I'd buy a scanner rather then send them to a lab, that way you can pick the best/ be selective without having to pay for them all. Also it sounds like a lot of negatives and I'd be wary of them getting lost.

If it is a lot, I'd be tempted to get a light box big enough to put several strips on and photo them to get an idea of which ones to scan. It takes a while to scan and categorise each one.

I can't help with scanners (I have a very old JS21 which will now be completely out of date), but you need to check it can do negatives an can compensate for the base colour of the film (usually orange-ish).

Hi Julien,

Remember to take your camera with you when you start working. You'll be the first to be able photograph the thing's you'll be building.

One of my MX brochures has:

"By reducing light loss due to reflection to an absolute minimum, a Super-Multi-Coated standard lens actually transmits almost 20% more light than a conventionally coated model. Moreover, in lenses composed of more elements, the gain in effective lens speed increases. For example, increase of transmission through a lens of 12 elements may soar to 50% over that of a similar lens which has conventional coating."

For those looking for a long zoom, how about the M 135-600 f/6.7?

I'd be worried about getting dirt between the protector and the screen and also getting the protector off if you need to.

The longer flange around the aperture is present on some independent KA or Kr lenses (often they had both contacts). I think this flange is only a problem on cameras that have the two gold contacts about 5 o'clock on the mount. I first had this problem on my Z-1 (they fitted all my previous film bodies).

If it is a Kr with the Ricoh pin, this link shows how to remove the pin (takes five minutes). Some are held in by a sprung plate rather than the screw mentioned on this site.

I once bought an EOS 5 which also had a lock on the mode dial, a few films later it broke and dial now spins freely (and is almost impossible to use).

If anybody would like to buy it, let me know

Excellent shots. I haven't tried extension tubes, but I suspect as they don't have any glass in them they'll have less effect on quality than a teleconvertor (with the proviso that this may not apply to some matched teleconvertor/lens combinations).

With film, travelling light for me was a body and 28, 50 & 135 lenses. With digital I'd take my 17-70, 50 and possibly the 135 (don't think I'd use it much but as a small 200mm equivilent it would be hard to leave it at home).

Excellent images.

Hi Steven,

Yes I saw the line of telescopes, but from the scale, these are unlikely to be longer than 1200mm focal length. Their images are shot at a much higher magnification than mine with the 500 x3 TC. So instead of using the 'scope as a 1200mm f/8 mirror lens they must be using eyepiece projection (getting magnified image in the 'scope eyepiece and photographing that through a camera & lens combination).

As I undestand it, this is where you set the camera lens focus to infinity and get the camera-eyepice distance just right.

This is one of my attempts with my old EI-2000 (which has a fixed zoom lens) through my 4.5" Newtonian 'scope, (which is 900mm f/8 optically) :