tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-81239896476595695182024-03-13T14:47:36.640+01:00Between light and shadow, a borderline...Roy Karlsvikhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17805712465787215923noreply@blogger.comBlogger380125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8123989647659569518.post-13780798741987288352020-04-14T05:38:00.001+02:002020-04-14T05:38:49.398+02:00Life on board a working ship, Part I<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">OK, so by some sort of request I'm about to write a bit more than just a few words about something completely different from the usual stuff. Not a word about film photography or developing this time, and only digital photos I'm afraid. That's because you probably like to see what I'm talking about... in colours and everything else your hearts may like or not. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">It's a long post, and there will be more to come I'm afraid. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">So go grab a large cup of tea or coffee or whatever suits you the better, and find a comfortable chair if you feel like going through this thing. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">I'm going to talk about the ship I work on, and a little bit about what's happening inside this rather closed world, and I'm probably going to talk about some of the things we have to deal with on a more or less daily basis. This can very well turn out to become a way too long and probably boring (at least to some) post, so I might even split it into two or even several parts, just to really rub it all in. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">Let's just start and see wherever this takes me.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">Questions may of course be asked in the comments section below about whatever is unclear (I'm sure there is a lot...), and I'll try to shed some further light onto whatever you may wonder about.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">Other comments are of course also very much welcome if you wish.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">I have removed the name of the ship from all pictures as I'm showing a bit of stuff from inside where it all happens. Not like I'm showing off any secrets or things like that, but still you know. </span><br />
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<i>The ship. </i></div>
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<i>I have been working on board this piece of steel for a total of 11 years. Two years as a third engineer from 2003/-05 and then I came back as a chief engineer in 2011 and have been working here ever since. I guess this picture was taken not too long after our 2014 yard stay as she seems to have had a quite recent paint job done to her exterior. I also notice the blue tower thing on deck which has been removed now, containers and stuff placed there instead. Unknown photographer, taken from a different vessel in our company. </i></div>
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<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;"><u>General vessel description:</u></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">The ship itself is by todays standard a rather small Multi Purpose Support Vessel, or MPSV. She was built in Norway, finished in 1999 and was the last vessel ever to be built at this particular shipyard. She is about 103 meters long, 22 meters wide, have a Gross Tonnage of 7400 T and a dead weight of 6350 t. It's a DP Class 3 vessel (more on that later) equipped with two tunnel thrusters in the bow, one retractable thruster just aft of the two tunnel thrusters in the front, and two azimuth thrusters aft. All five thrusters are usually in use when the vessel is in DP operation. For conventional steaming forward, to get us from A to B, only the two aft thrusters will be in use.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">All five thrusters are individually powered by big electric motors which are fed by 690 Volt, 60 Hz AC current generated by a total of four diesel engines powering one 2400 kW generator each. The electric power is fed from the generators into the main switchboards where the power is distributed to each and every consumer of electric power on board the ship via smaller switchboards and cabinets around the vessel.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">There are multiple quite heavy consumers all around the ship, but by far the biggest will be the aft thrusters (3 Mega Watt each), the forward tunnel thrusters (about 1000 kW each) and the retractable azimuth (about 1200 kW). The tunnel thrusters in the bow is designed to only work directly sideways to turn the bow either starboard or port, while the three azimuth thrusters can turn 360 degrees individually (computer controlled) to keep the vessel exactly positioned above a small point at the sea bed as required when the ROV's are working way below the vessel (at around 2000 meters depth on the field we have been working on lately).</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">There is also a 100 Tonne capacity crane on deck which draws some power when in use, and of course the accommodation with all the lights and heating in addition to all the pumps and equipment down in the engine room which also draws their part of electric power from the generators.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">Below is a few examples of some of the heavier consumers on board. Not all of them, but still you'll get the idea. </span><br />
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<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-o8vAg6QBZac/XpPeFkOJppI/AAAAAAAADtk/SUGMnx0263QXzKxZFLmU91b7H0woyH7uACLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/92290048_159253345354144_2158587761957797888_n.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="480" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-o8vAg6QBZac/XpPeFkOJppI/AAAAAAAADtk/SUGMnx0263QXzKxZFLmU91b7H0woyH7uACLcBGAsYHQ/s640/92290048_159253345354144_2158587761957797888_n.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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<i>The drive motor for the forward Azimuth. Can deliver about 1500 kW of power. The drive shaft is sticking out of the motor on the right side here, but you can't see it in this picture. The two white pipes going into the side of it is the water cooling pipes going in and back out. It's quite hard to make good overview pictures on board as there's always something obstructing the view in some way. The picture is taken from above, so not very informative of size and such. About 2x2x1 meters is my best guess. </i></div>
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<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-mt6FsUJ48Es/XpPfqtnGn7I/AAAAAAAADuc/p_fBjaZPE_AIW1ys2ooZAyj-JoiQILdMgCLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/92575794_217991905939165_2939489597500948480_n.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="480" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-mt6FsUJ48Es/XpPfqtnGn7I/AAAAAAAADuc/p_fBjaZPE_AIW1ys2ooZAyj-JoiQILdMgCLcBGAsYHQ/s640/92575794_217991905939165_2939489597500948480_n.jpg" width="640" /></a><br />
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<i>The drive motor for one of the two side thrusters, or tunnel thrusters. The drive shaft from this one is going straight down through the upper part of the tunnel and into the gear of the thruster making the propeller go around the right way, creating a side force in the bow area. I think each of these motors are about 1000 or 1200 kW. </i></div>
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<i>I put this one in as well, even though it's not the heaviest of consumers on board. A hydraulic power pack designed with three pumps to be able to adjust the amount of hydraulic oil going through the system depending on the need of power at any moment. It can keep multiple quite heavy machines running all at once if needed. </i></div>
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<i>Not a very heavy consumer either, but it does require quite some energy to keep the insides of the accommodation relatively cool when working in hot climate. This is the AC unit taking care of cooling down most of the living areas on board. We got two of these, as they tend to have some troubles from time to time. We just changed out this units twin machine with a brand new one... it was not very old either. You would expect a bit more than 20 running hours from a unit with a price tag of a very good used car...</i></div>
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<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-TsrcKfjGZJg/XpPe0Pt3XhI/AAAAAAAADuA/hwFhZYE4jqsymEmE32YZISdhSag0uxP9QCLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/92367875_2659106431000304_3518193113006866432_n.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1200" height="640" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-TsrcKfjGZJg/XpPe0Pt3XhI/AAAAAAAADuA/hwFhZYE4jqsymEmE32YZISdhSag0uxP9QCLcBGAsYHQ/s640/92367875_2659106431000304_3518193113006866432_n.jpg" width="480" /></a></div>
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<i>This is an overview from one of the two main switchboard rooms. All the power from the generators are going through the breakers and switches inside this area before being fed out to individual and smaller breaker cabinets for the different consumers around the vessel. The power distribution didn't come as an afterthought on board a vessel like this one, even though it's over 20 years old this year. Most of the big breakers in this room is usually remotely controlled from the Engine Control Room, but everything can also be switched and phased in manually the old school way if needed. </i></div>
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<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-EXSXCW1bmQI/XpPf8TSkt8I/AAAAAAAADuo/l_is0eN7mF0nk_dgQLK9cLSmaENDV7o4gCLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/92809716_2560739104190927_5006506341720653824_n.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="480" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-EXSXCW1bmQI/XpPf8TSkt8I/AAAAAAAADuo/l_is0eN7mF0nk_dgQLK9cLSmaENDV7o4gCLcBGAsYHQ/s640/92809716_2560739104190927_5006506341720653824_n.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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<i>You are looking at the hydraulic pumps powering one of the steering gear plants. There are two of these machines, one in each of the aft thruster rooms. They each consists of two completely independent pumps, meaning if one is going bad the other one will start and take over the job. One pump to the right, the other one in the center of the picture. The stuff to the left and in the background is the fresh water coolers for the circulating oil in this system. </i></div>
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<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-5it-fC9EK70/XpPdU0H87RI/AAAAAAAADtM/MNq5gCtARPIPYDY0AJFSykh4e1uhwqhUgCLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/92218077_2612096735693513_3412884157041213440_n.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1200" height="640" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-5it-fC9EK70/XpPdU0H87RI/AAAAAAAADtM/MNq5gCtARPIPYDY0AJFSykh4e1uhwqhUgCLcBGAsYHQ/s640/92218077_2612096735693513_3412884157041213440_n.jpg" width="480" /></a></div>
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<i>It's not a good picture at all, but the grey thing to the left is the 3000 kW electric motor for one of the main thrusters aft. The green thing in the center is the visible part of the thruster itself. Basically there's a horizontal drive shaft coming out of the electric motor which transfer the power via a coupling over to the pinion shaft at the power intake of the thruster, goes inside the green thing via a huge bevel gear and the power is distributed down the main shaft inside the thruster to a bevel gear down in the hub under water and out to the propeller itself. Most of the thruster room you see here is taken up by the power converter for the electric motor (not visible in the picture though). It's a quite fancy thing actually, even though the only part we usually will see are the dull grey cabinets. </i></div>
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<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-IBLnWngXaMc/XpPdjtOEEVI/AAAAAAAADtQ/d8JP_5y308MHMdhMXkVcw1zuTFir2BQ0ACLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/92254589_255823932246604_5264914165775990784_n.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="480" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-IBLnWngXaMc/XpPdjtOEEVI/AAAAAAAADtQ/d8JP_5y308MHMdhMXkVcw1zuTFir2BQ0ACLcBGAsYHQ/s640/92254589_255823932246604_5264914165775990784_n.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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<i>A closer view of the top of the aft thruster as were described in the previous picture. The coupling between the electric motor and the thruster is found underneath the aluminium cover on the left side of the picture. The two red things in the lower part are the steering motors for the thruster. There are three of them as one is hidden on the other side of the thruster. They are actually just slow turning (low RPM) hydraulic motors driven by the steering gear pumps I showed you a couple of pictures above this one.</i></div>
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<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-1UDgKDWJ_4k/XpPdqyeXF6I/AAAAAAAADtU/G-Y7WqA4JtoSB-50k6-aslsiCOerOOhvgCLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/92258879_612336056160233_6286499122409111552_n.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="480" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-1UDgKDWJ_4k/XpPdqyeXF6I/AAAAAAAADtU/G-Y7WqA4JtoSB-50k6-aslsiCOerOOhvgCLcBGAsYHQ/s640/92258879_612336056160233_6286499122409111552_n.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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<i>The ID plate for one of the main propulsion electric motors.</i></div>
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<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Gn-LKy-CXxY/XpPen-SL3TI/AAAAAAAADt8/zGoRJRdQuXsvsYV1iU_Z1S9UdmV4DTpnwCLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/92343267_651103635678447_5397036735714557952_n.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1200" height="640" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Gn-LKy-CXxY/XpPen-SL3TI/AAAAAAAADt8/zGoRJRdQuXsvsYV1iU_Z1S9UdmV4DTpnwCLcBGAsYHQ/s640/92343267_651103635678447_5397036735714557952_n.jpg" width="480" /></a></div>
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<i>And finally a few snaps of the things always at work to keep everything moving as it should. The diesel generator sets which is the heart of the power station. Two of them in each engine room making sure we got light in the bulbs and hot water for our showers at all times.</i></div>
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<i>The Non-Drive end of the engine is where you'll find all the pumps and all the other things which is internally powered by the engine itself. All pumps in this end will also have an electrically driven twin, just in case one of the internal pumps should fail. They are fuel pumps, lub oil pumps, a couple of fresh water pumps (High temp and low temp as these engines got two separate cooling circuits), water heaters, lub oil filters and so on.</i></div>
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<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-nlQSmskg2Uw/XpPeTGl426I/AAAAAAAADts/X82tpjNAKtEmGSyqADf17tV-g2diUAFaQCLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/92331415_243827583435907_1512582121808461824_n.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="480" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-nlQSmskg2Uw/XpPeTGl426I/AAAAAAAADts/X82tpjNAKtEmGSyqADf17tV-g2diUAFaQCLcBGAsYHQ/s640/92331415_243827583435907_1512582121808461824_n.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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<i>A better view of the engine. 9 cylinders in-line, the pump end is furthest away from the camera, with the drive end to the left in the picture. The dark green unit to the left is the actuator, which is controlled by an electronic governor to maintain a speed of 720 rpm on the engine at all times. This is to make sure we always get 690 Volts at 60 Hz out of the engine. If some consumer suddenly needs more power, the rpm will suddenly drop. The governor will then immediately discover the engine slowing down (we are talking fine tuning here, so a drop of only a couple of rpm will be enough for the governor to react) and send a signal down to the green actuator which in turn will adjust all nine fuel pumps to pump more fuel into the engine cylinders to keep it steady at 720 rpm. Clever, huh...? </i></div>
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<i>It's not the best of pictures, but as I mentioned earlier it's not the easiest of tasks to get a good overview of the engine room areas. You are still looking at one of the main engines with it's nine top covers there in the background, the grey exhaust channel to the left, and the generator closest to the camera. The generators are capable of an output of a maximum of 2400 kW each. The main engines around 2600 kW each. The system is designed in such a way that only the numbers of generators really needed will run at any moment of time, but that is also dependent on which DP class we are working in at the moment. Diesel engines are working at their most effective (lowest fuel consumption versus kW of output) when running at around 90% load. </i></div>
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<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;"><u>Capacities:</u></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">A modern ship hull is of course built with a double bottom and double sides. Between the sea and the inner parts of the vessel there are tanks. A lot of them. Mainly there are ballast tanks used to keep the vessel more or less even, or to keep us a bit lower in the water if we are sitting too high in the water and so on. This is stuff the guys on the bridge are trained to deal with. Down in the engine room we are doing our best to keep them busy by moving diesel and other stuff around in awkward ways. This vessel has a total capacity of XXXX tonnes of ballast more or less evenly spread all over the place. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">We also need diesel to keep this thing running. If bunkering all fuel tanks to the 90% mark we can carry about 2500 cubic meters of fuel. There are a few quite interesting mathematic problems I could make up for you to solve involving this amount of fuel and a normal family car... but I'll leave it all to you.<br />About the diesel itself there's nothing much to say other than the fact that the world finally have put restrictions on the amount of Sulphur we are allowed to have in the diesel we bunker. During the last twenty years the percentage of sulphur has been reduced heavily, and I always try to get the one with the absolutely lowest amount if possible. Some places it's a bit hard to get, but in most cases it can be done. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">We don't use heavy fuel in any of our ships, luckily. I will not start to discuss that sort of thing, but just want to say that I think it's about time the shipping industry start to pollute a bit less even though we all are a million times better at that now than we used to be some years back. And we will get a lot better in the years to come. I will try to remember to write a few words about that in a later post. We are still not good enough of course, but everything we hear about alternative power sources might not be the best way forward either. I will share a few thoughts about it a bit later, probably. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">Finally we got the fresh water tanks. We don't have a huge capacity for that sort of thing, but you can wash quite a lot of clothes and get a few showers out of half a million liters of clean fresh water. We are producing our own water on board, and on a normal day we produce quite a bit more than we use. We like to run the water production anyway to make sure we got a good buffer of water on board in case we run into issues with one or two of our three independent water makers. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">There are also a few lub. oil tanks built into the hull, but these are small compared to the others mentioned above. Maybe something like a total of 40 000 liters of lub oil, but probably a bit less. I'm not the type of guy walking around picking numbers like that from the top of my head. I know where I can find the numbers, which is what counts anyway. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">In between some of the tanks and around moon pools etc. there are cofferdams. They are there to make sure we discover if any leaks from tanks should occur, and also to make sure there are extra barriers between two tanks containing fluids important not to mix. </span><br />
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<i>A drawing of all the tanks on board. I'm really sorry about the daft picture due to reflections and stuff, but it was of course impossible to make it better unless taking everything out of the frame and such. I just couldn't bother starting that sort of job. Hopefully you will be able to zoom in and have a look at it, and if not I might be able to send you a better copy if you are that interested... </i></div>
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<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-BqagzSv0hWA/XpUFrM6emeI/AAAAAAAADvg/LmTuk-wJnz8s7XdyI5a6BgEZrYIdKqGFgCLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/92850575_697365844402545_4025816573326393344_n.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1297" height="640" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-BqagzSv0hWA/XpUFrM6emeI/AAAAAAAADvg/LmTuk-wJnz8s7XdyI5a6BgEZrYIdKqGFgCLcBGAsYHQ/s640/92850575_697365844402545_4025816573326393344_n.jpg" width="518" /></a></div>
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<i>With every tank drawing on any vessel there will be a corresponding table like this where the most important overview and numbers for each tank is printed. The weight the tank is designed for, the total amount of fluids you can put into it, it's center of gravity and how far above the keel and out to the side that point is (LCG, TCG and VCG), all important stuff to know about when filling or emptying the tanks of a vessel. There's a lot more to know of course, which is why there are huge books full of numbers for each tank on board and how they infect the stability of the ship for every centimeter it's filled. Very boring readings, of course... I might show you some other day.</i></div>
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<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-mScovKiG_sw/XpUDrlGb5zI/AAAAAAAADvA/ECMT_YgYVYQP6VvIAz2_JLSWYSehtwM5gCLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/92935874_268815734135032_7247237406208819200_n.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1464" data-original-width="1600" height="584" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-mScovKiG_sw/XpUDrlGb5zI/AAAAAAAADvA/ECMT_YgYVYQP6VvIAz2_JLSWYSehtwM5gCLcBGAsYHQ/s640/92935874_268815734135032_7247237406208819200_n.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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<i>Well... I just go on and show you the full list of tanks and their capacities. Just dig yourselves into it, or leave them be, whatever you please.</i></div>
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<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-ugYGb-xRY0I/XpUDrs958gI/AAAAAAAADvE/ZQ20-ixxExkQtGwKYhwW-kcaP60G6w_SQCLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/93154218_213623823262729_1487050856221114368_n.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1240" height="640" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-ugYGb-xRY0I/XpUDrs958gI/AAAAAAAADvE/ZQ20-ixxExkQtGwKYhwW-kcaP60G6w_SQCLcBGAsYHQ/s640/93154218_213623823262729_1487050856221114368_n.jpg" width="496" /></a></div>
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<i>Here we are... the small tanks now. Lub oil, hydraulic oil and stuff like that. </i></div>
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<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-9LrkTAa8W6E/XpUDtK-SwOI/AAAAAAAADvM/pQy_6cWOnQEPWVqpdnWH99-0BTJQG7owACLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/93691617_619166195335479_7176898473399156736_n.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1090" height="640" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-9LrkTAa8W6E/XpUDtK-SwOI/AAAAAAAADvM/pQy_6cWOnQEPWVqpdnWH99-0BTJQG7owACLcBGAsYHQ/s640/93691617_619166195335479_7176898473399156736_n.jpg" width="434" /></a></div>
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<i>And at last on the list there's the tiny ones... the ones we never think is noted anywhere, but they actually are when starting looking into it.</i></div>
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<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;"><u>Power distribution: </u></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">A large part of operating engines on a level like this involves different ways to control power and have it sent to wherever it's needed. It also involves always keeping your mind alert to the fact that things are not always going according to plan, and therefore we always have to plan for the worse and have a "safe way out" readily at hand. But that's a long story to be honest, and nothing to start messing around with on a blog. <br />To be able to control the power distribution and the load sharing between the engines and generators, turn pumps and other equipment on and off, opening and closing of a myriad of valves and a lot of other more or less interesting functions, we got the SVC or Simrad Vessel Control system. This is a computer system which is constantly monitoring all functions, all valve positions, the levels in all of the tanks, the levels in all of the bilge wells around the vessel, hundreds of different temperatures, pressures, which pumps are running and which ones are not, and so on. There are five stand alone computers in this system, and they are set-up in such a way that all five computers are doing the same job checking the same things every second around the clock, every day of the year. This is to ensure that if one or more computers shuts down there will (hopefully) always be at least one working to make us able to run all functions in a safe way. The computers are also physically placed in two completely different locations on board (two on the bridge and three in the engine control room) in case of a major event meaning we have lost a huge part of the ship (fire, flooding etc.).</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">I'll show you a few of the graphics from the SVC system below. Keep in mind that these are the simple outlines of any of the systems, and not anywhere near the full picture of how things are put together. To see all valves (manually operated) you got to look into the drawings of each system and follow the pipelines to get the full view of how everything is put together. </span><br />
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<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-F9EuAlKDZyM/XpUk7-JDOnI/AAAAAAAADw4/sgja5CnNX5A2MYFvOdcUjx6TS7xBoVIFgCLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/Power%2B2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="724" data-original-width="961" height="482" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-F9EuAlKDZyM/XpUk7-JDOnI/AAAAAAAADw4/sgja5CnNX5A2MYFvOdcUjx6TS7xBoVIFgCLcBGAsYHQ/s640/Power%2B2.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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<i>All pictures and pages inside the SVC system are quite important, but some are a bit more important than a few of the others. This is the main Power distribution picture, and shows us what's running at any moment, how the main switchboard breakers are configured and a lot of other useful information. I will not use time to explain this right now, but will come back to it in another post. It's not that difficult either, so you can probably figure out most of it by yourselves. Green means running, white means stopped. Only one generator is running at the moment at an output of lousy 419 kW and with no thrusters or propellers running. That's because the ship is at anchor as I write this...</i></div>
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<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-zjTO_HYF4-U/XpUd03OdD0I/AAAAAAAADv4/8gCJM6CYitwtyEQN6vnqLHqw1qFEv3D1ACLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/Aft%2Bpropulsion.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1151" data-original-width="1600" height="460" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-zjTO_HYF4-U/XpUd03OdD0I/AAAAAAAADv4/8gCJM6CYitwtyEQN6vnqLHqw1qFEv3D1ACLcBGAsYHQ/s640/Aft%2Bpropulsion.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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<i>Port Azimuth aft. This is the schematics of the azimuth showed a bit earlier in this post. You will see one pump running which is a lub oil pump to maintain lubrication to the big bevel gears. The steering gear is showed in the upper left part of the picture and the cluster of four small oil pumps lubricating the fine bearings of the electric motor is showed just below the motor itself. Inside the motor we can read the temperature in each of the three windings of the motor, and also the Drive End and Non Drive End bearing temperatures. We also have control of the different oil pressures and also the cooling water temperatures among other things. This is the same for all thrusters. To the left in the picture there are two "clocks" showing the direction of steering (upper) and the output power of the thruster in question. All the small squares scattered around the picture is an alarm point which will turn red if there is an alarm state in any of the sensors.</i></div>
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<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-5vvzBX11uag/XpUd09SCPDI/AAAAAAAADv8/EmyY3chpM_kgbo5X1zKa7HEysCc8SAmdwCLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/Ballast.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1166" data-original-width="1600" height="466" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-5vvzBX11uag/XpUd09SCPDI/AAAAAAAADv8/EmyY3chpM_kgbo5X1zKa7HEysCc8SAmdwCLcBGAsYHQ/s640/Ballast.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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<i>Ballast tanks and ballast pumps which is also acting as fire pumps if you press the right buttons. To open any of the valves you simply select a valve, do a "right click" and select "Open" on the next menu. The valve will turn green in the picture when the feedback sensor on the valve has registered the valve to actually be open. When all the right valves shows the right position you may start the right pump to either fill more ballast, move it from one tank to the other, or simply get rid of it. All the ballast tanks contains sea water. There are strict rules these days about how often the ballast water needs to be changed, and where you can actually pump it out and where you absolutely not are allowed to get rid of it. The filling level of the tanks are marked in green. </i></div>
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<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-dGVQ67sfdF0/XpUd3QxraJI/AAAAAAAADwI/6yUv_BMRaQA-qflN6Acn3Xs1buAcxmOEACLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/Fuel%2Bcargo.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1225" data-original-width="1600" height="490" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-dGVQ67sfdF0/XpUd3QxraJI/AAAAAAAADwI/6yUv_BMRaQA-qflN6Acn3Xs1buAcxmOEACLcBGAsYHQ/s640/Fuel%2Bcargo.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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<i>These are the diesel tanks. The same thing applies here as it did in the ballast picture about opening and closing valves. The colour code for diesel is yellow as opposed to the green colour for the sea water. You are looking at the cargo tanks here. The engines can not take their diesel directly from these tanks, so we need to use the pumps indicated in the middle of this picture to pump diesel from one of these tanks over to the "settling tank". It will then be sent through a diesel separator to get particles and water out of the fuel before it enters the day tank. The engines are taking their fuel from the day tanks. One settling tank and one day tank on each side of the vessel.</i></div>
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<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-ehhYDSpxC54/XpUd3mFoPJI/AAAAAAAADwM/rUG9mcOl8248II1PLtG0lz1SADjE3cNnQCLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/Fuel%2Bconsumption.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1175" data-original-width="1600" height="470" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-ehhYDSpxC54/XpUd3mFoPJI/AAAAAAAADwM/rUG9mcOl8248II1PLtG0lz1SADjE3cNnQCLcBGAsYHQ/s640/Fuel%2Bconsumption.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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<i>Here they are, the day tanks and settling tanks (upper and lower in the center of the picture) and the two diesel separators (lower left corner and the other one middle and a bit left). Main engines are drawn in to the right, and there's also the smaller emergency diesel generator drawn into this picture. All the white lines are some of the pipes and valves in the fuel system, but there are a lot of minor connections not visible here.</i></div>
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<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-482P-Hbw6Y0/XpUd296XjMI/AAAAAAAADwE/D_VgPwJ7-h4nE5RiWCGBNUeAUJ5wbxoWwCLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/FW%2Bcooling.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1206" data-original-width="1600" height="482" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-482P-Hbw6Y0/XpUd296XjMI/AAAAAAAADwE/D_VgPwJ7-h4nE5RiWCGBNUeAUJ5wbxoWwCLcBGAsYHQ/s640/FW%2Bcooling.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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<i>Large diesel engines needs a bit of cooling down at times. This is the main system for the diesel engines. There is a high temp cooling circuit for the top covers cooling, and a low temperature cooling circuit for more or less the rest of the engine. The heat taken away from the main engines are used to heat up other components in need of heat, and is also used to make fresh drinking water out of sea water through a couple of evaporators. </i></div>
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<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-9Y3M20vTD6Q/XpUd1Wi83eI/AAAAAAAADwA/5teTgAVdA-Y_SXAa4H_eMUvQVEOMG1YIgCLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/FW%2BMachinery.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1203" data-original-width="1600" height="480" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-9Y3M20vTD6Q/XpUd1Wi83eI/AAAAAAAADwA/5teTgAVdA-Y_SXAa4H_eMUvQVEOMG1YIgCLcBGAsYHQ/s640/FW%2BMachinery.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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<i>And here's the rest of the fresh water cooling system, all the auxiliary units in need of cooling. There's a few of them, as you will notice. </i></div>
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<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-lzq-iwyz1D0/XpUd4oE25sI/AAAAAAAADwQ/BuRUJXwhZcs1IDkKUZBqpHv91BG009-EACLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/Lubrication.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1174" data-original-width="1600" height="468" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-lzq-iwyz1D0/XpUd4oE25sI/AAAAAAAADwQ/BuRUJXwhZcs1IDkKUZBqpHv91BG009-EACLcBGAsYHQ/s640/Lubrication.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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<i>Main lubrication picture. You would not get very far if this system started to fail.</i></div>
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<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;"><u>What exactly does DP mean?</u></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">DP, or Dynamic Positioning operations are what we're doing during our daily work. This simply means that the vessel can be set to one specific position with the bow heading in any preferred direction and stay at that exact point for as long as it takes to get a specific job done. Sometimes it means a few minutes, other times it will mean several weeks or even months. The ship can also be moved in any direction and at any speed (inside limits of course), with the bow heading wherever, only by pressing the right buttons on the DP operation station up on the bridge. This is of course another big computer, or in fact three computers doing the same job. There are two DP computers on the main bridge, and one on the emergency bridge meaning we can still be in full operation even if the main bridge has been totally damaged for some reason.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">The DP system is given information from multiple sources to know exactly where the vessel is located, and there has to be at least three different navigation sources active where none of them are allowed to be connected to each other in any way either electrically or in other ways. If they are based on satellites they are not to be working towards the same satellites due to redundancy issues if one particular satellite drops dead for some reason. As you might understand there's a lot of international rules and regulations that comes into play for a DP Class 3 system. I am obviously only scratching the surface here, and in addition I am not at all to be counted as any expert on the matters.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">We even got a separate underwater positioning system where a retractable transmitter located underneath the vessel sends out signals which is reflected from beacons we sometimes have placed on the sea bed in known positions. This is a quite accurate system based on something that looks like a mirrorball sending out rays of signals in a lot of directions across it's sphere, and picking them up when their echoes return. This will give the computer system information about the ships movement (heave and rolling from waves by the aid of other instruments (MRU's) on board) which is used by the ROV winches to pay in or slack out wire to keep the TMS (ROV docking station which is located deep in the water) completely at ease relative to the seabed. The same goes for the crane which has the same type of heave compensation to be able to keep the hook completely still at a certain level above the seabed. This is of course to ensure no damage to any very expensive equipment down there. This means that no matter how much the vessel is being thrown up and down, hither and dither, the ROV's and the crane hook is not very much affected of that sort of thing. At least not when looking at these items position relative to the earth herself.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;"><u>DP Class 3, where the real fun begins:</u></span>
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">The DP Class 3 notation of this vessel means, among a lot of other things, that we got a bunch of extras. I have already mentioned the precautions taken on the bridge with the separate emergency station which is located in a room of it's own. Most of the extras, special requirements, precautions and of course lots of money spent, are to be found deeper down in the engine room area.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">First of all we got two physically separated main engine rooms, pump rooms and thruster rooms. On this vessel this means a longitudinal bulkhead stretching almost from bow to stern dividing the vessel below deck into a starboard and a port side. However the front part of the vessel is divided into another two fully separated zones, one in front of the other, where the bow thrusters and the swing-up azimuth are to be found among some other equipment. Both bow thrusters are in separate zones to make sure any fault on one of them can not affect the operation of the other unit. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">The two sides of the main engine room areas are divided by water- and fireproof bulkheads with fire- and waterproof doors installed. If one of the sides for some reason becomes totally useless, there is a requirement that the vessel should still have adequate station keeping abilities. In plain words this would mean that if one side of the engine areas burns out (knocking heavily on wood...), the idea is we should still be able to keep our position and continuing working doing whatever we did before the event. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">This is of course not a very likely scenario for the work we are doing these days which is just simply placing of seismic nodes at the seabed, which would of course easily be aborted if something happened. However, in a situation when working on equipment fixed to the seabed close to an oil rig or being attached with crane and ROV's to a well head or something extremely important down there, it could actually be a matter of life or death to a lot of people, or the difference between avoiding an environmental disaster or not.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">In short this means we got two more or less exactly mirrored engine rooms all the way from bow to stern, meaning we got two of every single piece of kit and equipment. Or, that's not exactly the truth either, because some bright brains also figured out 20 years ago that if the shit really hits the fan at some point leaving us with only one engine room, what then if a simple cooling pump or whichever component on the still working side started to fail? Oh yes... so not only do we have double up of everything due to having two similar engine rooms, but in addition we are also set-up with a double up of all the important stuff on each side of the vessel as well. So whatever you'll find in any other conventional vessel, we got four of the same thing. And we are not exactly badly equipped from the beginning. It's called redundancy... or overkill as some would probably silently think for themselves. I call it peace of mind, and a hell of a lot of extra work when it comes to maintenance, obviously. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">Because that's my teams main job, to keep all of these bits and bobs maintained and in a good working condition at all times.</span><br />
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<i>It's nothing special, just a tiny little but quite good example of a double setup of the fresh water cooling pumps for the aft azimuths on port side of the vessel. One of the pumps will be defined as the "Duty" pump, and the other will then be the "Stand-by" pump. We can change the sequence for any pair of pumps on board by a press of a button in the engine control room.</i></div>
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<i>The lower pipe is the suction pipe going into the pumps, being split to feed both pumps from one main pipe. There will always be water on the suction side of both pumps as a non return valve is mounted just in front of the intake of each pump. Same thing on the pressure side (upper pipe). Separate outlets from the pumps going into the same pipe feeding the cooler further down the line. Both pumps got a pressure transmitter on the pressure side which is constantly sending a signal to the computers. If the pressure on the main line is getting too low, the stand-by pump will start and the pressure will normally rise (at least as long as there's not a block in the suction pipe or something like that...). There are a lot of similar constructions around this vessel, working the same way.</i></div>
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<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;"><u>Maintenance, and how to keep track:</u></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">To make sure everything is well maintained at all times, we got a computer based maintenance system. Every single routine job has been registered and put into the system with the right periodic notation to make sure it shows up on the work list in due time. When the job has been done a short or longer service report has to be made for the various jobs. Most of the jobs are only small check jobs and light maintenance, but some are bigger jobs which usually is a bit harder to actually get done as long as the vessel is working in DP operations, simply because of the fact that if you isolate some equipment to do work on it you have taken away the safety of the double-up (redundancy) idea. Still, depending on which DP class we are working in at any time, we might be able to get the job done anyway. After all we are not working in DP class 3 all the time. DP class 1 and 2 are lighter versions of DP class 3, requiring less redundancy and better chances for the engine dept. to get their maintenance done in time. In other words we quite like DP1 and 2 a lot better than DP3.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">Anyway the list of overdue jobs will sometimes grow to be quite long, which in turn might lead to a needed stop for maintenance. These tends to be a stop over maybe a couple of days or so to get at least most of the overdue jobs done in a good way. Most of the time for normal maintenance we will discuss the best time to get the job done with the client, making it as smooth as practically possible. There will be times when both parties need to get ashore and stay alongside for a couple of days for several reasons. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">Usually this works well enough, but we might be in need of highly specialized on-shore facilities with special tools to get some of the more special and heavy jobs done, which is not the easiest thing to find in every corner of the world.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">On a ship like this, which is designed to be sent into operations world wide, we need to be quite well stocked-up on spare parts and tools of more or less any thinkable and sometimes unthinkable sorts.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">It is a bit scary sometimes to think about the fact that for instance a small ÂŁ30,- bearing missing from the stock might stop a million dollars a day operation just like that. In short you have to make sure that exact bearing is on board, and just as important you have to make sure both you and any other engineer can find it the day you need it. Every single spare part on board the vessel is of course also registered into the same computer system which takes care of the job list and a lot of other functions I am not going to talk about here and now. The name and type of spare part will be registered along with the location of where it is to be found, how many items we got of the thing and when it was put there. All spare parts got a sticker attached to it, making it easy to remember to register all spares used for any maintenance job to make sure the spares has been taken out of the system to keep count of them. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;"><u>Different types of maintenance:</u></span>
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">One thing is the planned maintenance and all the jobs falling under that umbrella. Those are typically oil changes, checking vibrations in a pump, check for leaks, change of bearings, send oil samples for laboratory check and so on. Light maintenance, usually weekly checks or at least calendar based. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">Some heavier maintenance is hour based, making it important to keep track of the running hours of all the machines and electric motors on board. This will involve typically 15000 hrs. or 30000 hrs maintenance on main engines, bearing changes on big or small electric motors, check of valves facing directly to sea and a lot of other things. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">Another and completely different thing would be the unplanned but oh so necessary maintenance. You know the sorts for sure as it usually calls for attention with a big bang of some sort. There are different reasons for breakdowns, as any car or bicycle owner among you would know well enough. Sometimes it happens due to badly maintained equipment, other times it might happen to a brand new unit due to poor quality on internal parts, other times it even happens due to wrongly assembled machinery shortly after maintenance has been done, or even on brand new equipment for no obvious reason at all. The more money you payed the more often it breaks down, or so it seems at times anyway. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">That's about how far I'm going to take this for now. I'm coming back with some more specific engine maintenance related stuff, a few words about ROV related operations (the very little I know about it...) and also a few thoughts about how I look at the shipping future and what might be in there of things to think about. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">But for now, this hopefully will keep you busy reading and thinking for a little while. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">And as always, please feel free to comment or ask any question and I'll see if I might be able to give you an answer you can hopefully live with. </span>Roy Karlsvikhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17805712465787215923noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8123989647659569518.post-30320617862844062402020-04-03T02:34:00.000+02:002020-04-03T02:34:20.653+02:00E6 development, offshore style<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">Among all the rolls of film I brought on board for this trip to work there was also a few rolls of Fuji Velvia 50. I'm not exactly known to be the most serious snapper-up of colours as you all know well enough by now, but I used to grow up in a household where quite a few dias were shot and viewed on the big screen during the long and dark northern wintery nights. That's from back in the days way before computers, smart phones and other time thieves went into our lives, if you still can recall that sort of state.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">My father never bothered with developing his slides himself, meaning I grew up without knowing this could even be done at home. I don't know if there actually were any E6 kits around for darkroom use back in the 70's, but I'm quite sure someone who knows all about that will throw in a comment about it soon.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">I need to alert you right here and now about the appearance of the pixelated snaps of the negatives as they all are very much out of focus. That's only due to the rather lousy and worthless lens on my mobile phone camera which obviously has a fair bit to go until we can call it a macro lens! Sorry about that, but at least I give you colours for once. I promise they are as sharp as they ever will get, whatever that might be worth...</span><br />
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<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-MoNVwX00TRs/XoZ8sU5OUlI/AAAAAAAADsQ/mJguEqrpxX4YoNi4It0ZoQLGH5kC3JvNQCLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/Velvia%2B02.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1200" height="640" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-MoNVwX00TRs/XoZ8sU5OUlI/AAAAAAAADsQ/mJguEqrpxX4YoNi4It0ZoQLGH5kC3JvNQCLcBGAsYHQ/s640/Velvia%2B02.jpg" width="480" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><i>Here you go! More or less the entire roll of Velvia snaps in one go... just to show you an overview of what it's like to walk around the ship with only one goal, to finish off a roll of Velvia in a very small amount of time. </i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">Anyway, I brought a few rolls of Velvia on board the ship for some reason, and in addition I actually got a third engineer who's also acting as some sort of self-appointed walking chemical guru... or something like that.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">He's quite good at it as well you see, but don't your dare tell him I just said that. He has also been honing his skills in E6 developing lately, so I was a bit curious about this little project.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">Basically he had a plan to get my roll of Velvia 50 developed if I did the job myself, and I also would have to shoot the pictures. So the film went inside the Leica M6, and I went for a walk around the vessel with only one goal, to end it off as soon as possible. The pictures are nothing to really look at, but they were shot only to test if the E6 division of our new on-board lab was working as intended.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">I have owned this camera for a lot of years now, and this was only the second roll of colour film ever to find it's way inside this camera since I became the owner. One roll of Ektar 100 in the summer of 2014, and this roll of Velvia 50 I just shot. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: courier new, courier, monospace;">It should be added that this roll went out of date some time in 2013, but no measures were done to adjust for this in the camera. It seems like all of the frames are a bit under exposed, but I'm not sure if it's the film itself or our very sloppy development to blame for that. </span><br />
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<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-m8WbeVDYjU8/XoZ8tUlFBZI/AAAAAAAADsY/mFkV46Y-3Bg-5QslJ46q1DTo7nQk8lqsACLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/Velvia%2B05.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1043" data-original-width="1600" height="416" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-m8WbeVDYjU8/XoZ8tUlFBZI/AAAAAAAADsY/mFkV46Y-3Bg-5QslJ46q1DTo7nQk8lqsACLcBGAsYHQ/s640/Velvia%2B05.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-_5vc2g4CRfQ/XoZ8sM58F8I/AAAAAAAADsM/5GiB2sCyh5cXHs2B7XPI0qvazYZg0kAjQCLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/Velvia%2B03.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1200" height="640" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-_5vc2g4CRfQ/XoZ8sM58F8I/AAAAAAAADsM/5GiB2sCyh5cXHs2B7XPI0qvazYZg0kAjQCLcBGAsYHQ/s640/Velvia%2B03.jpg" width="480" /></a></div>
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<i>Just a couple of examples you know... not exactly great photographic art, I know!</i></div>
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<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">What's used to get the fantastic results, you may ask?! Well, to tell you the truth I missed a few (most likely quite essential) points on the way, but what I know is that we started off with a simple Fomadon Excel B&W developer (X-tol equal), as that's what we had readily available on the shelf at that moment. We ran a pretty much standard development with that one, but added a bit of time for film age and ended up developing it for about 15-16 minutes or so. Then it was the light (or UV actually) treatment as we were lacking the right chemicals or substitutes of it to the right things with the film (and yes, at this point I was starting to fall out of the loop. The film was picked out of the tank and physically treated with the light from a few standard fluorescent light tubes in the engine control room. </span><br />
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<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-WIvNOgrGtZE/XoZ8uURe5-I/AAAAAAAADsc/raXiFfrElKU7PqaJgb_FYYxORdsIIQLswCLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/Velvia%2B07.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="480" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-WIvNOgrGtZE/XoZ8uURe5-I/AAAAAAAADsc/raXiFfrElKU7PqaJgb_FYYxORdsIIQLswCLcBGAsYHQ/s640/Velvia%2B07.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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<i>Proper UV treatment under fluorescent light. A couple of minutes of this thing, then hang to dry in light conditions before spooling it back on to the spool and into the tank it goes again.</i></div>
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<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-LCDA93PUIIk/XoZ8uSb-O5I/AAAAAAAADsg/uINNvw3Gq_0HbEQQMPH1jbvPbsGH_K4TQCLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/Velvia%2B06.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1200" height="640" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-LCDA93PUIIk/XoZ8uSb-O5I/AAAAAAAADsg/uINNvw3Gq_0HbEQQMPH1jbvPbsGH_K4TQCLcBGAsYHQ/s640/Velvia%2B06.jpg" width="480" /></a></div>
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<i>This is how the film should look after B&W development and getting "treated" with light. Basically it looks and feels like very thick and un-fixed B&W negs, which they actually are as well.</i></div>
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<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">Then the film went back into the Paterson tank and other chemicals was added together with some Alkalinity Control fluid (taken from the bilge water separator on board to adjust the pH to the right level...). Some sort of powder was also added to one of the baths, I think some sort of replenisher stuff but I'm not sure. I think it goes without saying that I was no longer in charge of this developing process. In fact I think it goes without saying that I never ever was...!</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">Anyway, the film was fixed and flushed with water before the lid was opened and the film was checked. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">Heck...!! It really looks good to be honest. I'll probably send all my undeveloped E6 films south to this guy if I ever get home from this place. On the other hand it might as well just have been some good old plain luck. I really don't know. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">What I do know is that it's the best looking dias film developed on board any sea going vessel I have ever seen so far. </span><br />
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<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-PXDOtvbB4pg/XoZ8rRbi8DI/AAAAAAAADsI/xa_jKnb-GXcrzXrPufrk0REJhSWB2g7oQCLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/Velvia%2B01.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1077" height="640" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-PXDOtvbB4pg/XoZ8rRbi8DI/AAAAAAAADsI/xa_jKnb-GXcrzXrPufrk0REJhSWB2g7oQCLcBGAsYHQ/s640/Velvia%2B01.jpg" width="430" /></a></div>
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<i>OK, so Velvia is Velvia with all it's good and bads... I never was a real fan of this film due to it's quite extreme colours and also it's ability to turn blueish things into violet or something close to it, which seems to have happened with the ship deck which was light grey the last time I checked. I have to say that my mobile phone camera made it quite a bit worse than it is in real life, but I see the tendency on the original positive as well.</i></div>
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<br />Roy Karlsvikhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17805712465787215923noreply@blogger.com13tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8123989647659569518.post-25026051711171362952020-03-25T04:06:00.000+01:002020-03-25T04:06:59.628+01:00It's fixed!<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-6KBwSJffbCU/XnrH9EyTnCI/AAAAAAAADrY/mUra8izBbsIHn_M5Y4a-5fHUJHTInGFuwCLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/Print%2BKontrast%2B2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1200" height="640" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-6KBwSJffbCU/XnrH9EyTnCI/AAAAAAAADrY/mUra8izBbsIHn_M5Y4a-5fHUJHTInGFuwCLcBGAsYHQ/s640/Print%2BKontrast%2B2.jpg" width="480" /></a></div>
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<i>Looking a bit better now, huh? At least they do in real life, which is what counts of course!</i></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">The issue from last post, as you might recall. The lack of contrast and all that sorts of things I was dealing with in my on-board made darkroom contact prints. It was the light alright, as I actually suspected. I was using a LED flashlight (way too expensive engine room thing...) but it turned out to only give me the low contrast tones when adding it above the negative. So what I did was two things. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">First I tested a small battery powered UV light we got inside the water sample test kit thing... but it was no good. I was not able to get any results out of it at all. It stained the paper alright... but all over as opposed to only around the thinner parts of the neg. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">So that could be thrown into the box where it belongs pretty quick. </span><br />
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<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-qq8_SmpzyLU/XnrH81AvYWI/AAAAAAAADrU/JW-7oed9NKkMZKNYfSJTO7eHUg_qdjBiwCEwYBhgLKs4DAMBZVoAepYQZuSgBlQ3lFpAwA-C_gR3q4qsIRzHN3rXVmnPSvJRTlk1UyA7I5R9hiBicmqNapl-IRBxeTN7p7izaW-lZ7sMEvuvB9jTv4Fq9HdPSELLZc5nQ-LSNqi92vqkIpQJYWYypfA8jOTEh-uovGQXRAafxrYBJirmaVtJ282daj_ZyOGV-YpzU-13ftAjWyAhzPtkKl6T8rvHKypstczRVz0yoFzom5jB1Y9iAdsbH3v45MH4FlwXx3VUG4qllPh2_wR7AceQr_4dXu4n_RpLWBUq00HkbLqrQ4WbDo452hZ4Dz2YGICZmyTW2zwf-gdT_V2loej_XWsFT5F3ngPEf_60W_j7t0kSnOB6ALah3cIchyF705fMm_Z-qjr13PUdttBmyPbi62T1EiAuecvdhyzyf0Tn7EBJIa_lufuwsHfnZ4FwifDQWp_WsNjtM8s_nh-srOgk1_VrhY0KYimtb1Ch7TtL-ky88lVXDsyqZ6ohgubmVEtDnYRHoEThKv6W4g0Ip79gSxDE99uIBYleDRyNhS7xDNXZJbJPoQNS70R1gdMJfvCWjq2QRprLjxY5khId18RH5PIBWwQqdlUkDDM5SfLkgIC5SMPiS6_MF/s1600/Print%2BKontrast%2B1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1200" height="640" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-qq8_SmpzyLU/XnrH81AvYWI/AAAAAAAADrU/JW-7oed9NKkMZKNYfSJTO7eHUg_qdjBiwCEwYBhgLKs4DAMBZVoAepYQZuSgBlQ3lFpAwA-C_gR3q4qsIRzHN3rXVmnPSvJRTlk1UyA7I5R9hiBicmqNapl-IRBxeTN7p7izaW-lZ7sMEvuvB9jTv4Fq9HdPSELLZc5nQ-LSNqi92vqkIpQJYWYypfA8jOTEh-uovGQXRAafxrYBJirmaVtJ282daj_ZyOGV-YpzU-13ftAjWyAhzPtkKl6T8rvHKypstczRVz0yoFzom5jB1Y9iAdsbH3v45MH4FlwXx3VUG4qllPh2_wR7AceQr_4dXu4n_RpLWBUq00HkbLqrQ4WbDo452hZ4Dz2YGICZmyTW2zwf-gdT_V2loej_XWsFT5F3ngPEf_60W_j7t0kSnOB6ALah3cIchyF705fMm_Z-qjr13PUdttBmyPbi62T1EiAuecvdhyzyf0Tn7EBJIa_lufuwsHfnZ4FwifDQWp_WsNjtM8s_nh-srOgk1_VrhY0KYimtb1Ch7TtL-ky88lVXDsyqZ6ohgubmVEtDnYRHoEThKv6W4g0Ip79gSxDE99uIBYleDRyNhS7xDNXZJbJPoQNS70R1gdMJfvCWjq2QRprLjxY5khId18RH5PIBWwQqdlUkDDM5SfLkgIC5SMPiS6_MF/s640/Print%2BKontrast%2B1.jpg" width="480" /></a></div>
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<i>This is Fredrik. He's one of the guys who knows how to take this big lump of steel from one place to the other in the quickest and economically best possible way, taking into account weather, current, draft, available power and probably a million other minor things as well. </i></div>
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<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-E4UR75Sa33Q/XnrH9PRRpFI/AAAAAAAADrk/cnb-kSucpwA6EREuvAjRM2N4UbrL7BsdwCEwYBhgLKs4DAMBZVoAepYQZuSgBlQ3lFpAwA-C_gR3q4qsIRzHN3rXVmnPSvJRTlk1UyA7I5R9hiBicmqNapl-IRBxeTN7p7izaW-lZ7sMEvuvB9jTv4Fq9HdPSELLZc5nQ-LSNqi92vqkIpQJYWYypfA8jOTEh-uovGQXRAafxrYBJirmaVtJ282daj_ZyOGV-YpzU-13ftAjWyAhzPtkKl6T8rvHKypstczRVz0yoFzom5jB1Y9iAdsbH3v45MH4FlwXx3VUG4qllPh2_wR7AceQr_4dXu4n_RpLWBUq00HkbLqrQ4WbDo452hZ4Dz2YGICZmyTW2zwf-gdT_V2loej_XWsFT5F3ngPEf_60W_j7t0kSnOB6ALah3cIchyF705fMm_Z-qjr13PUdttBmyPbi62T1EiAuecvdhyzyf0Tn7EBJIa_lufuwsHfnZ4FwifDQWp_WsNjtM8s_nh-srOgk1_VrhY0KYimtb1Ch7TtL-ky88lVXDsyqZ6ohgubmVEtDnYRHoEThKv6W4g0Ip79gSxDE99uIBYleDRyNhS7xDNXZJbJPoQNS70R1gdMJfvCWjq2QRprLjxY5khId18RH5PIBWwQqdlUkDDM5SfLkgIC5SMPiS6_MF/s1600/Print%2BKontrast%2B3.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1200" height="640" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-E4UR75Sa33Q/XnrH9PRRpFI/AAAAAAAADrk/cnb-kSucpwA6EREuvAjRM2N4UbrL7BsdwCEwYBhgLKs4DAMBZVoAepYQZuSgBlQ3lFpAwA-C_gR3q4qsIRzHN3rXVmnPSvJRTlk1UyA7I5R9hiBicmqNapl-IRBxeTN7p7izaW-lZ7sMEvuvB9jTv4Fq9HdPSELLZc5nQ-LSNqi92vqkIpQJYWYypfA8jOTEh-uovGQXRAafxrYBJirmaVtJ282daj_ZyOGV-YpzU-13ftAjWyAhzPtkKl6T8rvHKypstczRVz0yoFzom5jB1Y9iAdsbH3v45MH4FlwXx3VUG4qllPh2_wR7AceQr_4dXu4n_RpLWBUq00HkbLqrQ4WbDo452hZ4Dz2YGICZmyTW2zwf-gdT_V2loej_XWsFT5F3ngPEf_60W_j7t0kSnOB6ALah3cIchyF705fMm_Z-qjr13PUdttBmyPbi62T1EiAuecvdhyzyf0Tn7EBJIa_lufuwsHfnZ4FwifDQWp_WsNjtM8s_nh-srOgk1_VrhY0KYimtb1Ch7TtL-ky88lVXDsyqZ6ohgubmVEtDnYRHoEThKv6W4g0Ip79gSxDE99uIBYleDRyNhS7xDNXZJbJPoQNS70R1gdMJfvCWjq2QRprLjxY5khId18RH5PIBWwQqdlUkDDM5SfLkgIC5SMPiS6_MF/s640/Print%2BKontrast%2B3.jpg" width="480" /></a></div>
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<i>The Cadet Engineer. You may wonder if he ever do anything else but looking into his phone? Well he is, I can assure you. It's just the best way to capture him due to the speed he's walking around with. You know, shutter times versus available aperture and film speed and all that sorts. </i></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">I was looking high and low for some sort of light I could use, but they all seemed to be of the same boring LED type I had already tested. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">Frustration finally led me to try the most obvious thing really, to turn on the light in the ceiling of the room adjacent to the bathroom and leave the door open. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">And well, that did the trick. I had blacks coming onto the paper, and now it was only a question of balancing the amount of ceiling light and LED flashlight onto the paper. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">About three and a half seconds of hard contrast and two rather half-quick flashes with the flashlight, and you are as fine as you'll ever get on board a vessel of this size and type. </span><br />
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<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-24KeAs50pyw/XnrH-vgcK4I/AAAAAAAADrg/e-aucoKwx6QAEFKd1D6dC3o1xLeQ5zGOQCEwYBhgLKs4DAMBZVoAepYQZuSgBlQ3lFpAwA-C_gR3q4qsIRzHN3rXVmnPSvJRTlk1UyA7I5R9hiBicmqNapl-IRBxeTN7p7izaW-lZ7sMEvuvB9jTv4Fq9HdPSELLZc5nQ-LSNqi92vqkIpQJYWYypfA8jOTEh-uovGQXRAafxrYBJirmaVtJ282daj_ZyOGV-YpzU-13ftAjWyAhzPtkKl6T8rvHKypstczRVz0yoFzom5jB1Y9iAdsbH3v45MH4FlwXx3VUG4qllPh2_wR7AceQr_4dXu4n_RpLWBUq00HkbLqrQ4WbDo452hZ4Dz2YGICZmyTW2zwf-gdT_V2loej_XWsFT5F3ngPEf_60W_j7t0kSnOB6ALah3cIchyF705fMm_Z-qjr13PUdttBmyPbi62T1EiAuecvdhyzyf0Tn7EBJIa_lufuwsHfnZ4FwifDQWp_WsNjtM8s_nh-srOgk1_VrhY0KYimtb1Ch7TtL-ky88lVXDsyqZ6ohgubmVEtDnYRHoEThKv6W4g0Ip79gSxDE99uIBYleDRyNhS7xDNXZJbJPoQNS70R1gdMJfvCWjq2QRprLjxY5khId18RH5PIBWwQqdlUkDDM5SfLkgIC5SMPiS6_MF/s1600/Print%2BKontrast%2B4.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1200" height="640" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-24KeAs50pyw/XnrH-vgcK4I/AAAAAAAADrg/e-aucoKwx6QAEFKd1D6dC3o1xLeQ5zGOQCEwYBhgLKs4DAMBZVoAepYQZuSgBlQ3lFpAwA-C_gR3q4qsIRzHN3rXVmnPSvJRTlk1UyA7I5R9hiBicmqNapl-IRBxeTN7p7izaW-lZ7sMEvuvB9jTv4Fq9HdPSELLZc5nQ-LSNqi92vqkIpQJYWYypfA8jOTEh-uovGQXRAafxrYBJirmaVtJ282daj_ZyOGV-YpzU-13ftAjWyAhzPtkKl6T8rvHKypstczRVz0yoFzom5jB1Y9iAdsbH3v45MH4FlwXx3VUG4qllPh2_wR7AceQr_4dXu4n_RpLWBUq00HkbLqrQ4WbDo452hZ4Dz2YGICZmyTW2zwf-gdT_V2loej_XWsFT5F3ngPEf_60W_j7t0kSnOB6ALah3cIchyF705fMm_Z-qjr13PUdttBmyPbi62T1EiAuecvdhyzyf0Tn7EBJIa_lufuwsHfnZ4FwifDQWp_WsNjtM8s_nh-srOgk1_VrhY0KYimtb1Ch7TtL-ky88lVXDsyqZ6ohgubmVEtDnYRHoEThKv6W4g0Ip79gSxDE99uIBYleDRyNhS7xDNXZJbJPoQNS70R1gdMJfvCWjq2QRprLjxY5khId18RH5PIBWwQqdlUkDDM5SfLkgIC5SMPiS6_MF/s640/Print%2BKontrast%2B4.jpg" width="480" /></a></div>
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<i>The first engineer again. You have seen it before, so I'm sorry for that. It's a nice enough snap to have a second look at though :)</i></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">The day? Well, it's been a busy one believe it or not. Busy and a strange one. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">We seemed to have plenty of time up to a point when heading ashore, but due to the world being turned upside down we suddenly learned that the harbor would close this midnight, so there was a million things to do today to get everything we need on board to be able to leave before they close down. Seems like we just made it, so I'm quite happy with that to be honest. We will get the pilot on board in one and a half hours from now, at 2300 so that's close enough to call it a real success. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">We had all the project crew leaving the ship yesterday evening when we came in and alongside, which was weird to tell the truth. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">People are usually happy when leaving the ship to get home of course, but it was different this time. Very different. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">When sailing in to Galveston, the town itself was different. Very different! </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">Well, we said our goodbyes knowing that many of us will most likely never see each other again due to the next project being put on hold now. Only the future will tell if this project is ever going to happen at all. Or if anything related to this business will happen again at all in the shape and form we know of up until now for that sake. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">Nobody can really tell. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">Not today, anyway.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">Stay safe, friends!!</span>Roy Karlsvikhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17805712465787215923noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8123989647659569518.post-21131940461403046952020-03-23T05:23:00.000+01:002020-03-23T05:23:21.607+01:00In need of good ideas for the on-board makeshift darkroom<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">As you have of course noticed by now it seems I'm probably going to be stuck at sea for quite a while. That would mean we need stuff to play around with in the weeks to come when not working with all the boring things that needs to be done in the engine department. You need some time off as well, we all know that. </span><br />
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<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-vyCSu1RdPgc/XnguoRHC2mI/AAAAAAAADq8/zKeQGLHWzhQZptZtPTANY05Lxv1wU0u1ACLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/Print%2B03.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1200" height="640" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-vyCSu1RdPgc/XnguoRHC2mI/AAAAAAAADq8/zKeQGLHWzhQZptZtPTANY05Lxv1wU0u1ACLcBGAsYHQ/s640/Print%2B03.jpg" width="480" /></a></div>
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<i>One of the navigation guys working on the bridge with pinpointing where to find the tiny little nodes we dropped off at the seabed 2000 meters below about a month ago. He's a bit worried about the future of course, just like all the rest of us stuck on board are as well at the moment. I caught him in a moment deep in his thoughts yesterday afternoon on the bridge wing using the old Rolleiflex TLR. Contact printed this evening on old Ilford RC paper and otherwise very simple equipment.</i></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">That's partly why I decided to check the availability of darkroom equipment on board the vessel. There is not much to tell you the sad truth, but I actually got a box of 7"x9,5" Ilford RC paper, some D-76 type of Foma developer, and also a couple of boxes of Fomafix. I brought the chemicals over from Norway for this trip to do some film development as you know by now, but the paper was a lucky thing coming over inside the bag of the first engineer. You see there was a huge load of old paper given away close to where he lives, so I asked him to pick it up for me so I can hopefully drive down south to get them from him later. Thankfully he dropped a pack in his bag before leaving for work, which might come in handy these days. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">We got no paper developer though, but might be able to find some when we get alongside. Still I'm a bit in doubt of what you can actually get hold of these days. Nothing much seems to be like it used to be, you know. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">Anyway, this evening I felt I had to do some experimental work, so I rebuilt the bathroom in my cabin. Made it into a proper darkroom, you know. Red light and everything as I suddenly came to think of the fact that there are red tubes in the ceiling up on the bridge. Used in night time for quite obvious reasons. They turned out to be paper safe believe it or not, so now we know that much for whatever it may be worth. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">The other question would of course be if D-76, or the Foma version of it to be precise, could work as a paper developer? Well, it can. Sort of anyway. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">It's slow, and I did not get the results I hoped for but that might just as well be due to the colour temperature of the light I was using to shine over the negs to make a few contact sheets. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">To actually call them sheets is also a bit of an exaggeration, as the plastic storage boxes for spare parts for the main engines wasn't of a size that can hold a full sheet. Or we do actually have bigger ones which will, but this was just a test, and it seems I need some good ideas coming my way before there's any point making full sheets of anything at all. </span><br />
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<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-wCQG81Z9lE0/XngunEC7iMI/AAAAAAAADqw/pabNIVF9mochEndyUQcXTa-OatOTprfogCLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/Philips.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1200" height="640" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-wCQG81Z9lE0/XngunEC7iMI/AAAAAAAADqw/pabNIVF9mochEndyUQcXTa-OatOTprfogCLcBGAsYHQ/s640/Philips.jpg" width="480" /></a></div>
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<i>Here you go! This type of fluorescent light tube should be available for anyone who's in the lack of a darkroom safelight. It works quite well, shines with a good light, and my bad contact sheets didn't go bad due to the red light. It might come in handy to some, as it's a standard 18W tube and will fit directly into many a bathroom or other light fixings.</i></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">You see the results are not very good to tell the truth. There's just not enough contrast. Not enough Ooomph, punch or whatever. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">The "blacks" are getting brownish, and the "whites" are not exactly pure white either. The worst part is the dark parts though. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">I don't have any grade 5 filters on board, or at least none that I know of. We might have something that could work as one, but I need good ideas for where to start looking. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">Another option I thought would be UV light, and we do actually have a small hand held thing of the sorts, but that didn't give me any better results either for some reason. Personally I would think the UV lamp should do the trick, because I know from experience with all the work I did on the enlarger LED's back home a while ago that the deep blue light did a lot of impact on the contrasty bits on the Ilford paper I got there. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">So, could it be the paper being gone and done for? Could it be the D-76 not being the right stuff? </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">Maybe, and maybe not... I need to check that tomorrow as I can't bother to do any more tests this evening. </span><br />
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<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-bc0p3BX_xR8/XngunCraaRI/AAAAAAAADq4/wXb0YZ-FuGASCd06hFFDXV3_TyQF7zTDgCLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/Print%2B02.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1200" height="640" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-bc0p3BX_xR8/XngunCraaRI/AAAAAAAADq4/wXb0YZ-FuGASCd06hFFDXV3_TyQF7zTDgCLcBGAsYHQ/s640/Print%2B02.jpg" width="480" /></a></div>
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<i>Now that one is actually a rather nice portrait should I say so myself, that middle one there. Looking at the neg it's got just the right amount of light at the right places and so forth. It went all dull here though, but we might be able to fix that. Or what do you think?</i></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">Anyway, you are looking at darkroom prints even though they are just contact copies, all shot on film way out at sea. The film was developed out here, and now also the contact prints have been done here. Nope, they are not even close to great but still they are as good as they get for now anyway.</span><br />
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<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-dI3bJTlYbB8/XngunBUNn8I/AAAAAAAADq0/h_Ltw37ticU1rHXTETMS2mlIODTqolfjwCLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/Print%2B01.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1200" height="640" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-dI3bJTlYbB8/XngunBUNn8I/AAAAAAAADq0/h_Ltw37ticU1rHXTETMS2mlIODTqolfjwCLcBGAsYHQ/s640/Print%2B01.jpg" width="480" /></a></div>
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<i>It's the sort of things you might find around this place if you just position yourself in a spot where you think something might happen within a half an hour or so. A ladder tied to something sturdy is a better giveaway than anything else. The clue will often be to snap the scene just before the "victim" discover you are there at all. This was close enough to a failure, but I sort of made it.</i></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">Tomorrow I might do a pinhole test or something, as I should be able to find what's needed for that as well. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">We need to stay busy you know, to keep our minds a bit away from the fact that we were due to go home tomorrow but still have to stay here for weeks yet. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">So, any ideas you may have (or make up here and now for that sake...) to getting more Ooomph! into the prints are very welcome. Just throw them into the comments and I'll check if I can find anything that might help us a bit further on our way to success. </span>Roy Karlsvikhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17805712465787215923noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8123989647659569518.post-25180911329370195532020-03-20T00:52:00.000+01:002020-03-20T00:52:35.163+01:00The inner innards of the Voigtländer Vito<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">I was walking through a charity shop a while back, and among a few point and shoots from the 90’s I found this Voigtländer Vito and a couple of other cameras. Nothing of much interest actually, but when asked for the price the oldish lady behind the counter gave me an offer I could not resist. I think I payed 40,- or 50,- NOK for both cameras, which I thought would be worth the price if they worked OK. In fact I actually thought it would be worth it if only one of them worked.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">I tested both the shutters and they seemed to work sort of well enough, so off I went with the cameras back home just to put them both on a shelf for some time. </span><br />
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<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-ppxHhPJ3T-c/XnMEdOjog3I/AAAAAAAADpU/alllyfX3SHEFiUmxwvMFRXsNmuNmFqZuQCLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/90235946_500920510587226_7733258280541093888_n.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="480" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-ppxHhPJ3T-c/XnMEdOjog3I/AAAAAAAADpU/alllyfX3SHEFiUmxwvMFRXsNmuNmFqZuQCLcBGAsYHQ/s640/90235946_500920510587226_7733258280541093888_n.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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<i>It's a quite handy little thing after all it is, the Voigtländer Vito. The viewfinder is a real, tiny little one though, but it's quite bright compared to it's extremely small size. </i></div>
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<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-6rpe9nU0jTM/XnMEcdhiaDI/AAAAAAAADpw/YIMM2orV56QFXUKVagGiQ8F6lCX71ec2wCEwYBhgL/s1600/90209490_2491183274468308_8344518940935847936_n.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="480" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-6rpe9nU0jTM/XnMEcdhiaDI/AAAAAAAADpw/YIMM2orV56QFXUKVagGiQ8F6lCX71ec2wCEwYBhgL/s640/90209490_2491183274468308_8344518940935847936_n.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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There you go. It's got a nice little lens and stuff as well, hidden behind the rather large "barn door" in the front. It comes out with a pop and everything in the same time you push the right button. </div>
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<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">Before I went to work five weeks ago </span><span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">I slipped the Vito into my bag. It’s a very handy camera with a barn door type pop-out lens attached to a tiny, cute little bellow, and it has a very nice form factor when folded. There’s the quite common, pancakey 5cm f/3.5 Skopar lens attached to it, on my example it holds a Prontor II shutter, but I know it was delivered with a couple different types through the few years of production. It’s all quite common stuff from back in the days, in other words. From what I have been able to find out from a few sources around the web, it seems like this camera was made just after WWII, some time around 1946/-49.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">The film transport seems to be a weak spot on these cameras. They were originally designed for 828 film which was made without sprockets, hence there's no gears inside the thing to transport your film forward the way we're used to. As a result, the rod and gear wheel used to measure frame length is a bit unstable, to say the least. </span><br />
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<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Su3sXq9GfVo/XnMEYsNsQLI/AAAAAAAADp0/EdPnAcIUmQcs7W31fCBD7myelR-jbwsvwCEwYBhgL/s1600/89912396_578004266259563_6573906286474166272_n.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1200" height="640" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Su3sXq9GfVo/XnMEYsNsQLI/AAAAAAAADp0/EdPnAcIUmQcs7W31fCBD7myelR-jbwsvwCEwYBhgL/s640/89912396_578004266259563_6573906286474166272_n.jpg" width="480" /></a></div>
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<i>See that? The upper rod there acting like a measuring tool to try keep the frames separated and things like that. Well, it fails quite a lot, but I guess that's part of what I payed for. And before you start shouting about the fact I lack the aft lens element; oh yes, I know. It was on the bench for cleaning at the moment, but is re-attached by now. </i></div>
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<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">Anyway, I loaded a film into it just a couple of days before I went to sea, shot a few holes in the wet, dark and gloomy air back home and then forgot about it for a week or three until I suddenly came to think about it again and then hauled it out to give it a good old test on board the ship. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">It actually worked quite well for about something like three minutes and tree snaps, then suddenly started to act quite weird. Some shots went all good, and some really not. The film transport thing didn’t seem to know when the shutter had been fired at times, which was quite annoying as you probably understand, which in turn resulted in the film winder didn't move a tiny bit after the shutter had been fired and it was about time to wind on to the next frame. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">I didn’t give up though, and after somehting that seemed to be a thousand or so exposures, I finally came to the end of the film and had it developed. Most of the many quadrupple exposures was of course just a mess, but there were about three or four quite nice ones in there among them as well, probably snapped when the camera actually worked, so I thought I would just open the thing up and have a go with some cleaner and grease and see if I could find out where the moose was hidden. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">When I say there was nice exposures you have to take that with a rather large pinch of salt, but I recon you already had figured that out. At least there was something that looked like pictures on the film. </span><br />
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<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-BpNtbchIocs/XnMEXrNNgWI/AAAAAAAADpo/-N9V-34LCnA0y3lpTHqgPO4zwif7nUOBwCEwYBhgL/s1600/89744593_512273996348553_5412137106287886336_n.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1052" data-original-width="1600" height="420" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-BpNtbchIocs/XnMEXrNNgWI/AAAAAAAADpo/-N9V-34LCnA0y3lpTHqgPO4zwif7nUOBwCEwYBhgL/s640/89744593_512273996348553_5412137106287886336_n.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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<i>Isn't it lovely? Huh...? Soft and nothing in focus and all other sorts of great stuff. </i></div>
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<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">Due to the hickup on the Leica M6 the other day I already had a few tools laying around on top of the table inside my cabin, so I decided this was a fine day to whack open the Voigtländer to see what was going on inside it. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">Well, nothing much to tell the truth. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">A few gear wheels, mostly attached to the frame counter, and a couple of force-transfer plates or rods which seem to have been punched out of post-war tin cans to deal with the shutter and film transport mechanism, and that’s about it. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">Very different to the Leica M6, to put it that way. </span><br />
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<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-TkqmuIPh3Zw/XnPf_Gjl7WI/AAAAAAAADqA/8uBPoFjI7esFLKFFDXGaWGcfcgDhWF2RwCLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/90420274_613015742587730_8368898867525058560_n.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="480" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-TkqmuIPh3Zw/XnPf_Gjl7WI/AAAAAAAADqA/8uBPoFjI7esFLKFFDXGaWGcfcgDhWF2RwCLcBGAsYHQ/s640/90420274_613015742587730_8368898867525058560_n.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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<i>Underneath the gears and the few wheels I found this stuff. Nothing much to jump in joy over, but heck... it seems to be working well enough inside here.</i></div>
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<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-EwkSi8hzGvM/XnPf_HyYmYI/AAAAAAAADqE/FsqmZHMwZtw-mBaz2-2qmFJtX_m3taOpwCLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/90481205_510045206325812_7348979181381746688_n.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1200" height="640" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-EwkSi8hzGvM/XnPf_HyYmYI/AAAAAAAADqE/FsqmZHMwZtw-mBaz2-2qmFJtX_m3taOpwCLcBGAsYHQ/s640/90481205_510045206325812_7348979181381746688_n.jpg" width="480" /></a></div>
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<i>Gears and wheels mounted back in place, ready for new action!</i></div>
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<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">Having a quick look at the mechanism and do a couple of shutter tests with the top cover off, it didn’t take long to determine what the issue might be, and after some further cleaning and a tiny bit of extra polishing at the surface of parts of the release button itself, and of course some lubrication here and there, it seemed we were good to go. The release mechanism is quite open to the elements on this camera, so dirt, rust and old bash had built up in the joints and all over the place. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">They are simple cameras these things, which make them easy to fix as long as important parts are not broken. They are also great fun to use, but not rangefinder-fun mind you! There's the old guesswork to be done for distance you know, which is fine as long as you can se the darn numbers printed on the lens. Tiny little bits they are, the numbers. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">Now I’m looking forward to throw another film inside it one of the next days to see if I can get anything to stick to that one. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">Oh, and I also had the back element of the lens taken off for cleaning when I had it all open anyway, so hopefully I’ll get rid of some of the haze you’ll obviously see on the «on board the ship scans» done with the phone. It was a really dirty lens, I kid you not!</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">There will of course still be lots of unsharp pictures, luckily!</span><br />
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<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-cFeVERsYAOk/XnPiktnR50I/AAAAAAAADqY/pvqfEvUgSj0q1vrbWZeF8bEW5kaUgmD7gCLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/90224343_2718908584871608_1352704579849945088_n.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="939" data-original-width="1417" height="424" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-cFeVERsYAOk/XnPiktnR50I/AAAAAAAADqY/pvqfEvUgSj0q1vrbWZeF8bEW5kaUgmD7gCLcBGAsYHQ/s640/90224343_2718908584871608_1352704579849945088_n.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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<i>Here's what I'm talking about... only that I'm probably going to adjust the shutter times even more over to the slow side I guess. Looks like it might be a good camera for those kind of snaps.</i></div>
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<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">I didn’t open the shutter this time though. The shutter times sounds good enough to still go for some time, so no urgent need to spread a hundred small parts and springs around my cabin in a one second timeframe as for yet. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">I'll keep you posted when the next roll has been developed. It might happen one of these days for all we know. </span><br />
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<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-FWDs8A00iSc/XnPikZBhMEI/AAAAAAAADqU/74vYgBDxWEwLLbaXSPKy-yn-kFjxUckgQCLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/84505963_253095699042647_5350502440099643392_n.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1185" data-original-width="1600" height="474" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-FWDs8A00iSc/XnPikZBhMEI/AAAAAAAADqU/74vYgBDxWEwLLbaXSPKy-yn-kFjxUckgQCLcBGAsYHQ/s640/84505963_253095699042647_5350502440099643392_n.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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<i>Looks like I spent the first frame of the film on good old Scot before I left home a while ago. As we all know he don't like cameras too much, but it seems he might not fully understand the basics of the Voigtländer as for yet. That might change though... </i></div>
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;"><br /></span>Roy Karlsvikhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17805712465787215923noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8123989647659569518.post-18437808874471827912020-03-17T22:28:00.001+01:002020-03-17T22:28:15.507+01:00The internal innards of the M6<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">You might not know the exact feeling, but I'm sure it's possible to understand most parts of it anyway.</span><div>
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<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-aP-1A_5_KPw/XnE6E-eP6dI/AAAAAAAADok/iSV9v0rjig8_NbosTWkUtlja0NT2dxy1QCEwYBhgL/s1600/89870464_601435273784418_8034250280134508544_n%2B%25281%2529.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="480" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-aP-1A_5_KPw/XnE6E-eP6dI/AAAAAAAADok/iSV9v0rjig8_NbosTWkUtlja0NT2dxy1QCEwYBhgL/s640/89870464_601435273784418_8034250280134508544_n%2B%25281%2529.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><i>Not exactly the way you like to see one of your best cameras, but still it had to be done...</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">When you're stuck at sea due to the world changing by the hour, it is of course very nice to have your camera ready to shoot a few holes in the air every now and then. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">Eventually the moment comes when your film has reached the end, and you do the same trick you're well used to after having hundreds of rolls going through that very camera. You simply start rewinding the thing. Then, after a couple of turns on the crank, an ugly sound and everything is totally jammed. Nothing is moving either way, and it starts to sink in that even the germans seems to have managed to build something that would break some day if pushed long enough. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">Well... as mentioned above, stuck at sea and of course no service technician available unless you got confidence enough to trust the good old "put your Leica inside a bottle and throw it overboard" sort of mail system. Looking down the ships side at the direction of current I soon discarded that option.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">As we got the house full of engineers down in the lower part of this vessel, I could do nothing less than bring the tiny tools out on the desk and start the demolition of the camera to try figure out what might be wrong in there. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">I know, I know... red alarm lights flashing and the "don't do this at home" and all of that sorts! It's not something I recommend, but then again what can you do when you're on board, way out at sea, and with no return ticket back home? I might be stuck here for months for all we know. Think about that! That would be a long time just looking at a jammed Leica, I'll tell you that much. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">After a few hours of just looking inside at wonderful german stuff and engineering you'll get a fair insight into what's supposed to go on anyway, but still you don't want to dig too deep into it at first, trust me! When the top cover had been removed I used a lot of time to try figure out what might have gone south, even though it was quite obvious it had something to do with the film transport and wind-on stuff. I used some time on the internet as well to hopefully get a clue, but no real help to find there. Must be a repair manual or at least a drawing available somewhere? Well, google showed me nothing much but a few posts in forums suggesting the people facing the same problem had loaded their film wrongly or had forgotten to release the film drive sprocket wheels or whatever. That was not my case, at least I know that much.</span></div>
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<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-vDNl_dhDVMY/XnE6F_9EaYI/AAAAAAAADos/63NqCuXnN4Q7FFxQtgi1sCCM2TG36qGYQCEwYBhgL/s1600/89932980_2619287351694219_645744330044080128_n.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="480" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-vDNl_dhDVMY/XnE6F_9EaYI/AAAAAAAADos/63NqCuXnN4Q7FFxQtgi1sCCM2TG36qGYQCEwYBhgL/s640/89932980_2619287351694219_645744330044080128_n.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><i>See? In there somewhere there was trouble in the gears and stuff...</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">Anyway, after a few hours of tweaking, jacking, pointing, talking, some swearing and a little bit of sweating I had the problem fixed. The shutter and the film transport were totally out of sync, and after tweaking a sprocket wheel and doing adjustments to that little thing to make everything aligned I once again had a working camera.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">Actually I think I had the problem fixed a bit earlier, but due to a stupid second fault I probably had introduced myself I couldn't find the problem. It took a good walk out on deck and then digging into the thing again before I suddenly realized I might have got something inside the shutter button out of alignment. So when punching the little pin inside the button used for the good old wire release it suddenly worked as it should, and the way I thought it would way earlier in the day. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">Turns out that the release button on the M6 is a very precisely machined little thing, which you don't actually realize until you have put your very strong glasses on. It needs to be mounted just the right way, or it will not function at all that little rascal. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">Well, when you look back on it almost 24 hrs. later it's OK, because that's the way we learn, isn't it? I just wish I had realized a loupe would be helpful a few hours earlier...</span></div>
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<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Oor3NYT0-d0/XnE6GsaYe5I/AAAAAAAADow/SMoxRVO4ozsgm8jRIr_Ro_6y9nPOwEqYwCEwYBhgL/s1600/90612228_2522917927925663_5866238651259682816_n.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="480" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Oor3NYT0-d0/XnE6GsaYe5I/AAAAAAAADow/SMoxRVO4ozsgm8jRIr_Ro_6y9nPOwEqYwCEwYBhgL/s640/90612228_2522917927925663_5866238651259682816_n.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><i>Front end. Only some cleaning now, and we were done for the day. </i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">And heck! I even managed to give the old thing a little internal clean-up as well, as the innards had some light shining on them for a few hours anyway. Seems like time well spent if you ask me. It feels a lot better now, so let's hope it works well in the years to come. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">We will soon find out anyway, because a new film was put inside this afternoon. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">I'll keep you informed. </span></div>
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<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-NGYJl2NwPuM/XnE6DwlXfwI/AAAAAAAADos/vD6rBZxaXpsqjwXu9aU9-74UylH2MDS2gCEwYBhgL/s1600/85254223_2255488848080499_832420290381217792_n%2B%25281%2529.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1072" data-original-width="1600" height="428" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-NGYJl2NwPuM/XnE6DwlXfwI/AAAAAAAADos/vD6rBZxaXpsqjwXu9aU9-74UylH2MDS2gCEwYBhgL/s640/85254223_2255488848080499_832420290381217792_n%2B%25281%2529.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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<i>See how well it worked only a couple of hours before the big hick-up? It's one of the heroes in the mess department getting ready to wash the floor for the third time that day...</i></div>
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<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-0cXsbaZuZFI/XnE6ES2HHCI/AAAAAAAADoo/jCjOpZQl8XcGnWbPeX9oDUcwYVU873O-ACEwYBhgL/s1600/89744590_221922902331266_3933456372527529984_n.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1098" data-original-width="1600" height="438" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-0cXsbaZuZFI/XnE6ES2HHCI/AAAAAAAADoo/jCjOpZQl8XcGnWbPeX9oDUcwYVU873O-ACEwYBhgL/s640/89744590_221922902331266_3933456372527529984_n.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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<i>Oh yes, that's how happy you'll get being a sailor, traveling the world and see the sun every day :))</i></div>
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<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-keOo0grwqZI/XnE6FLwwVWI/AAAAAAAADoo/CEqjuTDuk3Epofnj9cs9rHSdEPATL1uLgCEwYBhgL/s1600/89880654_248631676144794_5746130376158347264_n.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1071" data-original-width="1600" height="428" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-keOo0grwqZI/XnE6FLwwVWI/AAAAAAAADoo/CEqjuTDuk3Epofnj9cs9rHSdEPATL1uLgCEwYBhgL/s640/89880654_248631676144794_5746130376158347264_n.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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<i>Meanwhile up there in the thin air around the wheelhouse there is painting going on. It might not seem so, but we're talking bright yellow here. Ship yellow, you know, so it's bright believe me!</i></div>
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Roy Karlsvikhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17805712465787215923noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8123989647659569518.post-59459629342047274292020-03-13T20:14:00.000+01:002020-03-13T20:14:07.512+01:00Fomapan 400 - I might have figured it out, finally<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">OK, I agree that the title for this post is quite an optimistic one. Still, I have been thinking about how to attack Fomapan 400 film for some time now. I feel I have never really got under the skin of it, and that my negs have been quite far from well exposed almost no matter what I have been trying to do with this film.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">So, yesterday I thought what the heck and decided to just as well put it through some real funky process.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">I threw a roll inside the Rolleiflex and decided to over expose it, and then (as if that wasn't enough...) also to over develop it to some extent, just to see what that would bring to the table.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">Some time ago I read a few words about folks who had done something similar with a roll or two of HP5 with good results, but as usual I couldn't find the article when I needed it. I know they both over exposed and over developed their film, but I'm not sure by how much.</span><br />
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<i><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">This is Mr. Thor-Ole, the first engineer on board. He knows a lot about stuff and anything going around and around. That's nice skills to have when being an engineer of course.</span></i></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">So what I basically did was to decide to expose the film to 100 ASA. That should give us two stops of over exposure, done directly in camera.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">The film were shot down in the engine control room of the ship, with some rather bad lighting as we have seen before from countless snaps taken down there. I used a phone app to measure the light and ended up at 1/8 sek. wide open lens at f/2,8. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">Of course, that's the stupid part of it, as it's completely taking away the speed advantages of using a 400 film in the first place. The case is that this film seems not to be a 400 film at all, which I have been thinking for quite a while actually. Usually my Fomapan 400 shots will end up dark, muddy and extremely grainy. Not so this time though, as you might see from the examples.</span><br />
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<i><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Meet Jøran, the Cadet of the engine department. He's probably telling his mother or whoever all about the life on board while waiting for news about when he can possibly get home from this place.</span></i></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">And as if the two stops of extra exposure wasn't enough I also decided to give it about two stops extra in the developer as well.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">According to the Foma data sheet the Fomapan 400 in Fomadon Excel (1:1 mix) should have 9,5 minutes in the tank, so I almost doubled that ending up at around 17,5 minutes just to see if something weird might happen.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">I might give it another go some other day. Shoot it at around 200 ASA and give it more or less the same time in the developer. That might do the trick... we will see. It would be great to earn one stop if nothing else.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">I might even try to shoot it at say 320 and give it another stop or so in the developer as well. There could be several ways to get more or less the same result for all I know. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">What I'm after is simply a better way to use the Fomapan 400 film, as I quite like it but not the way I usually would consume it. </span><br />
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<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Y-53cXvCK1A/XmvVT3WmycI/AAAAAAAADnk/oYLajypnsY8852cSPWIoh4A9aQ2vrjirACLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/88363961_814207512432588_3843169184938721280_n.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1600" height="638" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Y-53cXvCK1A/XmvVT3WmycI/AAAAAAAADnk/oYLajypnsY8852cSPWIoh4A9aQ2vrjirACLcBGAsYHQ/s640/88363961_814207512432588_3843169184938721280_n.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">The second engineer in for a short break. He is using his phone as well, but most likely to search the internet for spare parts for one of his very many old reel to reel tape machines. He's collecting them, you see. Will need a big house some day this young man.</span></i></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">What I can say straight away is that my negs here looks very much printable, and that my typical shadow issues seems to have been gone with the wind. There are bad spots for sure, but nothing like they used to be. For the first time I think I might say there seems to be details in the shadows. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">They might look a bit flat or with some loss of contrast, but then again the "scanning facilities" are still not up to par as you might remember, so it might not be as bad as it looks here.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">Next film up for the treatment is the Ilford PAN 400 film. There's one already loaded inside the M6 rangefinder. I have even put batteries inside to be able to use the meter! I adjusted it to 200 ASA and will decide later on how much to stretch the development. There might be a conclusion some day... so stay tuned. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">I mean you have to put your mind into something else when it seems you might be sitting around here for quite a while... </span><br />
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<i>See that? That's the electrician and the last one working in my department, and he's on his phone as well. What is it with people and phones today and the times we live in? Well... I think we might be excused to some degree. We live well over half of the time away from our dear ones, and some sort of contact is always nice to have. The electrician is the experienced sailor among our team. He's been doing this since the quite early 70's or something like that, AKA "the stone age" to the younger lads among us...</i></div>
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<br />Roy Karlsvikhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17805712465787215923noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8123989647659569518.post-28711558538449652432020-03-12T05:28:00.002+01:002020-03-12T05:28:41.121+01:00Oh yes, I have been waiting for this the last couple of days...<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-w-KBozBi_SA/Xmm4jPtZwZI/AAAAAAAADnQ/ZGThWdCtw4czaJMdsyzVRaMjAgUbERWRACLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/img030.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1044" data-original-width="1600" height="416" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-w-KBozBi_SA/Xmm4jPtZwZI/AAAAAAAADnQ/ZGThWdCtw4czaJMdsyzVRaMjAgUbERWRACLcBGAsYHQ/s640/img030.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">I'm over here, as you might know. Over the sea, in the USA. Not where the picture was taken obviously, as I'm actually about 250 nautical miles out in the Gulf of Mexico at the moment. The snap was taken on-shore, as there's nothing much to see right here but the ocean and a ship or two every now and then. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">They just closed their borders to the USA they did. Due to the damn virus spreading fast, which I got no problems of understanding of course. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">What is worse is that I'm here and have no way of getting myself back over to what I call home as I obviously can't get my back to back over from Europe and on board the vessel when the day of crew change come in less than two weeks from now. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">There is no way of telling for how long this is going to stay this way, and there is no way of telling what the folks responsible at the office and such is going to do with this tiny little issue. For them it's only a question of cost and money, of course. For me it's a bit different... </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">We might be able to go somewhere else when the job is finished weeks from now, but by then I guess every border to every country will be closed, which would mean I'm here until the situation has been stabilized. How long is that, you think? A year? Less? </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">I might exaggerate, I see that now. But it's hard not knowing, I tell you that much. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">I got things to do at home as well, you see... Life is more than just work. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">Thanks heaven I brought on board a lot of film and quite a bunch of developer for this trip. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">I might have a brand new series started right here and now.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">To be continued!</span>Roy Karlsvikhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17805712465787215923noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8123989647659569518.post-14091449993656980062020-03-12T02:44:00.001+01:002020-03-12T02:44:32.813+01:00When you couldn't care less...<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-PdL-gmRIxlY/XmmTiYegYoI/AAAAAAAADnE/i9ZOIloKIW8nnJFOfZuqY2mISRp95Bz7gCLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/img004.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1060" data-original-width="1600" height="424" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-PdL-gmRIxlY/XmmTiYegYoI/AAAAAAAADnE/i9ZOIloKIW8nnJFOfZuqY2mISRp95Bz7gCLcBGAsYHQ/s640/img004.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">This was snapped just <a href="https://filmphotographymadesimple.blogspot.com/2020/03/when-youre-about-that-age.html" target="_blank">prior to this one.</a> Same place, same day. With a good 85mm Nikkor lens wide open on some half decent film and all.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">He didn't care much about the fuzz at all, the dog called Scot. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">Not even too much about the cat he knew was somewhere close. It was a warm day on the 17th of May in 2019. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">Unlikely I know, but still I kid you not!</span>Roy Karlsvikhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17805712465787215923noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8123989647659569518.post-43740924380865351842020-03-11T05:31:00.002+01:002020-03-11T06:02:42.852+01:00When you're about that age<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-e0i4bNd2so0/Xmho2wrz_1I/AAAAAAAADm4/J67TxUIEs7okA9qMjEd1ZsfSRB5n4PGewCLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/img008.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1060" height="640" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-e0i4bNd2so0/Xmho2wrz_1I/AAAAAAAADm4/J67TxUIEs7okA9qMjEd1ZsfSRB5n4PGewCLcBGAsYHQ/s640/img008.jpg" width="422" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">A zillion things to wonder about, and questions to be asked.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">A bunch of strange answers coming in return. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">A hard time sorting out what sounds logic, and what's definitely not. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">Nothing much else to do but prop a flower in your ear then, and ask again if required...! </span>Roy Karlsvikhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17805712465787215923noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8123989647659569518.post-32558887477483716262020-03-10T07:15:00.001+01:002020-03-10T07:15:31.098+01:00The Rolleiflex 2.8E in practical use<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<i>The legendary Rolleiflex TLR, here in version E. Still very much a capable camera today, even though well over 60 years has passed since this box of metal and glass went out of the Francke & Heidecke factory in Germany. </i></div>
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<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">I know, I know... Another way too long and tedious post. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">I am, as you very well know by now, not much of a camera tester or by any means any good when it comes to writing very wise and accurate stuff about any camera I got, but sometimes I write a few words on things like this anyway. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">And when I do, it's hopefully a more practical view of what the camera is like in daily use, rather than explaining all the bits and pieces, the bells and whistles. Not that there usually is a lot of that stuff on any of my cameras when I start thinking about it. This post is probably a bit more "into the deeps" than usual, but mostly due to the built-in light meter. There would also probably be way too many more or less "instructive" digital photos in this post as well, but you may skip them if you like. A few and maybe even more interesting snaps taken with the actual camera is mixed in between it all. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">Just a few words on the B&W pictures:</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">These were all shot, developed and processed to the digital version on board the ship I work just a couple of days ago, and only made for the purpose of this blog post. All were done on a roll of Ilford FP4 film within a time frame of about half an hour during a quick walk around the upper and front parts of the vessel. The film was developed in Fomadon Excel 1:1 solution just before dinner, then hang to dry for a couple of hours in the drying room (aka the switchboard room) before it was "scanned" on top of our brand new (made while the film was drying) makeshift "light box" using a simple iPhone camera and some partly fancy phone software to turn the negatives into positives. Please keep all this in mind when you really start feeling the urge to throw in comments about weird shadows and stuff on the negatives. I know they are there in plenty, because the light board patent using the phone is not good enough for commercial work yet, and will of course never be. The "scans" are no good at all, and in particular the highlights lack a lot, but I couldn't get them any better with the very limited equipment we got on board. However it is really great to be able to produce results like this and have them posted on the internet from raw film about 250 nautical miles off shore.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">Another thing to keep in mind is the fact that I primarily write this post just to give my mate over there in Northern Ireland a few good reasons why he would never need to buy one of these cameras :)</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">Enjoy!</span><br />
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<i>Here it is from the other side where they found room for the light meter and the focus adjustment.</i></div>
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<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">I have owned my Rolleiflex for some years now, and quite a few films have been spooled through the thing since it came my way. It was already quite well used when I got it, but not what I would call worn. No dents or anything (believe it or not...) and the glass looked just as pristine back then as it is today. It came straight out from having been serviced and lubricated, so hopefully it will still work fine for a few years yet.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">Records shows it was built around 1957, sporting a very nice Carl Zeiss 80mm f/2.8 Planar taking lens. The view lens also seems to have been given some sort of attention back in the days, as it's a f/2.8 80mm construction bearing the lovely name; Heidosmat.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">A Syncro Compur shutter lives it's quiet life inside the taking lens, capable of controlling anything between 1 to 1/500 sec. shutter times in addition to the B setting.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">The release button is logically placed at the front right of the camera, and it's possible to lock it if you like. I actually recommend to do just that if you're walking along with the shutter cranked.</span><br />
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<i>Heading towards end of work for this day. Relaxing on the bridge wing in the heat of the sun.</i></div>
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<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">As most people reading a blog like this would already know, you will get a small bunch of 6x6 cm negatives out of this camera, and you're supposed to load it with 120 size film. I know you can get a 135 kit for it as well, but I have never even been thinking about buying one to be honest. In these times when you obviously can build more or less anything if your got a 3D printer, you can of course also produce the needed bits to load your 135 roll inside the Rolleiflex should you so wish.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">This machine means business, and y</span><span style="font-family: "courier new", courier, monospace;">ou will probably notice the cameras presence even well before the very moment you pick it up, feeling the weight and balance of it, and not to speak of when you're having a real deep glance into it's front with the two lenses and the two wheels made for adjusting your aperture and shutter times. Still it's a pretty small, anonymous and stealthy camera even though it's a medium format device. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">When opening the viewfinder cover you find the ground glass to be nice and bright and having a good view of the surroundings in front of the camera. The mechanism for the viewfinder cover is actually worth a study of it's own (said the engineer inside me), as it's not only extremely nice and tight and snappy in all it's joints, but mostly because of the genius way they made the loupe hide so nicely, and how unbelievably easy it is to flip it up for use. And then it's of course the horizontal part of the viewfinder which opens the back and front side of the whole chimney for you to see straight through it, and not to speak of the little hole with the horizontal loupe inside to check focus when operating the camera from this position. And if that's not enough, then to actually close the horizontal viewfinder when no longer needed... Well, there's no need for me to go on about this. You should actually just try it for yourselves to understand what I'm talking about.</span><br />
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<i style="text-align: center;">The Chief Officer is just off watch and will usually grab an hour or so in the sun with a good book prior to going to bed. At midnight he will be back on watch. 12 hrs. on and 12 hrs. off, every day for six weeks until it's time to get home to the family and all the other good things happening in his other life.</i><br />
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<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">Oh, and then you can of course hide some film inside the dark parts of this camera as well.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">To do so you obviously need to open the back, which is done from the bottom of it. While you're turning the camera upside down anyway you may at the same time notice there's the standard threaded hole to put it on top of a pole with three feet and a screw, and there's also four tiny small bumps to make sure the camera will stay sort of securely on it's shelf when putting it to rest for the evening. The four tiny feet has been carefully made on a very small german lathe at some point in time, I think. But I'm not going to hover too much around that.</span><br />
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<i>The bottom part of the camera looks like this. To open it up simply turn the disc in the direction of the arrow and pull lightly on the tab to release the lock.</i></div>
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<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">To have it opened to put film inside you just need to swing the bit with the arrow in the direction of the arrow itself, and then pull the tab to unlock the safety hitch before you slowly pull it open. Easy as heck! </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">You can even remove the back cover by moving a little sliding tab a tiny tad, and off and away the backplate goes for easier access to the inner parts of the box.</span><br />
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<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-uIt51VbmlNE/XmXQZGKX4wI/AAAAAAAADlQ/PEeoDQjfTw0Wg8AOkHa8M7_LTZCDnxQJwCPcBGAYYCw/s1600/89706551_502017253821610_4742142033680924672_n.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1200" height="640" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-uIt51VbmlNE/XmXQZGKX4wI/AAAAAAAADlQ/PEeoDQjfTw0Wg8AOkHa8M7_LTZCDnxQJwCPcBGAYYCw/s640/89706551_502017253821610_4742142033680924672_n.jpg" width="480" /></a></div>
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<i>Lift the tiny tab on the right side of the hinge to unlock the hinge itself. It will make loading of film a bit easier, but it is not much of a problem to load the film without using this trick. </i></div>
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<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-1qRHkBjYFfU/XmXQX-FzZKI/AAAAAAAADlY/65y5fh6E1bopjtyx0TOcO5-dnamJYC-tACPcBGAYYCw/s1600/88306814_2955413854522218_906013464076484608_n.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1200" height="640" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-1qRHkBjYFfU/XmXQX-FzZKI/AAAAAAAADlY/65y5fh6E1bopjtyx0TOcO5-dnamJYC-tACPcBGAYYCw/s640/88306814_2955413854522218_906013464076484608_n.jpg" width="480" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><i>There you go... easy access to whatever you may need to get done inside the camera. </i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">Film loading is very simple, and can be done in two ways. The right way or the wrong way. You will of course choose the wrong way first (due to good old Murphy and all that...). A giveaway sign that the film has not been loaded correctly would be the film advancing crank will not stop at the first frame as it should, but rather go on and on until the entire film has been moved over to the take-up spool, which will of course call for the need to go inside the darkroom to re-spool it before you load the film the right way ever since.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">To actually save you the hassle I'll show you right here and now how the film is to be thread. It's going under the first roller and over the others. See...? I told you it was easy, didn't I? Have a look below.</span><br />
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<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Ju8CkiEX5Kg/XmcFTEhTYsI/AAAAAAAADl4/L1A-cs5fiOEh2xIzUSVrA76qMIZm6xwrQCLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/87459113_677333169692669_3053473949317857280_n.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1200" height="640" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Ju8CkiEX5Kg/XmcFTEhTYsI/AAAAAAAADl4/L1A-cs5fiOEh2xIzUSVrA76qMIZm6xwrQCLcBGAsYHQ/s640/87459113_677333169692669_3053473949317857280_n.jpg" width="480" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><i>So, the trick is obviously to pass the film underneath that first roller.</i></span></div>
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<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-7iFd076jgMQ/XmXQZ8rOxdI/AAAAAAAADlU/lLsWHMXlafg0PgPBCfqdBKPLE8ZZ5IbDwCPcBGAYYCw/s1600/89767543_582460849021287_711853244053192704_n.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1200" height="640" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-7iFd076jgMQ/XmXQZ8rOxdI/AAAAAAAADlU/lLsWHMXlafg0PgPBCfqdBKPLE8ZZ5IbDwCPcBGAYYCw/s640/89767543_582460849021287_711853244053192704_n.jpg" width="480" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><i>When the film has been attached to the take-up spool it's just a matter of cranking a few turns until the starting point of it is aligned with the first aluminium bar, then shut the cover and crank further until it stops. Some say you can start with the arrow wherever... I don't know, because I have never tested it out. It actually suits me fine to stop right there.</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">Anyway, we're ready for the fun part and the real reason to have a camera like this available on your shelf. We're going to take a few snaps and see what they look like. They will look absolutely fabulous, I promise!</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">Before we get there I need to tell you there is a light meter built into this version of the Rolleiflex. I think it was the first model with a meter, but it's not exactly the most intuitive one out there. Just saying.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">It works of course, because everything on a Rolleflex works, it just takes some effort getting used to.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">There are two sensitivity settings for the light meter. One for the less and another one for the more lighter conditions. When to use the first or the latter will be given away automatically as the tiny black needle will peak out if there is too much light when the meter is in the "low light" setting. Simply whack the knob on upper left and you go to "light" conditions. </span><br />
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<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-htsR97n1I6M/XmXQX8L3ctI/AAAAAAAADlM/A-GMHu0r2H0FF6qNCafG5Wnq7FBg2ukeQCPcBGAYYCw/s1600/88309069_528074114799392_3340592143688269824_n.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1200" height="640" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-htsR97n1I6M/XmXQX8L3ctI/AAAAAAAADlM/A-GMHu0r2H0FF6qNCafG5Wnq7FBg2ukeQCPcBGAYYCw/s640/88309069_528074114799392_3340592143688269824_n.jpg" width="480" /></a></div>
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<i>See that little slider up there at the left? That's the one to use if you need to change sensitivity on your light meter. When you see the red tab you need to read from the red scale down at the light meter. Red point means less light mode.</i></div>
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<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-wkfHEFVFMJk/XmXP86LiBYI/AAAAAAAADks/q7w73EQBPIAdSzhkTUaPR7Hh0GTNi_M2ACPcBGAYYCw/s1600/88143748_507284699989238_4155798295341432832_n.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1200" height="640" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-wkfHEFVFMJk/XmXP86LiBYI/AAAAAAAADks/q7w73EQBPIAdSzhkTUaPR7Hh0GTNi_M2ACPcBGAYYCw/s640/88143748_507284699989238_4155798295341432832_n.jpg" width="480" /></a></div>
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<i>Red scale for low light readings, not in use for this example...</i></div>
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<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">When this is done you simply turn the outer part of the focus wheel to align the red arrow over the tiny grey one. Then you read the number showing in either the front or the back (red) window on the focusing knob (get your glasses out before you start...). Check the front one if you're in lightly conditions, or the red one if your light meter is adjusted to low light. </span><br />
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<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-MqKTkdFnoPk/XmXP-hDKEhI/AAAAAAAADkk/AZL7fQ7BbWANECNQi64GDzi01q4Cq55uwCPcBGAYYCw/s1600/88241927_508651856465320_8546326023812153344_n.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1200" height="640" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-MqKTkdFnoPk/XmXP-hDKEhI/AAAAAAAADkk/AZL7fQ7BbWANECNQi64GDzi01q4Cq55uwCPcBGAYYCw/s640/88241927_508651856465320_8546326023812153344_n.jpg" width="480" /></a></div>
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<i>Light conditions scale (reading between 13 and 14 in this example) but we can see the red and grey needle is not perfectly matched yet, meaning the outer chrome ring needs to be adjusted a bit more to have them aligned. </i></div>
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<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-d-L2dxUK65Y/XmXQkFLYOPI/AAAAAAAADlc/kyMyj8ltTjsDj3IMNXwgFHSJbI7djmOKACPcBGAYYCw/s1600/89851109_3115663718483930_3425925425803558912_n.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1200" height="640" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-d-L2dxUK65Y/XmXQkFLYOPI/AAAAAAAADlc/kyMyj8ltTjsDj3IMNXwgFHSJbI7djmOKACPcBGAYYCw/s640/89851109_3115663718483930_3425925425803558912_n.jpg" width="480" /></a></div>
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<i>Needles are aligned (OK, just sort of, but anyway), and we have a reading of something between 14 and 15 which should be good enough to get you in the area of a good exposure. Now the only thing you have to do is to have the numbers transfered to the shutter/aperture adjustments at the front of the camera.</i></div>
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<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">When you got a good reading you need to transfer it so the tiny arrow at the front of the shutter time wheel is pointing at the number we just determined from the light meter reading. Then, if you like (and if you are not completely dizzy by now), you can interlock the shutter time wheel and the aperture wheel to be able to get perfect exposure no matter what combination of the two you like to use, but it has to be inside the limits of what's practical possible of course. You may also like not to bother doing this, as it is a bit restrictive for the next snap given the change of light and all other conditions of the area you may live.</span><br />
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<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-o5JX6MySbUg/XmcOPtLi-xI/AAAAAAAADmE/zMIIq1STHeUkRN8gzn_Xsg_ykHbS1pUbQCLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/89833229_478008006416381_5658656052846002176_n.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1200" height="640" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-o5JX6MySbUg/XmcOPtLi-xI/AAAAAAAADmE/zMIIq1STHeUkRN8gzn_Xsg_ykHbS1pUbQCLcBGAsYHQ/s640/89833229_478008006416381_5658656052846002176_n.jpg" width="480" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><i>Here we are! The arrow at the shutter time wheel is aligned with our number from the previous picture (between 14 and 15, but very hard to see in this picture) and we should have everything in place to get the exposure right. If you look over at the other side for the other thumb wheel (aperture adjustments) there's a strange symbol in the middle of the wheel. That's where the interlock between the shutter and aperture wheel is.</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">The light meter is a simple selenium cell thing. Mine still works absolutely fine even though as we know it's been sitting there for well over 60 years now.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">You can also use a simpler light meter if you wish, or just go completely crazy and go for Sunny 16 or whatever version of the rule you prefer. You will of course get great pictures no matter method of metering you choose to use.</span><br />
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<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-FkDk8QbiOCs/XmcRCSyV_wI/AAAAAAAADmU/jYrtf8j4OmkxiZ_1_cFrxNurhOT04zJuwCLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/87905423_595243097872740_3411778971761639424_n.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1579" data-original-width="1600" height="630" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-FkDk8QbiOCs/XmcRCSyV_wI/AAAAAAAADmU/jYrtf8j4OmkxiZ_1_cFrxNurhOT04zJuwCLcBGAsYHQ/s640/87905423_595243097872740_3411778971761639424_n.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;"><i style="font-family: Times;">Inside the bridge. The Second Mate is sharing his watch with the First Mate having one hour in and the next one out of the DP (Dynamic Positioning) chair from where the vessel is controlled when we are in operation and working with the ROV's in the water. </i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">I think I once wrote something like "there's always at least one annoying thing with every camera", and this also goes for my Rolleiflex. Or, I'm not too sure if it's me old eyes starting to fade a bit, but the fact is the split image in the center of the ground glass (at least on my version of it...) is so tiny i can't properly focus on it without using the loupe, or at least some very good reading glasses (which will never there when you need them anyway).</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">I will soon have to admit I'm getting to the age where some distance is needed to focus them things placed in the front end of my face, and when my arms are fully stretched the distance to the split screen is too far to see the focusing aids inside there at all. Anyway, the loupe is there to be used, and it's not needed for all shots to be honest. After all it's a very small issue, and nothing that is keeping me away from using the camera at all.</span><br />
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<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-FlFLUFYIjDs/XmcRNHdBCuI/AAAAAAAADmc/KbmEniwFGl05ySe2nhjAl-oKR8cBByopQCLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/89768230_627135234792398_6868494150526828544_n.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1557" data-original-width="1600" height="622" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-FlFLUFYIjDs/XmcRNHdBCuI/AAAAAAAADmc/KbmEniwFGl05ySe2nhjAl-oKR8cBByopQCLcBGAsYHQ/s640/89768230_627135234792398_6868494150526828544_n.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><i>In addition to the Engine Cadet down in the dark parts of the vessel there's also one of the same sorts up there in the light. This is what he looks like. No boiler suit or anything up there, of course. </i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">A number of good reasons (12 to be precise) to still use this old camera really comes to mind every time you have a roll of film from it developed.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">The old Planar lens is quite punchy and contrasty for it's age, and have been producing great negatives on whatever film I have decided to put inside the camera through the years I have owned it. Starting to think about it I think I never have tried to feed a roll of any colour film through it though, but that may change quite soon as I got a few rolls of the sort on board the ship at the moment. I can just as well give it a go to check what it's like with some modern C-41 process film with colours.</span><br />
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<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-D8_H9aXtMEA/XmcRTytYLwI/AAAAAAAADmk/8g-T2l7kcCs8kHl7iIX5imiz8ODrzeWoACLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/89832651_231695957970618_1806062730407313408_n.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1588" data-original-width="1600" height="634" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-D8_H9aXtMEA/XmcRTytYLwI/AAAAAAAADmk/8g-T2l7kcCs8kHl7iIX5imiz8ODrzeWoACLcBGAsYHQ/s640/89832651_231695957970618_1806062730407313408_n.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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<i>And of course there have to be some company hiring the ship. This bloke is called Michael. He is a great guy by all measurable means, lives somewhere in the swamps of Louisiana and is representing the client on board. Eight seconds prior to having his portrait taken he had finished off something like 60 push ups with his feet one meter up on the ship railing. At least he could have tried to look like his pulse was a little bit higher than when at rest, but he didn't...</i></div>
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<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">I don't know if a conclusion is needed or even wanted, but I'll go for it anyway. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">The old machine has it's quirks and moments where you think that this is just old fashion and too bothersome to play around with in 2020. If you are in need of a coupled light meter and automatic exposure, or in fact a decent on-board light meter at all, maybe the Rolleiflex is a bit too far out and a bit too cumbersome to actually be of any great value to you. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">On the other hand if you are a little bit experienced and usually will have no big issues in normal light conditions guessing exposure, or if you got a handy light meter to bring along for those situations when it's actually needed, then this type of camera might be just the right thing for you if you're looking for a handy medium format camera shooting squares. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">The negatives coming out in the other end of this box is really great, and the size and form factor of the camera is truly a joy to play around with. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">Another brilliant thing with the Rolleiflex is that the lens is securely attached to the camera, hence no money at all going down that extremely huge drain we all know too well.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">I really recommend the Rolleiflex, I do. At least for anyone living a fair bit away from Northern Ireland and thereabouts not having a Hassy or something from before, as the resulting negs probably would be more or less similar. </span>Roy Karlsvikhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17805712465787215923noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8123989647659569518.post-60368447097612100502020-03-04T06:03:00.001+01:002020-03-04T06:03:21.963+01:00Some thoughts around the Olympus Pen EE-3<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">I just had a good read <a href="https://geraldo.me.uk/olympus-trip-35-ten-photos-in-ten-years-review-photos/" target="_blank">of this nice little blog entry</a> starring the lovely Olympus Trip 35 a couple of days ago, and thought I'd just as well throw in a few thoughts about the tiny little sister of the Trip 35, in other words; Meet the wee little Pen EE-3.</span><br />
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<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-gkb7VE2vI2g/Xl8Q_RXaYnI/AAAAAAAADiU/YyktH862rwQNw6I49K74y-ajJdr769H_wCLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/87039792_200812367821379_1801527794698551296_n.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="480" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-gkb7VE2vI2g/Xl8Q_RXaYnI/AAAAAAAADiU/YyktH862rwQNw6I49K74y-ajJdr769H_wCLcBGAsYHQ/s640/87039792_200812367821379_1801527794698551296_n.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><i>A lovely little thing it is with no problems fitting inside the palm of even a smallish hand.</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">It's actually one of very few film cameras I have bought at a physical store in my life, as this little gem and also my first SLR was payed for over a counter. A Nikon F-401 was bought brand new some time in the mid to late 80's, and the Pen EE-3 was bought only two or three years ago well used but very far from worn out, from a shop dealing with second hand cameras in Arundel, South Downs in West Sussex over in England during "the almost never ending road trip" with the old LR Defender driving from Norway all the way over to England via France you know, then all over the hills and far away, before heading back home the opposite way. I think the shop where it was bought is simply called Arundel Photographica, but I'm not 100% sure. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">Anyway, about the camera:</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">You may think the Trip 35 is as simple as they ever came out of the Olympus factory back in the days when these were made? If so, please take a tiny step back and have a closer look at the Pen EE-3. There is absolutely nothing there that needs to be adjusted as long as you manage to have your film loaded and the ASA adjusted to the right level (between 25 and 400). There's no focus or anything else to be bothered about, besides you got the option to override the fully automatic shutter/aperture combination to adjust the aperture manually if needed or if you just feel for it. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">That's it, actually. Everything else is nothing to think about. No focusing or no anything else. A true point and shoot with an optional manual aperture setting. How cool is that?</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><i>A stealthy little camera even though it's got the classic chrome appearance from back in the days. It's not shiny though, and there are no bells and whistles whatsoever inside this thing. </i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">The Pen EE series was introduced in 1961, and seem to have ended it's days around 1983 or thereabout. The EE-3 model discussed here apparently was on the market from 1973 to 1983 according to <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olympus_Pen" target="_blank">Wikipedia</a>. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">We are as you know by now looking at a half frame, fixed lens, fixed focus, fully automatic selenium cell metered viewfinder camera. It doesn't get much better than that for a small camera, I'd say.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">The fact it's "only" a half frame camera must be as good a reason as any to stay away from it you may think, and if you don't at the same time see all the good reasons for actually getting one you are of course right. Half frame is nothing for serious photography, that's absolutely very well observed, but then again photography can be so much more and there is absolutely no reason to be that serious all the time. Grab a tiny camera, throw in a roll of film and go have some serious fun while snapping all the things you normally would just leave be.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">To me the small EE-3 is one of them perfect pocket film cameras when traveling light. It's tiny, it's built into a good old metal chassis, it gives you nice exposures without having to give it a second thought, it's pretty much invisible and it actually also have a quite good lens attached to it from the factory. No, it's probably not the most expensive construction ever made out of glass and a few plastic rings, but it does the job in a nice way. We are talking about nothing less than a 28mm f/3.5 Zuiko lens, which should be equal to something like a 40mm on a standard full frame 135 camera. So that's nice enough data for the lens, me thinks. I would of course like it to have one more stop available, but then again you can rarely have everything you want. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">The automatic exposure function on the camera is as simple as it is genius actually. There's supposed to be two different shutter speeds (1/125s and about 1/30s) built into the thing. The aperture sets itself to the right size according to available light measured by the selenium cell as you push the release button down towards the point of trigging the shutter. If the camera finds there's not enough light to get a decent shot, a physical "red flag" will show up inside the viewfinder, and the shutter will be locked. This can however be manually overridden if you wish, by using the manual settings on the ASA ring on the lens. Another cool thing is that this way you can also measure light in one spot by pressing the shutter halfways down to lock the aperture and the shutter time (AE lock), then move the camera to compose your picture before you press the button fully down to take your picture. It works like a breeze. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><i>Topside view. Film counter, the rewind crank and even a hot shoe in addition to the obvious release button. You also got a good view of the only adjustment possible to make, the ISO ring on the lens. </i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">Another quite cool thing about half frame cameras is of course the fact that you can squeeze a lot of tiny snaps out of one single 36 exp. roll of film a bit dependant on who actually made the film (as some like to throw in a couple of shots extra just for the heck of it). I think 76 or 77 pictures is my personal best using a roll of Fomapan some time ago. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">The huge backside of the half frame format is of course grain which is the obvious limit and sometimes a showstopper when putting the negatives inside a scanner or even the enlarger in the darkroom. You will soon discover that there is a limit on the size of paper you need to pull out of the stack to get a decent paper copy. On the other hand this is not the camera you would bring along if your mission is to make serious prints for huge walls with pin sharp details and such. We got other cameras for those pictures, we film wasters. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">Another no-brainer and a real kick in the butts to go grab one would be the price. My camera bought over the counter down in Arundel over in England cost me less than a roll of colour negative film. Not that I buy too many rolls of colour negative film, but that's a story for some another day. I payed nine pounds for it, and it works like a dream. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">Something of real value when buying used equipment would be the lack of plastic you would have to hack your way through to start using what's inside. It's extremely annoying, and the plastic seems to end up in the ocean anyway, so better avoid it if possible. I simply payed my nine bucks, slipped it inside my pocket and went out on the street before putting a film inside and started snapping away.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">This is a camera for all those fun pictures, and not exactly for any serious business as I have mentioned well enough now. I would say it's even good enough for a trip into town to do some fun street snapping for those of you who like to play with that sort of photography. It's a lot stealthier than any more modern camera in need of batteries. The shutter is dead quiet and a roll of film goes a long way. There is no annoying sound as there is no motor installed to wind the film forward or backwards either. OK, the manual winding wheel do have a tiny bit of annoying sound if you're sitting inside a very quiet place, but out and about in the field no one is going to hear it or take notice. Even the lens should be of perfect length for street work I would think.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">The negatives are only half the size of a standard 135 camera for sure, but what you loose in size you get back in mood and originality and loads of fun. And a bit of grain, yes.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><i>You will not find anything you didn't expect when you turn it around to have a closer look at the bottom plate. There's the ever present release button for the winding mechanism, and the threaded hole to be able to attach it to a tripod. Not that you ever will do that, but they threw it in for the same price anyway. In my case you also have the film reminder. Quite useful if you load it up and put it on a shelf for a while. There's about 72 snaps on a roll you know...</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">There are even more good things to be said about the little Olympus Pen EE-3. There will always be room left somewhere to bring it along no matter where you go. If you're out shooting with other cameras there will always be a tiny bit of room left for this little thing to make you able to snap up a few frames on some location just for fun, or if you're going places where you first thought you would be better off without any camera at all, it's also the perfect one to simply slip inside a pocket before you run out the doors. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">Due to frame size and the forever on-going discussions and mentioning of grain out there on the forums these days, you might want to load this camera with quite low ISO film around the 100 mark. Personally I'm a bit more relaxed about all the fuzz and would just as often throw inside an ISO 400 film for that matter. I find 400 ISO to suit me better in the long run, as the light up in the northern latitudes can be a bit dull at certain times of year. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">So if you think you have all the cameras you ever needed and there's nothing more to wish for, you might have a go with the oh so lovely little EE-3 (or any other EE for that matter...) from Olympus. They are cool as heck, cheap as chips and also come with a huge load of fun factor already built into them. Something like 17 millions were made, so there should still be a few around ready for grabs. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">And if you still feel you got enough cameras, you may have a son or daughter wanting to try something simple just to start off somewhere? The Pen EE-3 would be perfect for that as well.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">All pictures of camera above was shot out here at sea this afternoon using an old iPhone. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">All example snaps below has been taken with the above camera. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">My film scans sucks as usual, but that's what you get from me. You should know that by now anyway. </span><br />
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<i>Oh yes, we were there! In the midst among the crowds, fighting to get a glimpse of the pile of stone at the end of a bridge. OK, it's a lovely old pile I admit. I might pass again some other time, but at a different time of year. </i></div>
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<i>I got absolutely no idea where this might be. It's in Scotland for sure, maybe somewhere out on the Isle of Skye, but could be anywhere over there I'd say.</i></div>
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<i>I'm pretty sure this is somewhere on the east coast of Scotland. Somewhere in Aberdeenshire if my memory serves me just a tiny bit...?!</i></div>
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<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-ULjauLK_CM4/Xl8q0NyonWI/AAAAAAAADjg/4nOvPxWSmAoTTvBbd0KYFfQBknrOAuaCQCLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/img868.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1165" height="640" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-ULjauLK_CM4/Xl8q0NyonWI/AAAAAAAADjg/4nOvPxWSmAoTTvBbd0KYFfQBknrOAuaCQCLcBGAsYHQ/s640/img868.jpg" width="466" /></a></div>
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<i>Sea cave, east coast of Scotland</i></div>
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<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-RxiD1nShY2I/Xl8q3AToPBI/AAAAAAAADjk/TgN57p6H4fQi-rVNRgrIJRsuZguu4WiVQCLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/img869.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1165" height="640" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-RxiD1nShY2I/Xl8q3AToPBI/AAAAAAAADjk/TgN57p6H4fQi-rVNRgrIJRsuZguu4WiVQCLcBGAsYHQ/s640/img869.jpg" width="466" /></a></div>
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<i>Outside a sea cave, east coast of Scotland</i></div>
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;"><br /></span>Roy Karlsvikhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17805712465787215923noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8123989647659569518.post-63325434960094460762020-03-01T08:00:00.000+01:002020-03-01T08:00:06.145+01:00Went for a hike on a nice summers day<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">We went for a short but quite nice photo walk, me and one of my mates a while ago. In fact it's getting close to two year since this nice little snap was taken now, and I think it's about time we go for a reunion of some sort. He's a dedicated film waster himself as well, you see. So we sometimes have things in common to talk about. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">Oh, and he used to be working in the same company as me, steering ships in some direction before turning a bit and then go in a different heading for a while, then repeat. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">Nowadays he's a captain on a smaller vessel, but they probably have ten times as much fun over in the part of the world where they are earning their daily crest these days compared to the sort of work I am stuck up doing for some time yet. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">The last thing I heard from him was that he was going west but had forgot to stock up on film. I mean who would travel over to the islands in the west without enough film in their pockets?? </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">Beats me...! I heard some very good samaritan on the islands were able to help him out of the mess though, so thank you lots... just in case he forgot all about his manners and stuff and forgot to do so himself. You never know these days with the young folks, but knowing this guy it's probably all sorted by now.</span><br />
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<i><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">This was taken with one of the rangefinders for sure. I'm not quite certain if it was with the flashy M3 or the black and stealthy M6, but a rangefinder it was! Oh, and it most likely had the 35mm lens attached. It was a very nice day indeed, this summers day in 2018. It was the last picture on the film, so for once I was lucky with that one. </span></i></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">On this day when the above photo was taken, his ship called into port in my hometown. I picked him up and we drove off to hike up to the <a href="https://no.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skjonghelleren" target="_blank">Skjonghelleren</a> cave (sorry for the norwegian language only link). It's a quite big hole in the mountain, dug out by nature itself quite some time ago now. It's an interesting place for sure, only a mere half an hour walk from our new apartment. I might try my luck up there with a camera one day if the weather gets better at some point. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">I can't remember exactly what we were talking about when sitting on this wooden bench below the mountain where the cave is, but I can se a thermo flask with coffee, and I can see Stian-René having my Rolleiflex inners wide open and something that looks like a 120 roll of film in his hand. He was probably removing the exposed spool, as this was snapped after we were done exploring the cave. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">My best guess is that we were having a good chat about ships, and cameras, and film and maybe about the old cave up there in the mountain side. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">He probably developed the film a bit later, and found that there was nothing wrong with the camera he borrowed for a few hours on that day. As it happens there is still nothing wrong with that lovely machine. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">Anyway, he's a nice chap for sure, Mr. Stian-Renè.</span>Roy Karlsvikhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17805712465787215923noreply@blogger.com10tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8123989647659569518.post-9371246110039766102020-02-29T08:30:00.000+01:002020-02-29T08:30:06.180+01:00Camera straps - The usual missing link<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">I got quite a few cameras. Probably too many, I confess, and there I just said the words. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">Luckily for me that was not what I was not going to discuss right now. Today it's all about those easy-to-forget minor details. Today it's all about camera straps.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">Common to many, if not in most of my cameras, have been that they either lack a good old strap, or they are in possession of a rather poor example of the sort. There seems to always be something wrong with them. Some are too wide, most of them are cumbersome to slack out or tighten in, they are getting torn in the wrong places, they might be too stiff or just too much of whatever else bad issues you can come up with. Something just had to be done!</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">Nikon used to make a quite good, simple and cheap one (oh yes, I'm a cheepskate for sure when it comes to stuff like this), made out of some quite narrow black web or whatever material they were using. I got a few of them hanging on a couple of F3's and a Nikkormat, and I quite like them. The only thing wrong with them would be the "cumbersome to slack and tighten" issue. Everything else with them is actually great. And then I also got a nice and quite soft leather strap (feels expensive, I got it with some other camera) attached to the elder rangefinder from Germany, which is absolutely great. But that's it! Everything else I got is just crap.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">I even got a more or less useless (way too stiff black one) leather strap from the very same company who make these rangefinders. That one used to be attached to my M6 and probably cost a fortune out of the pockets of whoever bought it back in the days.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">Anyway, most of my cameras have been living their lives in my possession without any strap at all, which annoys me at times as this simple fact sometimes keeps me from picking up a camera to bring along. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">So, what would a cheepskate like me do about that, you may think? </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">Well, I have been searching up and down through the WiFi to find some of those old Nikon straps I was talking about, but the last time I checked on the huge marketplace out there they were way too expensive. I would need at least ten of them, and preferably rather 15, but since I quickly figured out that was going to cost me the equal amount to quite a lot of film, I decided to go for a different approach. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">The answer to it all came falling into my lap some time ago now. I found out one day that it was due time to change out a couple of the old ropes attached to my otherwise very good tent. Off I went to the store to buy a good sized coil of some parachute chord or similar. At the very moment I got that in hand, I figured out the obvious answer to my camera-strap nightmares. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">The first strap I made was way too fancy. It took forever to weave it together, it came out way too short and it was not possible to extend or shorten it. It was simply not what I wanted at all. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">I ditched the whole idea for a while until one day a friend of mine stumbled upon <a href="https://www.japancamerahunter.com/2018/01/camera-historica-the-sean-flynn-leica-m2/" target="_blank">this page on the internet</a> as he was actually searching for one of the photographs shown a bit further down the page. The actual snap was taken during that very ugly war you know over in the east some time ago by the owner of the camera you see pictured at the top of the page. It might even have been snapped with this very camera for all I know, but that's not a part of this story at all. You can of course read a lot about it in the article, but that's for a little bit later please.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">I immediately fell for this idea of a strap for a number of reasons. Simplicity, cheap, durable, strong, and it had a very convenient ring attached which I knew would come in very handy for me when I walk around on the ship, and even at home as I simply can hook it into a carabiner which I usually carry in my belt and/or on my backpack when I'm out walking. </span><br />
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<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-_PvXYdnQFsQ/XlnuiJPP5fI/AAAAAAAADgA/pmfeBbYjOfkMgY6oQkM4wUj0EtexFX60ACLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/85227879_491102241799915_6761853247893274624_n.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="480" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-_PvXYdnQFsQ/XlnuiJPP5fI/AAAAAAAADgA/pmfeBbYjOfkMgY6oQkM4wUj0EtexFX60ACLcBGAsYHQ/s640/85227879_491102241799915_6761853247893274624_n.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><i>A couple of examples. Neat and nice, strong and cheap as chips.</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">It has also proven very good for hanging my camera inside my cabin when at work during really bad weather. The furnitures inside my cabin are usually being thrown around when the waves are getting nasty, and keeping cameras on top of the couch is usually not a good idea when the situation is like this. Since I started using the new straps my cameras have been hanging safely up there on their hooks in a very nice manner because of this clever little ring tied up in just the right distance from the camera body. Yes, you could also hang the cameras by the strap itself, but there's a huge difference between a large swing and a tiny one, I tell you that much. You can see for yourself below and figure it out, and I'm sure you will agree which one is the better solution. </span><br />
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<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-WpAPbhsCsNw/XlnuiybUi7I/AAAAAAAADgY/_SJdImlMRecCS3TbEkPBIvSQKUvHm98EwCEwYBhgL/s1600/87887674_2932728380082967_4034377216241434624_n.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1200" height="640" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-WpAPbhsCsNw/XlnuiybUi7I/AAAAAAAADgY/_SJdImlMRecCS3TbEkPBIvSQKUvHm98EwCEwYBhgL/s640/87887674_2932728380082967_4034377216241434624_n.jpg" width="480" /></a></div>
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<i>Like this!</i></div>
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<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-PRpIdqrWRvY/XlnuiuK0ajI/AAAAAAAADgU/2R9BBzUX_fQXmAOgO3BKhx01h-YxuKGwQCEwYBhgL/s1600/87854964_191944352130924_3915328406492807168_n.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1200" height="640" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-PRpIdqrWRvY/XlnuiuK0ajI/AAAAAAAADgU/2R9BBzUX_fQXmAOgO3BKhx01h-YxuKGwQCEwYBhgL/s640/87854964_191944352130924_3915328406492807168_n.jpg" width="480" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><i>NOT like this!</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">I could of course have tied in any ring you would get pretty much anywhere, but as I have served my time in the military I have also thrown my fair share of hand grenades over a stone wall, as you did when you were told to do so back in the days. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">I actually had quite a few of them old rings sitting inside a box, as I collected some of them when our combat training was over. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">I had of course forgot all about them years and years ago, but had quite recently stumbled upon them and nearly thrown them away for good as we were starting the process of clearing the house to make it ready for selling it a few years back. Well, for some reason I did not throw them away, and now I even knew exactly where to find them, so down in the basement I went and picked them all out of the box and started to produce some good camera straps, finally. </span><br />
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<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-0RpJSjS1wC4/XlnxwnvxQFI/AAAAAAAADgg/nYV7rUd3H-YCtfdI9NMPqxpbJl5gQX5rwCLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/85052733_2376100886022458_9010048561814962176_n.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="480" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-0RpJSjS1wC4/XlnxwnvxQFI/AAAAAAAADgg/nYV7rUd3H-YCtfdI9NMPqxpbJl5gQX5rwCLcBGAsYHQ/s640/85052733_2376100886022458_9010048561814962176_n.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Unbreakable, probably. </span></i></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">A nice feature with this particular type of ring is that it's quite wide in diameter, and it's made out of material that will not rust. It's not aluminium, and it's not steel either. I guess there has been quite some money put into the choice of material used on this little detail even though it was made for something designed to just blow up. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">The only difference from my version of the strap compared to the old and very simple Vietnam version of it is the fact that my strap is double</span><span style="font-family: "Courier New", Courier, monospace;"> and can such be extended or shortened as required. It's done in three seconds flat due to a couple of rather clever "sliding knots" I learned years ago when doing something very different standing on deck of my little boat. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Courier New", Courier, monospace;">Another difference could be the material in the strap itself. I don't keep a supply of original parachute cord in house, so had to go for a cheaper material. It's plenty strong and durable though.</span><br />
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<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-tfA1y-0LhfI/Xlnuhvv9ylI/AAAAAAAADgU/EczjaskXbcYJdyPhlDWcNoAus_QInEXkACEwYBhgL/s1600/87741981_2752023761546881_4253157408576110592_n.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1200" height="640" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-tfA1y-0LhfI/Xlnuhvv9ylI/AAAAAAAADgU/EczjaskXbcYJdyPhlDWcNoAus_QInEXkACEwYBhgL/s640/87741981_2752023761546881_4253157408576110592_n.jpg" width="480" /></a></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">The solution to one of my previous nightmares turned out to be this simple little knot. Drag in or slack out, and your camera will sit exactly where you want it to.</span></i></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">I have been using these straps for a period of time now, and I simply love them and will most likely make a few more as well. They are simply "the shit", as the young daughters keep on telling me good things are called these days. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">Cool, huh?</span><br />
<br />Roy Karlsvikhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17805712465787215923noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8123989647659569518.post-68593583012903601642020-02-28T14:13:00.000+01:002020-02-28T14:13:55.115+01:00Steel Wheels<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">I recently stumbled over a couple of old and exposed films inside the darkroom when looking for unexposed film to bring on board the ship a few weeks back. Got curious and threw them into some HC-110 developer to see what they were all about. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">Found some more or less ruined exposures from the summer of 2018 when we were dry docking the ship in Curacao. Some of the exposures was sort of good, others not so much. It seems I need to add at least another stop of light when I'm using the orange filter on the 21mm for the rangefinder. I'll try to keep that in mind. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">The weirdest thing about Curacao was probably that we still had to pay with the old Dutch currency of Guilder. Oh well... it's not absolutely true to be honest, because this Guilder was the Antillean Guilder which probably was a bit different. </span><br />
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<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-QqPSDjsF0kk/XliPNqigGgI/AAAAAAAADfo/rDSiSe3xmbgn7ZVzH6ImPLx2x9AtO1o1wCLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/img715.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1067" height="640" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-QqPSDjsF0kk/XliPNqigGgI/AAAAAAAADfo/rDSiSe3xmbgn7ZVzH6ImPLx2x9AtO1o1wCLcBGAsYHQ/s640/img715.jpg" width="426" /></a></div>
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<i>No.4 </i></div>
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<i>They somewhat reminded me of something from an old horror movie from the 70's these cranes. They were slow walkers though, on their huge diameter Steel Wheels. Using the orange filter seemed to have been a mistake as usual. The skye was a perfect invitation for it though. </i></div>
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<i>When will I ever learn...?</i></div>
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<i>Leica M6, 21mm f/2.8 Elmarit</i></div>
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<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">Anyway, there was a lot of steel and concrete around the place. At least where we were spending most of our time down there, which obviously was in the dry dock area on the island. It was a huge dock by the way. Our vessel only took up a fraction of the space inside for a couple of weeks or so. </span><br />
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<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Mm_WKE_d0Xk/XliPMdSq00I/AAAAAAAADfk/8_JT198QX5QAAGHw08du-1RMYRpoz1vOwCLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/img714.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1067" height="640" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Mm_WKE_d0Xk/XliPMdSq00I/AAAAAAAADfk/8_JT198QX5QAAGHw08du-1RMYRpoz1vOwCLcBGAsYHQ/s640/img714.jpg" width="426" /></a></div>
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<i>The vessel on dry land. </i></div>
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<i>It's always a bit exciting for the chief engineer when the vessel is getting high and dry like this. There's a few bits to think through before they can pull the plug and get the water out of the basin. It never will go according to plan though, because the guys in the dock never seem to understand our needs. They never seem to understand that we're not exactly doing this every week either. </i></div>
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<i>M6 with 21mm f/2.8 Elmarit. </i></div>
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<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">There was a lot of cranes around the dry dock. As usual I couldn't resist to point my camera towards a few of them, as I like to snap things protruding up towards the sky for some reason. </span><br />
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<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Qe7ybe1F7Ho/XliPJRV3oII/AAAAAAAADfg/mb3YmPLZrDYsRqAXzxnTBwXs6v9XbKj4QCLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/img709.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1032" height="640" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Qe7ybe1F7Ho/XliPJRV3oII/AAAAAAAADfg/mb3YmPLZrDYsRqAXzxnTBwXs6v9XbKj4QCLcBGAsYHQ/s640/img709.jpg" width="412" /></a></div>
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<i>See what I mean? Got the looks of the perfect predator this thing. </i></div>
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<i>Leica M6, 21mm f/2.8 Elmarit</i></div>
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<br />Roy Karlsvikhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17805712465787215923noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8123989647659569518.post-67805700865659209242020-02-27T21:50:00.000+01:002020-02-27T21:50:26.074+01:00Why process film at work seemed like a good idea, and some early thoughts on the Foma Excel film developer<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">I need to put up a warning to you all before you read much further:</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">What was supposed to only be some little thing went way on to become quite a lengthy post due to the (in my head anyway) complexity of the themes brought up by myself as I went on writing on this piece. OK, there is nothing complex in here as such, but I needed a few more words than originally planned to explain myself well enough. As usual.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">One thing grabbed the other, and before I knew any of it I was too far gone. That happens at times, as we all know. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">If you got no interest in a couple of different Foma developers or the Foma P powder fixer, or if you never travel with film (through airports and such) or if you got no interest what so ever in how to, and not at least why on earth, arrange a floating darkroom in the middle of the Gulf of Mexico, and further if you couldn't care less why in heavens name anyone would see the benefit in doing so, well I suggest you save your heart from high blood pressure (if it's not too late already due to this sentence) and simply jump ahead to a different blog. This post is most likely going to be quite boring, or even lethal for some, I assume. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">I'll post a couple of film snaps all the way down below at the end, so you can scroll down there before surfing further on your way through the web and have a look at them if you like. I'll be quite happy if you do actually. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">Here we go;</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">As you probably already know if you did read the last couple of posts, we're in the process of building up a very simple and low tech film developing lab on board the vessel I work on. There are a couple of reasons why this still seems to be a good idea, but the original thought was for educational purposes and short term facilities only, as there are two or three young lads (anyway that's what you call them when you passed 50 yourself way too long ago now) on board, all eager to learn how this film magic works in practice.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">Well, this was a couple of trips ago now, and it turned out during their time off they were actually eager enough to start some home education by themselves before they came on board on the previous trip to this one. Again, this of course means they are no longer in need of any direct hands on help from anyone at all, especially not me, and they are of course developing film more or less like any pro these days. Which is brilliant, of course.</span><br />
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<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-dRXWAhOstAg/Xlf7bfO55cI/AAAAAAAADeI/dPsU-pqXEAA7DHaKv5zdS-Y0Do79YUiUQCLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/SSV%2BLab%2B2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="720" data-original-width="528" height="640" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-dRXWAhOstAg/Xlf7bfO55cI/AAAAAAAADeI/dPsU-pqXEAA7DHaKv5zdS-Y0Do79YUiUQCLcBGAsYHQ/s640/SSV%2BLab%2B2.jpg" width="468" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><i>So, this is it! Our little corner in one of the stories and workshop areas where film is being processed. Chemicals for most normal film processes is up on the shelf, together with most of the stuff you'll need to get the deed done. It's not fancy, but it seems to work well enough. As you might understand this corner doubles up as a soap and washing equipment area. Sorry about the pixels and and all that, but for plain documentation I have to admit there are benefits...</i></span></div>
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<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-B_IrZsgz0WY/Xlf7a_lA1iI/AAAAAAAADeE/f4nzD0gQUmkCw9RQ_JrG91XUN0Xbd98EQCLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/SSV%2Blab%2B1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="480" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-B_IrZsgz0WY/Xlf7a_lA1iI/AAAAAAAADeE/f4nzD0gQUmkCw9RQ_JrG91XUN0Xbd98EQCLcBGAsYHQ/s640/SSV%2Blab%2B1.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><i>A little close-up of the point of interest. I see one of the Paterson spools has been hidden away somewhere else, but it will show up again some time I'm sure.</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">However, it turns out there seems to be another good reason for developing film on board when at work in 2020, and I am of course speaking of the fact that airport security scanners are getting more powerful these days. A new generation of machines (or not new as such, as the same technology have been in use for check-in luggage for about 20 years already) are being installed in all major airports as we speak, probably to speed up the process at the security checkpoints. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">I very much like the idea of getting through the security check a lot faster than the usual tedious way, but I don't like the new machines likeliness of frying my film in the process, which they probably will if you have been listening with both ears to what Kodak, Ilford and others in the film production business have been talking about lately. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">Up until now I have been bringing my unexposed film inside my carry on luggage, and just simply dropped-in-a-tray-and-through-the-scanners-they-fly without any issues at all. I have been doing the same thing with my cameras, loaded with film and everything. No problems at all.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">I have been traveling like this with film in my bag for many years now, back and forth through anything between two and eight scanners on each trip every six weeks year in and year out. I'm sure some films in my bag must have passed probably 20+ scannings of the old sorts, and I have never had an issue I can possibly blame any X-ray scanner for.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">The 20+ number is just taken out of the air of course, because I have not been counting, but I travel a lot for work and I sometimes travel far, and I usually would just grab a good little bunch of film before I leave home and just tuck them inside my bag. Some rolls will be leftovers and just stay inside that same bag during multiple trips without being used, and that's why the number of X-ray scannings could reach such numbers and probably above for some films. As time goes and everything in the world is the same, you start to relax after some time, and airport scanners is far from your worst enemy after a few years doing this. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;"><a href="https://kosmofoto.com/2019/10/kodak-updates-film-care-recommendations-and-confirms-ct-scanner-issue/" target="_blank">But now there's a new beast on the block</a>, and we traveling film wasters have to deal with it in some sort of way. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">By processing film on board I will of course be able to reduce the amount of X-ray scans a lot compared to my previous "regime". </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">In addition I will also have to do something about my earlier habit of bringing film back and forth multiple times. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">The idea is of course simply to bring un-processed film on board, but not back home if I can possibly avoid it. I might also get better at buying film in whichever country I'm working at the moment, but that's an even trickier task as there will most likely be no time for any shopping like that. I work on a ship you know, and a ship earns it's daily crest at sea, not by wearing out the ropes tied up alongside some half-rotten pier somewhere. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">OK, so what's out there to expect when traveling halfway around the globe nowadays, and what has happened since some time in the second half of 2019? Well, much of the same as before, I would say. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">The few operators of the new type of X-ray machines I have bumped into have been quite cooperative up until now (with a couple of exceptions of course), but you never know when that luck is going to change on you.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">For this trip I tested out my "new" concept by really bringing quite a few of rolls of 135 and 120 film on board. I dug deep into the film drawer and even deeper into my freezer (because we have now moved to a new location where I got a dedicated almost-film-only-freezer) and pulled out 80 rolls of film (just counted two minutes ago to make sure the numbers were right...) which seem to have been laying around for ages anyway. Since I can't see these rolls being used with any benefit at home I thought I better bring them on board to play around with. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">I brought some C-41 color negative film spanning from ASA 100 to 800, some rolls of E6 process positive film (low ASA stuff from Fuji), and finally a bunch of B&W film of various types from 50 to 3200 ASA. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">These were the ones picked to serve as crash test dummies through the various airports from home and over to where the ship is located, way off the coast of Louisiana at the moment. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">Leaving Norway (2 traditional and old fashion scannings) was no problem since there was no new type of scanners to be seen up north as for yet, but already down at Schiphol lies the first major test. No problem and no discussions at all about having all my rolls of film passing on the outside of the scanner to be "hand-checked" (whatever that really means), so thanks a lot for that Schiphol. Anyway I knew this was going to happen, as I have always been able to speak to the folks on this airport, and they always find the time and take the effort to listen to what you have to say. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">I went through the security twice at Schiphol, due to in and out of the airport because I had to stay overnight at a hotel before flying further on the next morning. The same friendly attitude were experienced both days. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">Then the next one on the list was Atlanta airport, USA... Heck, I finally managed to get my film hand-checked there as well, but I really had to speak out loud to make myself understood and/or heard, I'm not sure which of the two made it through to the receiver in the end. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">It's not my favorite game to play, coming in to a security checkpoint facing a fully wound-up security officer when I'm just out of a 12 hrs. flight without any sleep, and hardly had any sleep the previous night either... you know the deal. Add to this also the state you're normally in after well over an hour in immigration queue and interview... I say no more!</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">I must add that the minor issue through security at Atlanta Airport was probably due to one single operator in particular (could of course also be myself, but for once I really doubt it as I actually felt proud of my own reaction for days after this), as my friends who were standing in a different queue had no issues at all having their film hand checked, seeing only friendly faces and was taken very well care of. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">I also need to add that when leaving the US on the previous trip out of Houston towards Europe there was no problem at all. They were more than happy to hand-check my film both when coming in and leaving the country. In fact the operator of the new scanner in Houston actually suggested a hand scanning by himself when being informed that I was traveling with film. He knew everything about the new machines frying abilities and built-in film zapping technology. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">As a result of all this new extra hassle and possible show stoppers during traveling, I realized it was time to think seriously about developing film on board when at work. As liquid developers also are a bit tricky to travel with for obvious reasons, I decided to try bring some powder developer and fixer packed into my checked-in bag, and just cross fingers that no one would start questioning the content of the packs. Due to time issues (placing my order a bit late, as you do of course) and relatively long delivery time from a couple of different companies, I ended up having only one option if I wanted to bring any B&W developer for this trip. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">Foma in Norway was able to ship everything I needed on the same day, so I just had to go for it and cross my fingers that the two different and to me totally new and unknown developers worked as expected (or hoped, as I have also read very little about them). </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">I had two types of powder developer ordered, the Fomadon P (also marked as "type D76") and the Fomadon Excel (supposed to be an X-tol type, or clone). I also ordered a few packs of crystalized or powdery Fomafix P, which obviously would be the fixer. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">The two developers comes well packed in a quite small and neat plastic bag with a cheap paper inlay telling you what's supposed to be inside the package. Nothing fancy, as usual from Foma, but it does what's needed and nothing much else. I mean why would anyone need a fancy bag anyway, as long as it survives the travel in one piece and one doesn't have to guess what's hiding inside?</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">The fixer comes in a nice little cardboard box of puke green color with proper mixing instructions printed inside the box. English instructions are printed in understandable phrases inside both developers and fix, just in case you wonder. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">The developers both consists of two equal sized paper bags of powder, noted in the mixing manual as "big bag" and "small bag". OK, it's not that bad, as one bag has only a small amount of powder inside, and the other is rather full of the stuff. I actually figured the most empty one had to be the "small size", and mixed myself 1 liter of the Fomadon Excel developer according to instructions as soon as I had film ready to get wet. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">The developer mix quite nice and easy with water at rather normal temperatures, and is ready for use quite shortly after throwing the powder in. I decided to go for a 1:1 dilution, keeping 1/2 liter of stock for later use. The user manual suggests to use stock solution, or at least there is no words about any dilution. It also indicates a 12 rolls capacity for 1 liter of developer, which seems to fit well enough with my finding of about 20 rolls. They are always operating on the quite safe side, and I've seen it often enough to know that's the way it works. More about that a bit further down.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">As the Foma developers seems not to be among the most popular developers around, there was little or no words about developing times and the like to be found around the places I usually go to check for this sorts of information. Foma delivers data for their own films and developer combinations, but no other films was mentioned. Personally I was going to develop a roll of Ilford PAN 100, and Massive Development Chart wasn't very cooperative in this case. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">I could of course have used a lot of time asking around the web and as usual get as many different answers as the number of people answering me, so I dropped that and did it my own way. I mean it was just a lousy B&W film anyway, and normally there is hardly any chance that a masterpiece had stuck on any of the frames, so I went for X-tol times and decided to add a smallish fraction of time to it just in case. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">Well, I am happy to inform you that the trick worked well enough. The negs came out in a way that seems both lovely and fine, but I have to add that I have only been able to check them with a not too good loupe as for yet. I'll pull a lens off of one of my cameras tomorrow and have a better look, but they really look great from a distance to be honest. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">I mean I even developed a roll of good old Shanghai GP3 in the stuff a couple of days ago, and though you might have a hard time believing it, that bugger also came out as good as they ever get. You should know from years back that I really love that film, at least when you're lucky enough to not have issues with the numbers from the backing paper sticking onto the film emulsion. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">Well, there was nothing of that sorts on this roll, so it might be an over-layer from an older batch. The last rolls I bought of this film all had rather big issues with the backing paper, so I expected this one to be the same thing. Luckily it was not. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><i>And this is what they looks like, the packs of Foma developer and fixer I brought over from home. At least they don't take up a lot of space, or add too much weight in the suitcase when traveling.</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">I have yet to try the Fomadon P developer, which should be of a D-76 type if we are to believe what's printed on the front of the pack of the thing. At least the Excel developer looks very much like the X-tol stuff, but I need to warn you that I don't have any deep knowledge of that particular chemical either. In fact I've only had a few films developed in X-tol and that was years ago. Anyway, the grains came out on the fine side, and the contrast seems to be absolutely fine when looking at the negs. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">Since the Fomadon Excel developer was mixed about two weeks ago we have totally developed 9 films using half of the stock solution to make 1 liter of 1:1 developer. No visible issues as for yet, but I might not stretch it any further, and will probably mix a new batch from the rest of the stock we got up on the shelf. Value for money seems to be on the good side of things. I payed NOK 45,- for the Excel developer which I would probably have no problems getting 20 films out of if I could avoid storing the 1:1 mix for more than about one week. That's just a tad over NOK 2,- pr film which is good enough even for me. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">The Fomadon P (D-76) is a few NOK cheaper at 41,25 for a 1 liter powder pack.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">The Foma P fixer is in the same area, NOK 42,- for a 1 liter pack. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">They are very handy packs to travel with, and I just realized when going into their website to check the prices that the before mentioned plastic bags containing the developer powder now seems to have been changed to cardboard boxes similar to the box the fixer was delivered in. The color seems to be a bit nicer than puke green though. Not that less fancy colors on their boxes should keep us from starting using Foma products if that's the direction we wish to throw our hard earned cash of course, but I will not start talking about that again.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">What's obvious is that there is a quite huge difference in price when comparing Foma and Kodak developers. I will get three packs of 1 liter Foma developer for the same amount of money I would need to pay for one liter of the Kodak equivalent here in Norway.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">I'm posting a few examples from this experiment with the Fomadon Excel developer below, but needs to put in (even more than) a few words just to make sure you know what you're looking at. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">The two snaps of the negs were taken with an iPhone by holding the neg in one hand and balancing the phone in the other trying to hit the shutterbugger using my right hand thumb at the same time. Ever tried that? Well, be my guest. Second the "window" I shot the thing through is a salted down and by all means dirty thing only there to throw some half decent light inside of my cabin, so there's a lot of stuff shining through the negative. In addition you get everything in the background all for free of course. Sea, clouds, a handrail on the outside and what have we all. Look at the grain, and nothing much else. Don't even look at what seems to be a very low contrast, because the neg is quite a bit more contrasty than it seems to be in the digital snap of it. I tried to crank it up a bit inside the phone, but the damn stupid software wouldn't allow me to do it for some reason. See why I usually go for film? Even the simplest task on any digital platform makes my blood pressure rise to dangerous levels because of things I got no way to control the insides of. </span><br />
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<i>Your personal blogger up on top there. One of them engineers had grabbed hold of the Rolleiflex for a moment and decided to "shoot the Chief". If you look away from all the faults brought in by the digital convertion apparatus, this is not actually bad at all. Shot on a roll of Kosmofoto 120 film, which effectively just mean Fomapan 100. Lovely film all the same, and I liked the results from the Fomadon Excel developer. </i></div>
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<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-3F4k5tkHz18/XlgiIcYUjLI/AAAAAAAADeo/22XUL4lWjws-UB4AYgnhD5Okqa4Mwk0MACLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/Negative%2B2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="480" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-3F4k5tkHz18/XlgiIcYUjLI/AAAAAAAADeo/22XUL4lWjws-UB4AYgnhD5Okqa4Mwk0MACLcBGAsYHQ/s640/Negative%2B2.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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<i>One of our new Polish crane drivers and AB's. It's the same with this neg. There are stuff going on in the lower 1/3 part of the thing, so just look a bit away from that. Snapped in the Pentax 67 with the 45mm f/4 lens attached, on good old Shanghai GP3 developed in Fomadon Excel. Great stuff!</i></div>
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<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-KhTjGv3o358/XlgiI5lgObI/AAAAAAAADes/yJiQ4MCwzacoevMjCWKfMLrKtoXAUToLwCLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/Negative%2B3.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1200" height="640" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-KhTjGv3o358/XlgiI5lgObI/AAAAAAAADes/yJiQ4MCwzacoevMjCWKfMLrKtoXAUToLwCLcBGAsYHQ/s640/Negative%2B3.jpg" width="480" /></a></div>
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<i>It's the 3rd engineer. The proud owner of a lovely Pentax 67, and the go-to chemist if anything like would be needed, which usually happen in this job, especially when you got a film lab on board and need something special to get something done. He just did something crazy to be able to develop E6... but more about that another bright day. </i></div>
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<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-RX9SSOUmSdY/XlgiK1-xptI/AAAAAAAADew/c66pHTPJgcoqY14jjiEG4tDZNa0d5JFJgCLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/Negative%2B4.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1200" height="640" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-RX9SSOUmSdY/XlgiK1-xptI/AAAAAAAADew/c66pHTPJgcoqY14jjiEG4tDZNa0d5JFJgCLcBGAsYHQ/s640/Negative%2B4.jpg" width="480" /></a></div>
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<i>The crane driver once more. Snapped with the Rolleiflex on the same roll of Kosmo film again. This was done hand held at 1/8 of a sec. due to rather dark conditions. Actually I think I might even would have got away with 1/15 on this one, but there was quite a bit too less lighty inside that hole of theirs inside their cave out on deck. They got good coffee out there though. </i></div>
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<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">Oh... and yes there's also a couple of snaps down at the very end having nothing to do with the rest of the post at all. They are only there because of the promise I made hours ago at the top of this thing to the ones who didn't want to read the whole post. I can't blame them for just jumping down here by the way...!</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">Did anyone actually read much of this nonsense at all?? </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">Take care!</span><br />
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<i>I just found this inside a batch of scans I made quite a while ago. It was snapped on constitutional day (May the 17th) a couple of years ago. It was a warm day, and the fury dog called Scot had found a nice place in the shadow to cool himself down a bit. I had the 85mm f/1.4 beast attached to the Nikon F3 and decided to give it a go at full aperture. I rarely do things like that, but this scene sort of asked for it there and then. Not sure about what sort of film this was though. </i></div>
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<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-wcZS4Ddn1Mg/XlgntHQYQBI/AAAAAAAADfI/OZ8ndWycg3su18c6AS8tdcjaPkQXvNDKgCLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/img044.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1057" data-original-width="1600" height="422" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-wcZS4Ddn1Mg/XlgntHQYQBI/AAAAAAAADfI/OZ8ndWycg3su18c6AS8tdcjaPkQXvNDKgCLcBGAsYHQ/s640/img044.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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<i>This is a more recent snap and scan for sure. I was walking around the ship on crew change day with the M6 rangefinder in hand, grabbing a few shots here when possible. I even went inside the smoking room. I very rarely pass that way, but sometimes you see and hear things in there, and the world is no longer what it used to be before you went inside that door. </i></div>
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<i>Leica M6, Summicron 35mm with yellow filter. Could have been Kodak Tri-X film, but I'm not sure.</i></div>
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<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-9nYDGzhM2mo/Xlgny-S-XBI/AAAAAAAADfQ/Hn47aDQHIWwrUuBkxQqjmkzNPV_tux1bACLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/img304.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1066" height="640" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-9nYDGzhM2mo/Xlgny-S-XBI/AAAAAAAADfQ/Hn47aDQHIWwrUuBkxQqjmkzNPV_tux1bACLcBGAsYHQ/s640/img304.jpg" width="426" /></a></div>
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<i>Oh well... it's obviously just another quick snap from the engine room. I think it was the light/shadow thing that made me open the shutter for a little while, but I am no longer sure about the point of doing so in the first place. Leica M6, Summicron 35mm with yellow filter. Unknown film, but might have been Kodak Tri-X</i></div>
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;"><br /></span>Roy Karlsvikhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17805712465787215923noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8123989647659569518.post-7779854042397494532020-02-24T06:16:00.001+01:002020-02-24T06:16:15.275+01:00Planning the holidays, we are<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">I know, it's way too early to start planning the summer. At least it's way too early for that up and over where I come from. It's getting a bit easier every year though, as nowadays there's only about two of us left involved in the planning, which probably makes you wonder even more why we're starting this early thinking about three short weeks in July? </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">Well, it's just because it's required sort of. At least if we would like to get what we want out of the trip. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">We're not going very far, mind you. We're not going to where the weather is warm either. And there will of course be a lot of rain. And fog. Won't see much at all, most likely. And there will most certainly be a zillion tons of midge per cubic meter worth of breathable air. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">But we're quite used to all of that sorts, so we'll be fine we will. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">Oh... and crowds. I forgot to mention the crowds. I tend to forget them until I'm there.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">If you happen to be in the area around that time, don't hesitate to give me a shout. Would be great to meet up for a chat and to waste a few frames of film together.</span><br />
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<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-VBDcoOBhfu0/XlNHbOlYV_I/AAAAAAAADdk/pnRAMhGn4OU9MHRyk4CdbZIvmseDF-8AQCLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/img849.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1162" data-original-width="1600" height="464" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-VBDcoOBhfu0/XlNHbOlYV_I/AAAAAAAADdk/pnRAMhGn4OU9MHRyk4CdbZIvmseDF-8AQCLcBGAsYHQ/s640/img849.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><i>Will go over the sea to here it seems, or at least somewhere quite close. </i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><i>Scanned neg taken out of the Olympus Pen EE-3 half frame toy. Ilford PAN 400 in HC-110</i></span></div>
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<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-OEoXiLOJSiA/XlNHdZ91-5I/AAAAAAAADdo/jHBn1fD0WT0V1HAEngtZDf-FK0HanfwzQCLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/img858.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1162" data-original-width="1600" height="464" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-OEoXiLOJSiA/XlNHdZ91-5I/AAAAAAAADdo/jHBn1fD0WT0V1HAEngtZDf-FK0HanfwzQCLcBGAsYHQ/s640/img858.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><i>Not here we won't go. We've been here some time in the past. Might go again some other time though.</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><i>Same film and same camera and developer as above. </i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">I had a rather short but nice session of developing film this morning. It's been Sunday after all, you know. One was a roll of Ilford PAN 100 saved out of the very tiny little Olympus Pen EE-3 half frame thing, but they were not the snaps shown above of course as the scanner facilities on board is non existent at the moment. I sloshed it around in some (to me) new developer from Foma. Powdery stuff, so easy to carry in the luggage over from Norway. I tell you a bit more about it some other day, of course. The other film was a (hold your hats) C-41 thing containing a myriad of strange bits called colors. In addition it was of very much unknown origin (marked LOMO, I discovered later...). It has been snapped up inside the light tightness of a very nice and bulky (in the right spots) Pentax 67. Oh no, it's not my camera as you might remember from my last post, as I just borrowed it from one of the engineers who most kindly trusted me to carry the thing around the ship for a few days. On the other hand he has been seen strolling out and about with my Rolleiflex in hand, so I guess we're even, sort of. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">The C-41 show-off is nothing but an experiment, of course. As it happen I got a bit more than a few rolls of the stuff inside my cabin on board the ship, so I just need to try my best to put them into some good use, as you will do when you got film that came to you in ways you no longer remember any details about. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">And talking about strange film; I just loaded a 120 size roll of Ilford Delta 3200 into the old Rolleiflex. I wonder what I was thinking, but we will see some other day what came out of it. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">Other than that it's been another one of them quite warm days here way out in the Gulf of Mexico. Strange place to be honest. One day it's freezing cold and breezy, and the next you wake up thinking you have been sleeping on top of a good old coal fire. The sea is calm to moderate more or less all the time down in this area though, with literary no waves at all to speak of. A tiny wee bit different from what we know from back home this time of year, as you might know all about. At least it's been nice and flat like this whenever I have toddled along working in these areas. Hence no wonder actually, the yankees are building their ships with almost no freeboard at all, can you imagine that? Also then no wonder the US supply vessels had a rather short career when they first were brought over to do work out in the North Sea some time around late 60s and early 70s. The poor guys on deck were constantly walking around wet on their tiny little feet, and probably got very well tired of it at some point. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">I don't blame the yankees though, because after all there had to be some Norwegian hot shot who first had the bright idea to bring them ships over. </span><span style="font-family: "Courier New", Courier, monospace;">Without lots of further hesitation we started to design our own vessels, a bit more suitable for the conditions present in the North Sea. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Courier New", Courier, monospace;">Well... what works in one part of the world does not automatically work in other parts of it. That's for sure.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">For throwing plastic and stuff around to be taken away by the breeze and brought around in circles until it hits the ocean and other bits of nature however is a completely different thing, just saying! To actually stop doing that will work perfectly fine all over the globe. Totally true story! </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><i>For some odd reason I seem to like these sorts of features people have dug into the landscape. At least I like to snap them up when they have already been put there anyway. This one was particularly nice with it's cables hanging useless around. Makes you wonder why they have not pulled the thing out of the soil some time ago, actually. Well, I might go that way and try snap it once again as the cables are a lot less visible on the film than I imagined they would be. </i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><i>Snapped with the M6 rangefinder with the 35mm some time ago. Yellow filter attached. Film unknown, as more or less usual.</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">I think I might just as well go try to get some sleep now. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">See you around some other day, hopefully. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">Stay safe!</span><br />
<br />Roy Karlsvikhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17805712465787215923noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8123989647659569518.post-24437064069917321832020-02-22T06:36:00.001+01:002020-02-22T06:36:17.830+01:00Still around, mind<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">Hi ya, all you old friends of this tiny little blog. I know it's been way too long, but all sorts of things like life and stuff came in the way and might as well do the same thing at some point in the future for all we know. Just don't delete me off your reading lists and you'll probably find a few words and a snap or three coming through every now and then. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">You might have thought that little "Hi ya" up there sounded like a very overseas way to greet you all? Actually that was the plan mind you, but only because I'm actually o'er there. Or actually right here as it happens. In the US of A that is. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">Been here for some time now actually, but soon to move back down south to Brazil if we are to believe what's being told about the further plans (better known as rumors...) and all that. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">But first I'm going to finish off this trip here in US waters, and then I'm going home for a few weeks before joining the ship again down south somewhere. Rio de Janeiro, most likely. </span><br />
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<i>You know for sure you must be quite some distance away from old Norway when there's more than one railway track going in the same general direction...</i></div>
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<i>Pentax Spotmatic, 50mm f /1.7 Ilford PAN 400</i></div>
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<i>Galveston, TX</i></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">America is great of course, as we all know from before and also are being reminded quite often these days. Lots of space indeed, and else seems to me to be just like it used to be back in the days I was here the last time about 12 years ago, or something like that. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">It would probably feel even bigger if I was able to move around on my own a bit more, but I'm rather stuck at one single place, as you usually are when being placed to work on board a ship. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">Anyway, I managed to get hold of a few rolls of that legendary B&W film they have made for quite a while over here. It was not cheap though, if that might ease your minds a bit. It didn't work any better than it used to do either. None of the pictures shown today are shot on that sort of lovely emulsion, just to have that mentioned straight away. I think it's all Ilford PAN 400 to be honest. I will of course show you a few master pieces snapped on Tri-X at some point when I got something ready for you. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">You see we got ourselves a darkroom on board the ship these days. Well, only for developing film of course, since else we would be forced to invent a gyro stabilized enlarger to be able to print on paper on board the vessel. Could be done, of course... but I'm not sure what my employer would say about that to be honest. I think we should just be happy that we're actually able to do film, and leave the other matter be. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">It started last trip when the third engineer brought his Paterson tank and some C-41 chemicals on board. We soon found it to be a good idea that he left his tank on board, and also try to get some more chemicals on board as well for this trip. So he brought some E-6 chemicals, and I brought a few different B&W developers. This trip we have developed all three sorts of films with no obvious failures so far. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">Sounds nice, huh?</span><br />
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<i>From just south and east of Pier 39 in Galveston. A facility for shipping out grain has been built here some time ago. I guess they still use it, but not on the day I was there and made this snap.</i></div>
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<i>Pentax Spotmatic, Ilford PAN 400</i></div>
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<i>Galveston, TX</i></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">Nothing much else is new I guess, besides I got a few new cameras of course. Just old scruffy things with bad lenses, sticky shutters and no working light meters of course, so nothing to jump through the roof about. The "new" Spotmatic is a great one though, if I should mention only one of them newcomers. Lovely old thing, but the light meter is dead on that one as well. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">I'm also borrowing a Pentax 67 from the Third Engineer right now, so that's probably the best thing for the moment. Huge, bulky, heavy and absolutely lovely brick of metal with a lens and a shutter. Or two lenses, to tell the truth. You might see a few scans later on when I get home and hopefully still own a working computer. Seems like this one is getting closer to it's end of lifetime these days, but we will see. I can do nothing but knock the woods and say a few words over it every time I start up the old thing. It's from around 2010 after all... a dinosaur these days, I know. </span><br />
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<i><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">I don't know, to be honest...! Probably somewhere up between Galveston and Houston, TX. Somewhere on the highway due west of Texas City or something like that, I guess. Thought I'd just try a shot in the blind more or less. I'm glad I did.</span></i></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">Still with the Pentax Spotmatic. Same lens and same old film as above. </span></i></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">That'll be all for now. No great stories from America yet folks, but I'll try to put something together for the next post. Hopefully it's not going to take a year or so to put that one together. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">See ya! </span>Roy Karlsvikhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17805712465787215923noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8123989647659569518.post-86520767629828603892019-05-25T23:22:00.000+02:002019-05-25T23:22:20.664+02:00Testing some Slavich darkroom paper, finally<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">Looking into my darkroom shelves you would think there should be more than enough paper to keep me going for quite a while. The short answer to that is of course yes absolutely, as long as you're not too picky about the final look on the print that is. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">If you think there's a great difference in between film types and qualities, well then go ahead and try a few different papers and check out the differences on the final prints which is enormous compared to different film types. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><i>You have of course seen this shot a few times before if you've been through this blog a few times, but I've never lith printed it before. I think this phone photo of the print should give you a pretty good idea of the look of the print. It's rough as heck, but I like it a lot for this sort of look.</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">I have wanted to get my hands on some Slavich paper for quite a while now, but for some reason it has just never happened that I have put the order in. My usual suppliers of paper do not stock it, so the solution for me was to get it from Slavich's distribution company Geola, over in Lithuania. No problems whatsoever to get what I wanted from them, but the shipping and tax cost was a bit high from what I remember. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">Their Baryta based "Unibrom" paper comes in two grades, Normal and Contrast. I only had time to do a few tests on the Normal paper, but will post examples from their Contrast grade as well some time. </span><br />
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<i><span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;">My Ballerina shot done a couple of years or so back in time. This got a very different feeling to it all of a sudden when using the Slavich paper compared to the smoother Emaks paper from Fotokemika which I've used for lith earlier. </span></i></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">I only tested the Slavich paper in lith developer (LD20) due to time issues (as usual). What I really liked about it is the rather extreme graphic looks it gives in the shadows, and the beautiful and warm tones (yellowish) I got in the highlights. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">And before you start to ask me what kind of test this is... well, it's not a test as in such. I only made three prints to see what it looked like, so if you need a deep test in all sorts of conditions and all sorts of developers compared to whatever else, I'm afraid you'll have to look elsewhere. I will probably come back though, with more prints and hopefully less words. </span>Roy Karlsvikhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17805712465787215923noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8123989647659569518.post-27479814109705430472019-05-13T23:39:00.000+02:002019-05-13T23:39:07.373+02:00Testing period of my converted to LED lights enlarger<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">Hi again, folks!</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">I know it's been quiet for some time again from this part of the world, but I have had things to do I'm afraid. Some fun stuff, and a bunch of boring things on the forever growing "to do" list. We're trying to sell the house as you might already know, which means a lot of really tedious things that just have to be done. I'll spare you the details! </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><i>Just a quick phone shot of one of the few prints I've made with the home made LED module I made for my enlarger. This was not the final print, as I found out I had been a tad to careful with the blacks in this one, but you'll get the idea. Just to make everything right, this is not one of my own negatives but one I had printed for a friend that is just starting out with film. More of that later, but it seems I have managed to pull at least one guy over to the darker side... </i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">I have luckily also found some spare time to spend inside the darkroom lately, just to try to figure out how to use the new LED setup inside my enlarger. I finished the building of the thing the last time I was home, had it checked on the bench and then had to leave for six weeks while in Brazil working my sweat out. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">I have now mounted the light (or LED) module itself inside the enlarger, but the LED drivers and some electronics are still hanging outside making the thing look like something the cat dragged in. Still, I just had to get it all tested with negatives and paper. I mean there's no reason to do a lot of work on it just to use hours to dismantle the whole thing again when something did not work as planned, right?</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">So I had the LED module mounted and a negative stuck inside the enlarger and started to work on paper again. And yes, I just have to admit that it seems like I have done the right thing! It's different to work with of course, but then again I knew that much before I started this journey too many moons ago. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">It works!! </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">The green LED's are giving me nice transitions from white to middleish greys, and the blue leds being quite a lot tougher than I thought are giving me rich and really nice blacks, which is the whole point after all. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">I have only done a few test prints up until now, but I'm hoping to be able to do a bit more serious work with it during next week. This week will have to be dedicated to that boring stuff mentioned above.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">What I do see is that there's obviously a lot more of the blue light there than my eyes are seeing, making it a bit difficult to control at this early stage. I will get used to it though, I know. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">I am not where my darkroom is at the moment, so I can't give you any phone snaps of the thing right here and now. I will of course come back to the details at some point just to show you that it can be done if you're a bit dedicated...</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">You may also remember that I had a new timer built, and a digital LED controller for me to be able to turn on and off the right LED's and to dim them to the level I need them to shine through any given negative. Well... they all work as intended and I'm happy to say I'm quite satisfied with the whole thing. Now I only need to put all cables, transistors and resistances into somewhere to hide them away. But first I will have to make a few more prints I guess. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">The first impression is at least almost overwhelming, but I'll come back to the details and a few examples some day when I got something to show off.</span>Roy Karlsvikhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17805712465787215923noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8123989647659569518.post-50779214257381819002019-04-22T19:56:00.001+02:002019-04-22T19:56:08.208+02:00It's great, actually! <span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">Well into the last few days of preparation for crew change over here. Which is a good thing, mind you! This time however we need to stay an extra day in Brazil as we're in for visa renewal, which is a horrible venue all together. Takes precious time you see, and lots of the sorts I'm afraid. We even have to get into a van and have someone to drive us about 4 hours up the coast just to get to the right police station to get it all properly done. Crazy, but that's how it is. Oh, and the same four hours back down to Rio again the next day to hopefully catch our flights to Europe. And if we're late, well the next plane leaves 24 hrs later if we can get tickets on such short notice that is. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><i>Living at the Beach. Well, this might be to stretch the truth a wee bit, but we will be moving to this area a few months from now. It's a place where you can breath. Like really breath...</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">OK, rants over!</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">It's going to be great to get home. I got plans, you see. Plans for some darkroom work, and even plans for some snapping up of (hopefully rather) good stuff for all of you to see some day. It's about time I take the old van out and do some driving around the area just to try my take on a few scenes inside the fjords somewhere. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">I usually find myself somewhere on the coast line, and it must be years since I took some time and drove deep into the fjords land of this place. They are quite nice though, if you like this sort of thing. Steep mountain sides and some deep water, that's what it's all about in there. We are only talking about a couple of hours drive actually, so it's not that the task is completely impossible. It's just myself liking the open landscapes a lot better. I feel I can breathe out there on the coast. In the fjords you're constantly walking around with something blocking the means of breathing. Of course it's just a feeling, but anyway who would and should not listen to what your body is trying to tell you? My body usually tells me to pack my things and get home to where the wind is howling, the rain is hammering flat onto your windows and the sun is shining and no wind is blowing half an hour later. That's fresh air to me...</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">But I'll do it for you, of course... just to let you know what it looks like when looking through one of my cameras. It will be nothing like <a href="https://www.google.com/search?q=Geirangerfjorden&safe=off&tbm=isch&source=iu&ictx=1&fir=ifL25MkUGvmt-M%253A%252CSoHMFex7XhE1_M%252C_&vet=1&usg=AI4_-kT6iI215qR4PSxvCIWJ_AaRuWvWVw&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwiD26zEm-ThAhUjnOAKHX6qDRMQ9QEwBHoECAkQDA#imgdii=W3P9Vup3PnhzKM:&imgrc=9Qi18UFdRjJGlM:&vet=1" target="_blank">this</a> or <a href="https://www.google.com/search?q=Geirangerfjorden&safe=off&tbm=isch&source=iu&ictx=1&fir=ifL25MkUGvmt-M%253A%252CSoHMFex7XhE1_M%252C_&vet=1&usg=AI4_-kT6iI215qR4PSxvCIWJ_AaRuWvWVw&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwiD26zEm-ThAhUjnOAKHX6qDRMQ9QEwBHoECAkQDA#imgrc=9Qi18UFdRjJGlM:&vet=1" target="_blank">that</a>, I'm absolutely sure! <a href="https://www.google.com/search?safe=off&tbm=isch&sa=1&ei=gPy9XKyLFe-6ggeI37LgAw&q=Trollstigen&oq=Trollstigen&gs_l=img.3..0l10.18146.20209..20713...0.0..0.799.5954.5-2j6......1....1..gws-wiz-img.......35i39j0i67.Oakzwp6IQlE#imgrc=CtV0Qj9W8vWyNM:" target="_blank">Not like this either</a>, if you follow me the slightest little bit...?</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">I'll manage to get something though, probably with a bit plainer looks.</span>Roy Karlsvikhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17805712465787215923noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8123989647659569518.post-5648418931132124072019-04-17T04:51:00.001+02:002019-04-17T04:51:30.643+02:00Those cameras... and an engineer cadet<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">Ship o'hoi all! Another busy day is slowly coming to an end and time to find the old bunk quite soon. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">Today it's been another day back to school, but as a teacher and eventually sensor and assessor this time. Part of my job is of course to train new sailors to take over this sort of profession in the years to come. Well, the engineers are the real trainers and teachers, but it's still the assessor who got the last word when it comes to letting the cadets through the needle eye or not. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">I have been the "headmaster" to quite a few of them up through the years, and most of them have become owners of the certificate in the end, but this one has been a bit different. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">Accurate, tedious but effective... and a really outstanding written test to round it all off. You see in addition to the practical side the cadets got a "Cadet Book" they need to fill in. Or it's not about "filling in" as such, but to really answer the questions in as good way as they can. I have seen a lot of cadet books up through the years, but I'm happy to say I've never seen anything like this one. The book has been worked on more or less every day for a full year, and the result is just something else. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">I just signed off her last written test, which from this moment makes her an engineer holding the M4 maritime certificate. She will not know it herself until tomorrow morning, but I'm happy to break the big news to all of you out there right now.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><i>There! See that? Now that's a proper marine engineer for you right there. On top of one of his 2,4 MegaWatt lumps of cast iron and bits and bobs of steel and other sorts of metal. Snapped with an old Nikkormat, I think. You can never be quite sure, but I'm fairly certain about this one. </i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">Oh, and I almost forgot. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">I just bought that Pentax Spotmatic I told you about a <a href="https://filmphotographymadesimple.blogspot.com/2019/04/new-cameras-nah-dont-think-so-not-today.html" target="_blank">few days ago over here</a>. Had to get it actually, just because it was now or never. I will write words about it whenever I get my hands on it and have eventually fed a roll of film through it. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">I mean it had at least one great lens and a couple of other maybe not so great lenses on the side. A nice leather strap and everything, and it did actually come quite cheap (OK, not cheap as in more or less free, but you know...) after a very short discussion about the matters. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">I'll be happy with it, as long as it opens and shuts when needed. </span>Roy Karlsvikhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17805712465787215923noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8123989647659569518.post-35316718132291597872019-04-15T01:01:00.000+02:002019-04-15T01:01:36.228+02:00Sunday blues<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">Good evening! </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">At least it's in the evening over here, so you just have to bear with it even though it's soon morning back home. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">I'm finally done with the most horrible Sunday at work in a very long time. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">As the master of everything technical on board the ship, you are more or less in charge of everything if you look away from knowing or being aware of where are, and/or where we're heading. Anything else is the engine dept. responsibility. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">It's basically like running a small miniature town with all it's support system. Including the sewage, and the waste lines from the mess. Sometimes food waste pipes are getting clogged and there will be a problem with the sewage plant... but (luckily) very rarely on the same day. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">I say no more about it other than mention that we just found ourselves in some very bad luck, from seven in the morning all the way around till six in the evening. That's eleven hours hard work with stuff you don't want to think about. </span><br />
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<a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-iqloQkh2LaY/XLO5U7dNXEI/AAAAAAAADXs/4L2e3c6jnKUv_9lioUe7jox3eIaV8oaTgCLcBGAs/s1600/img425.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1049" data-original-width="1600" height="418" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-iqloQkh2LaY/XLO5U7dNXEI/AAAAAAAADXs/4L2e3c6jnKUv_9lioUe7jox3eIaV8oaTgCLcBGAs/s640/img425.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><i>It's from a beach in Scotland, of course. There's quite a few places like this over there, and they are great places to go for a walk. You will of course always walk with the wind into your face and get a lot of sand in your wellies and into your cameras and lenses, but it's worth it. Believe me!</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">Other than that, you might ask...? Nothing much, I'm afraid. Nothing at all, actually. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">I have not even had the time to take the old rangefinder out for a walk on deck. The sky was a bit more overcast today compared to most days, so it would be a nice day for it. Anyway, I'll get my chance again soon. And besides, I'm running out of film as well so might be a good idea to save it for crew change and traveling home days. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">I have just started working ever so lightly on collecting a few snaps to put op on a small exhibition later this year. I got a few prints made up already, and got a few more I need to print from my pile of existing negs... and then I probably need a few more to fill in the gaps. I'll get there though, as long as I can get my old Italian enlarger to work again after the rather serious rebuild to LEDs and new timers and LED controllers and what have we all. I am sure I'll get there, but it has taken a serious amount of time, I have to admit. But OK, at least I know how the thing works should it suddenly show signs of behaving weird. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">I'm looking forward to pinning these pictures up on the walls, because I'm probably going to mix them in between paintings, which will be a new experience all over. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">We have been talking about doing something together for something like 20 years or so, which should mean it's about time soon. Life has come in the way for something like a lifetime, but now it seems we can get something done... I hope. If not, we'll just put aside everything and work against next summer. At least we got a plan now. I've seen some of her paintings, and they look great even on a computer screen. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">I'll be back with more from the archive and a lot more talk soon. </span><br />
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<i>It's the ship I work on, while on dry land inside the dry dock in Curacao last summer. We had some of the anchor chain out for steel thickness measurements to be done, and a lot of work going on around the bottom of the thing. All thrusters were out for checks and engines were overhauled and a lot of things were going on all the time, day and night. You can even see a couple of guys inspecting something. One of them looking inside one of the thruster holes, and the other just looking at steel plates, whatever that would be good for...?</i></div>
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;"><br /></span>Roy Karlsvikhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17805712465787215923noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8123989647659569518.post-77811498105927557372019-04-13T05:01:00.002+02:002019-04-13T05:01:53.461+02:00Just a very few words from downtown Rio de Janeiro<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">Good evening all, or whatever it is at this time of the day around the world. Over here in Rio it's about 21.30 or 9.30 pm as they rather like to say over here on this side of the Atlantic Ocean. It's OK, I know both terms well enough, so you can use whatever you're used to. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">I'm back again today as well, with a few rants and a couple of snaps that has nothing to do with anything being said. Which should mean everything is as it should be right now as I got nothing much to say about the photography part of it. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">One day I will though, so stay tuned folks!</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">We came in to town around four o'clock this morning, and it's been a darn long day ever since, I tell you. The client had some stuff to get done on one of their very stupid winches, which of course means we have to join them and go in to the shore either we like it or not. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">I like to go to in and see land and buildings and things, but honestly it's getting worse all the time due to the amount of work piling up that you have to try to get done during the very few hours you get alongside. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">You will have made ready a list of things to do of course, duly written on the door in the engine control room, and then you start on top and work your way down towards the end as far as you get before someone up on the bridge will call you and say "hi-ho" and heave them ropes aboard and fire up the steamers, and off we go again. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">Big trouble is you always only get about this far down your mentioned list before people start calling about all the things that has gone wrong around this old vessel. Winches that don't move, pumps not starting, valves not operating... and the one I never like to hear: the crane is not working!! Which was todays big happening, of course. The crane not working always means we have to drop whatever we're doing to shorten down our list, and jump onto that huge thing to try get it fixed ASAP. It means a world to have that crane working, as it's part of the ship and the ship will get off-hire as soon as it's not doing what it's supposed to do. No pounds, shilling or pence into the ship owners pockets, in other words. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">It's an old crane this one, made in 1998 in good old Holland. It's been great and has served us well, but it's also quite big and it's got a dreadful load of internal parts inside itself. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">About five years ago it was decided to have the thing a bit updated for about 5-6 million Euro, but due to the big crisis and bad things happening in the industry it was put on hold. I guess that's what we are paying for right now... with sleepless nights and a mighty lot of work to be done to keep the thing still working. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">Well, don't let me dwell into the matter too much. We finally found two tiny cables in contact with each other at a place where particularly these two cables should absolutely not be in contact with each other, and then stuff like this tends to sort itself out pretty quick after tearing them cables apart and have them secured that way. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">It's just a matter of finding the buried dog of course, in the middle of a million cables and sensors. It was well hidden this time, waaaay down in the lower and inner parts of the machinery inside everything. What most people seem to fail to understand is that the part you see of this crane is actually just a tiny bit of it. It also takes up quite a large space over five floors inside this old ship. Huge old yellow bastard it is!</span><br />
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<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-6wDkaGlHRGc/XLFFxsEjohI/AAAAAAAADXY/LEgYNBxpZoct2U4qXtNgm-Qic_JDx0C0QCLcBGAs/s1600/img641.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1576" height="640" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-6wDkaGlHRGc/XLFFxsEjohI/AAAAAAAADXY/LEgYNBxpZoct2U4qXtNgm-Qic_JDx0C0QCLcBGAs/s640/img641.jpg" width="630" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><i>I'm really not sure what made me stop and waste a frame of film on this piece of warehouse somewhere at one of the piers on The Clyde in Glasgow a couple of years or so back in time. Looking at it now it could have been the positioning of things... and the brickwork maybe? I don't know, but there's been people working here some time back. That's for sure!</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Times, Times New Roman, serif;"><i>And not only that, but I even went around the corner to the opposite side of it and snapped that part of it up as well. This time it makes a bit more sense maybe. I think I thought about why they decided to put in a perfectly new and fine door into the hole where a rotten door probably used to stay a short time ago, but failed to see that the roof was about to fall into the building itself? I mean right now there will be a guy standing pushing against the door and wonder what on earth can possibly be blocking their rather new and perfect door from the inside? They can call me... I might be able to give them a clue.</i></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">Before all this maniac stuff happened we had a rather good time actually. At least part of the time. We were supposed to get some old sludge delivered to an on-shore lorry, and that part went well enough after we suddenly had a couple of hours extra work because of the fact that they were (for once in a lifetime) deciding that the port side of the ship was the best side to have alongside this time. That little detail created a total mess out of everything, but after that was sorted out it was great for about one hour... until the crane thing happened of course. I mean I even managed to take the black old Leica out on deck in the sunshine taking a few snaps. I even managed to get shouted at very loud because of pointing it into the direction of (obviously) the totally wrong man, and I could go on and on and on. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">All in all it's been a typical great day alongside in Rio, as you probably already have guessed.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">And now I'm off to bed, just saying! </span>Roy Karlsvikhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17805712465787215923noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8123989647659569518.post-86913823209231665332019-04-12T02:01:00.000+02:002019-04-12T02:01:20.254+02:00Watch this wonderful thing!<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">See? It's the stairs inside the old lighthouse keepers house out on the island. It's been posted around this place before I think, but having a look at it again can only do you good, so here you are thank you very much. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">I think it must be the best snap of any stairs I ever snapped! Not that I have that many of them under my belt as such, but anyway. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">It was done using the huge and clunky old Mamiya RZ, and after passing through the 110mm lens the light disturbed some silver halides on a tiny piece of 120 size FP4+ film from Ilford and here's the result of that magic. You can't go wrong with a setup like that as long as you just manage to let enough light onto that little piece of film. The shutter could have stayed open twice as long of course, but then there would be issues with some other stuff, so I left it be right where it was and had the deed done. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">Had there been any dead ones around they would probably still be awake of course, as the mirror flip-flap on this thing is on the extreme side. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">Everything went well though, and off we went. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">Oh yes, I got it printed as well. On both Art 300 and some lovely warm tone Ilford paper. Looks great, no kidding! </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">One of the mentioned prints, the one on the Art300 paper, would have showed up on this snap had this snap been taken today, if you see what I mean... OK, it's twisting my brains a bit, so I leave it right there. The relativity theory thing has never really been my force in life!</span><br />
<br />Roy Karlsvikhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17805712465787215923noreply@blogger.com4