'd carry my Sony RX100 as primary camera for awhile and see what developed. Mind you, this is a camera I purchased last year, only briefly used, and had been on the verge of selling. ("Nice gear but not quite the shooter's camera")
I'm a big fan of the high class compact. Hence my love of my GR and DP2M. The Leica X1/2 is one I'd like to dabble with. I think if you try them for a while you can get hooked. There is some liberation in being limited. Doing a lot with a little.

Leica X2 and accessories, Leica CL and accessories up next ...
G
I'm a bit surprised your X2 is on the list G. Your images from that have been good, but don't let me slow the cull.
 

4season

Well-known member
I'm a bit surprised your X2 is on the list G. Your images from that have been good, but don't let me slow the cull.
Speaking strictly for myself, if there's one thing I'm very very good at, it's justifying pretty d@mned near any shiny new toy that catches my eye :ROTFL: But ultimately most wind up being more distraction than anything else. Here and there, I encounter a few real game-changers, but these are relatively few and far apart.
 

Godfrey

Well-known member
I'm a big fan of the high class compact. Hence my love of my GR and DP2M. The Leica X1/2 is one I'd like to dabble with. I think if you try them for a while you can get hooked. There is some liberation in being limited. Doing a lot with a little.
...
I'm a bit surprised your X2 is on the list G. Your images from that have been good, but don't let me slow the cull.
The X2 is great, but I've got the X now, too much overlap...
I'll sell you mine! :-!

G
 

Tim

Active member
The X2 is great, but I've got the X now, too much overlap...
I'll sell you mine! :-!

G
ahh, that explains the X2 on the block. I'd also probably keep the latter.
Your supposed to help me not buy more! :deadhorse:
 

Godfrey

Well-known member
ahh, that explains the X2 on the block. I'd also probably keep the latter.
You're supposed to help me not buy more! :deadhorse:
LOL! I'm trying to be helpful. ;-)

Just back from my Saturday morning walk. I made 35 exposures with the M-P using Nokton 50/1.5 and M-Rokkor 90/4 lenses. Arrived home, dumped them into LR, selected all, applied three of my presets, fussed with the Effects panel and the Radial filter a little bit, created a slide show with some music. While the set could stand some editing down, every one of them is a photograph I would be happy to show. Gads, I love this camera.

Round two of The Reduction went well with just two items unsold, most everything bringing in what I expected or close to it. Round three coming up ...

G
 

4season

Well-known member
Round two of The Reduction went well with just two items unsold, most everything bringing in what I expected or close to it. Round three coming up ...
I've gotten into the habit of photographing new toys as they arrive into my life, and looking at these along with the product shots I do as I'm preparing to dispose of them, reminds me of where I've been.

In fact, I've coined a term for the act of saving myself the bother of having to sell stuff on eBay: I call it "PreBaying". For instance, I just blundered into a sale of a Canon Rebel 5 and Nikon J5 @ Target: Either one with kit zoom is $299! And yet, what would they do for me besides provide me with a brief bit of novelty? Hence, I PreBayed them i.e. left the store empty-handed. Come to think of it, I already did the what-can-I-do-with-a-really-cheap-SLR experiment a couple of years ago (Sony A35 w/kit zoom), and if I were a normal person, I could've stopped right there. :ROTFL:
 

herrbarnack

New member
...I said I envisioned the goal of a lot less gear cluttering the closet by the end of the year...
G
I ended up with a lot less gear when I traded in my Nikon collection on my M240. A year later, I upgraded to the M-P Safari set, which cleaned out the remainder of my Nikon gear. For the first time in 20+ years, I have no Nikon SLR kit, no zoom lenses.

I have only rangefinder cameras now, M-P Safari, M4-P, XPAN II, Rollei 35SE and Nikonos V - and no regrets.
 

Godfrey

Well-known member
It's good.
There's a noticeable reduction in clutter already, and I'm just getting into the heavy stuff.

I will keep my Nikon kit, however.

G
 

4season

Well-known member
It must be camera collection-downsizing season:

http://theonlinephotographer.typepad.com/the_online_photographer/2015/05/oops-and-hmbl-ed-needs-advice.html

http://visualsciencelab.blogspot.com/2015/05/camera-stuff-traditional-photography.html

My neighborhood camera store (Mike's Camera) held one of their bi-annual tent sale/expo this weekend: Sony NEX-7s for ~$450, NEX5Ts for $300, Olympus EM5 refurbs for $319 and so on. Was tempted to get one of those EM5s, but another customer was hovering over the small stack of boxes and seemed intent on going through each one, and I didn't feel like waiting around. Whole bunch of Sony RX1s and RX1rs available too, but at $2275 they weren't seeming like can't-miss deals. I ended up wandering through the store twice this past weekend and was tempted by at least a half-dozen items, but wound up buying nothing at all which came as a mild surprise to me.
 
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