Merry Christmas from the other side of the pond (Woodstock at the moment!)

Kris.

Welcome Darrel. Nice Christmas pressie you have got yourself!

Have fun and Merry Christmas, Kris.

I would be surprised if the biggest / heaviest Benbo couldn't support a Bigma, they are seriously chunky bits of kit --- I had the Unilock version until someone drove over it. The main problem is that until you are used to them, the one thing locks all system means that you have to be very careful adjusting them. Loosen the wrong thing at the wrong time and your camera traces a graceful arc towards the ground.

Cheers, Kris.

Through a series of accidents and purchases where they came with other things I have a M50 F2 (my very first lens ever), two or three M50 1.7s and a A50 1.4. I don't use the F2 these days (something sticky got on it in about 1985 and although it works fine the aperture ring isn't very smooth) but I love the F1.4 which I only acquired recently from another forum member. I currently have that lens on my LX loaded with TriX 100 ASA film.

Cheers, Kris.

Did you ever consider the 645? Still a large negative, but I believe somewhat quieter than the 67 and with a few more modern features. The power winder on the ME Super / MX isn't all that fast and I found that I wind on pretty automatically with my thumb! I like using them though as I find the bigger grip more comfortable.

You have a fascinating project going there and I enjoyed looking through some of the stuff on your webpage / links.

Good luck with it all.

Best wishes, Kris.

I think the letterbox format works very well. Great shot.

Kris.

I'll confess to being the other person taking a punt. We will see what happens!

Cheers, Kris.

We have a high quality slide copier at work (desk-top sort with a light source, dial in colour adjustment etc.) which was bought when we all used film. Our photographer uses it to quickly copy slides to digital. It is much faster than scanning and no crop involved as you can zoom in and out. Some of our staff had very large collections of teaching slides and he has used it very successfully to digitise them. Certainly good enough for teaching but I don't see why it shouldn't work for high quality images too.

Best wishes, Kris.

Fascinating. I have now spent some time reading up on autochrome. Interesting stuff. Thank you.

Kris.

I really like both of those shots, very moody and atmospheric. I would be proud of either!

Best wishes, Kris.