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I’m finally getting through various equipment issues – the Leicaflex is back from repair, the enlarger is aligned, the broken Rodagon enlarging lens is on its way back to Germany for repair, and my friends at National Camera hooked me up with a Nikor 80mm lens to do some medium format work in the mean time. It was really satisfying printing that first 6×6 negative and having something real come out of it.

Now the problem is I’ve made a bunch of 11×14″ prints that I can’t scan to share. I setup a makeshift copystand to take pictures of them for now, but they kind of suck, so I’ll be making some smaller prints to share this weekend.

The copystand:

This was the first 6×6 neg I enlarged – It’s a car I shot at the JJ Hill car show we (Bentley \ Maserati) sponsored last year, but unfortunately my hand was not steady and the image was blurry.

Jaguar

The next 6×6 enlargement went much better:

Studebaker

5 more pictures after the jump;

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Well, I finally feel like I got my darkroom to a place where I can print anytime I want. I still need to replace some old chemicals, and pickup some more storage jugs, but I can setup ready to print in under an hour, and teardown in 20. I decided to start tonight with some 35mm negs I’ve been wanting to print for a while. I’m happy with how they turned out. This photo was taken with my Leicaflex.

3 more photos after the jump

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Developed 5 rolls of film tonight. Feels good to get back in the darkroom. Disappointed to see the Exacta may have a film winding issue. Right now it’s overlapping by 1/4″ so about 1/2″ short of where it should be. I just had the shutter overhauled this spring so that’s a bad sign.

Otherwise there are some solid negs to work with. The Pentacon had a CLA this spring as well and this is some of the first film through it since then. The exposures are even across the frame now and the spacing is spot on. I’m happy to have this camera back in service. I’ll push the new grease this winter to test out it’s cold weather acceptance. I think the Leica is overdue for a service too so I’m down to the Pentacon and the Pentax for regular use.

I’ll Be printing tomorrow night and hopefully will have some prints scanned in this week.

In other news I’m adding some plugins and widgets and some other gadgets to the site this weekend so hopefully this site can get rolling.