[Tech1] Lifetime photo collections

Sun Feb 7 04:38:35 CST 2021

Yes Hugh – that’s the reason for the affection I have for the scene, not the rear view of yours truly! I mentioned the early Pentax SLR it was taken on and am reminded that I didn’t own a camera at the time. However, the just discernible leather strap round my neck was attached to a leather ER (Ever Ready) case holding a 2 1/4” sq. bellows camera, specifically a Zeiss Ikon Nettar. My parent’s next door neighbours had a RN Petty Officer son-in-law who had illicitly brought it into the UK and given it to his wife’s brother who then bought a Wrayflex (remember that? – Britain’s one and only SLR) and allowed me the semi pemanent loan of the Zeiss.
However given that Board of Trade import restrictions on foreign cameras meant the only legitimate source in the UK for Zeiss cameras was Peeling & Komlosy of Dunstable (with a long queue of would-be owners), the neighbours were so jittery at the prospect of being found out that they had me return it so it could be hidden away. I guess all this means there would be relatively few UK photographs from the 50s and early 60s taken on Zeiss cameras so those I took may have a bit of uniqueness.

Dave Newbitt.  

From: Hugh Sheppard via Tech1 
Sent: Sunday, February 7, 2021 7:57 AM
To: tech1 at tech-ops.co.uk 
Subject: Re: [Tech1] Lifetime photo collections

What an evocative picture of life in the '60s! Even to the proud name plate of the 'Somerset & Wilts Savings Bank". And every car home-made!

Hugh

On 06-Feb-21 7:12 PM, David Newbitt via Tech1 wrote:

  That’s the spirit Barry. The trick is when doing the maths for how many, how much time for each, total hours etc. STOP THERE! The next bit of calculation would be how many hours a day are you likely to manage, how many days off in-between, time off for hols etc. and you really don’t want to go there! I’ve done a fair bit of this myself but not had the courage to do any of the maths (or ‘math’ as increasingly I see used this side of the pond). I currently have an Epson Perfection V700 which is good on print scanning (often the only source material I have) but does make a reasonable job of negs as well. If the bulk of your slides are 35mm you could speed up the process significantly with a dedicated film scanner, mid-range products such as Plustek Opticfilm 8100 at £270 and upwards I’m told do a good job.

  One of the relatively few old shots that I have in neg form (taken in 1963 by Rod Stebbing on his pride & joy Pentax SV) is the attached B&W of me walking by Vivary Park entrance gates in Taunton while the holiday traffic relentlessly files by. I was three inches taller then than I am now!  At that time most of the Devon & Cornwall holiday traffic from the Midlands and North of England funnelled up and down this narrow route all day and all night.

  Good luck with the project,

  Dave Newbitt.

  From: Barry Bonner 
  Sent: Saturday, February 6, 2021 2:48 PM
  To: David Newbitt 
  Cc: tech1 at tech-ops.co.uk 
  Subject: Re:Lifetime photo collections

  Hi Dave et al, 
  I’m not very disciplined but one thing I promised myself to do during solitary confinement was to scan all my slides, colour & b&w negatives.  I bought an Epson V550 Photo scanner and am scanning at 800dpi. It’s quite a task as I’m also getting rid of dust and scratches on each image and correcting the colour balance etc. using iPhoto. I’ve got about 7500+ to do, which by the time I’ve done all the de-dusting, loading, scans, and tweaks which take about 5 mins per picture, it will take around 600 hours to complete the task! One very noticeable thing I’ve discovered is the wide variation of film quality and processing, not to mention the numbering being reversed on some films and the negs cut (mainly by Bonusprint) into fours and not six as I did on my home processed b&w films. The scanner takes two rows of six negs at a time but only four slides. I’ve done 4000 colour pics so far. Just the circa 3600 b&w negs dating from the1960s to do! My whole life’s work reduced to one flash drive…how sad! Remembering where it is and who the people are in the pictures is of course another problem!

  But in spite of all that they look terrific on my 49" Samsung 4K TV.

  Take care,
    Barry.

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