OO works fine on my Win 7 machine. This is a great idea! Can the rest of us add to the spreadsheet, or should we forward the data to you for your entry? I've got quite a pile of printouts of info from various processing labs I'd be happy to share in some fashion.

Good on ya!

I've always been partial to Plus-X. Tri-X is also a good choice, and Kentmere 100 and 400 are nice, and also less costly. Foma makes some good stuff. I don't really care for the C-41 BW stuff. Be sure to have a red or yellow filter handy, and green is also sometimes useful. A polarizer is always a good bet for landscapes. :)

Funny how ideas re-emerge! Back in the day filters were organized in the Series system. It ran from, IIRC, 4 to 7 or 8, small to large. The idea was that you put an adaptor on your lens, which had a threaded retaining ring holding the filter, and into which a lens hood could be screwed. Thus an assortment of, say Series 6 filters could be used on various lenses or cameras within a range of lens diameters.

For example, I recently bought a Zeiss Ikon Contessa which has threads on the OUTSIDE of the lens! What were they thinking! The "genuine Zeiss" filters for this little gem are probably made of Unobtanium.

I lucked into a Series 5 adaptor which lets me use any old Series 5 filter and lens hood. Pretty cool!

My guess is that with the Series system the same set of filters could be used on, say, lenses with 49 to at least 52mm threads. Yes, you could use the adaptor rings, but they're easy to cross thread. Makes me wonder if the filter manufacturers killed this system to make more money....

Thanks for the opinions, all. My computer, "The Monolith," somehow crashed its Vista OS which had been just fine for some years, so I upgraded to 7, which also will allow me to move to LR 5 if I so desire. Might just do that.....

I've been shooting Pentax for ... almost forever! My father came home from a NYC trip with an AsahiFlex IIa with a f3.5 50mm, he later added a 35mm, the 83mm f1.9, bellows, tubes, etc. I now have it. Needs repair, sadly. The AsahiFlex was introduced in 1954, well before the Nikon F, 1959 IIRC or the Canoflex, and featured an instant return mirror. The camera looks much like a screw mount Leica with a waist level finder. The lenses are excellent.
My first 35mm SLR was a Praktica LTL, 42mm mount, just like the early Pentaxes. I later got a K1000, a MX, a LX, a (think Nikon F3 - off the film metering, flash, many backs, winder, motor, many finders - a full system camera), a ME Super then a DSLR the K10, then the K5, and the 120 film SLR, the 645n and a full kit of lenses for it from 35mm to 200mm.

While Pentax doesn't make the range of lenses that Canon or Nikon does, their glass is good, and the * and Limited lenses are excellent. One big advantage of Pentax is that ALL of their bayonet mount lenses are usable on current cameras without adaptors or modifications. Canon users may remember the breech-lock bayonet, followed by a bayonet for the first F 1 (excellent camera system!) neither of which will work on the current bodies without an adaptor; IIRCC earlier Nikon bayonet lenses needed some sort of modification for later bodies.

Thus I can use my 50mm f1.2, a nice old Vivitar 19mm, a Takumar 135mm f2.5, etc, all full frame coverage, on my K5 very easily. I can, with an adaptor, use the 42mm screw mount lenses, although in stop down mode only. An adaptor will mount my 645 lenses on my K 5; with an adaptor the Pentax 67 lenses will work with full automation on the 645. This easy backward compatibility means that there is a multitude of used lenses available.

Pentax seems to design cameras with the photographer in mind. Both the K10 and K5 have pentaprisms, large, bright VFs and good ergonomics. The in body image stabilization, used also by Sony and Olympus, means that ALL my lenses are stabilized, and new glass is somewhat cheaper since the IS needn't be built into each lens. Most third party companies make K mount lenses; for those who have the coin Zeiss has a nice lineup. I've enjoyed my glass from Sigma and Tokina, in addition to Pentax. The K10, K5 and recent DSLRs are weather sealed, as are the battery grips and several lenses. No worry about a rain storm!

Downsides? Few brick and mortar stores carry Pentax, although Ricoh's acquisition should help that. Having to explain to Canikonians over and over that, yes, its a Pentax, the company is still around, and that they've built SLRs longer than Canon or Nikon. When I use the 645n people wonder what it is, and how many megapixels? When I tell them that that depends on the film and how its scanned some folk get huffy! No big deal.

Ralf, I looked up Candler, NC. You live in a bit of heaven! Asheville is one of my favorite cities. And I have fond memories of Black Mountain. Flora and I have often spoken of retiring to the Asheville area, but the thought of packing up our stuff - hundreds or perhaps thousands of books, records, CDs, all the stuff resulting from the merging of two households ten years ago is daunting.

Enjoy Candler!

WNC Ralf, it is good that there are a few sane, reasonable voices in this thread. I'm always ready for a good DISCUSSION, but these ad hominem attacks suggest the flailing spasms of a bankrupt intellect.

BTW, how's the weather in the Carolina mountains? Wonderful country! My Flora and I have a week coming up in Bryson City in late October. Gonna ride that train! Jonesboro GA is a little too flat, and waaaay to hot! I'm basically a mountain person; my parents moved from the Richmond VA area to WV in 1967, about 25 miles south of Charleston. "Almost heaven..." except for mountain top removal! My father taught ChemEng at Tech and loved it and the area.

Have a look at Andrew Bacevich's book Washington Rules. You might want to have a bottle of tranks or your choice of spirits handy, however. Bacevich is a retired US Army colonel, fought in our wars, and lost a son in Iraq. He's paid his dues. Going further back, Smedley Butler, a retired Marine Corps general, excoriated the military industrial complex in the 1930s!

Eisenhower's warning just before Kennedy's inauguration went unheeded, and we've been paying the price ever since in the continuing degradation of our domestic infrastructure, not to mention the health care mess. So much money pumped into defense, and not enough into schools, roads, bridges, dams, hospitals ....

GitzoH

So, let me understand this. Anyone who disagrees with you is a "low information voter." Now I consider that an insult, and stooping to such behavior suggests that you feel threatened by those who disagree with you, and that you are unable to defend your position intellectually. Too bad. I have better things to do than fight a battle of wits with an unarmed opponent.

Which question is ridiculous? Asking what the Republicans would propose to fix the health care mess, or what has happened to Republicans? I don't consider either question ridiculous. I had hoped that this thread could remain civil, but you have stooped to personal insults. Sorry if I'm not current on Faux News, but that crowd is a waste of time.

Tell it, Brother! And with the cuts to SNAP food banks will become the slender reed for all too many of us. This country is moving ever closer to becoming a banana republic, with a small group of obscenely wealthy people catered to by a corrupt government (bought and paid for by the wealthy), a shrinking middle class whipsawed by the exportation of jobs abroad and the importation of cheap labor, and a vast and growing underclass of the poor who have lost hope. Such a society is ripe for revolution, as we've seen in too many Central and South American countries.

And again I ask: What plan do the Republicans have to fix the health care delivery system? Or will it be more of the same old "system," which has given us the highest percentage of uninsured people in the industrialized world?

It is a blot on our country when people have to beg for funds to heal an ailing child. Every time I see a mason jar in a convenience store asking alms for a family facing colossal medical costs I feel shame for my country.

The most common cause of personal bankruptcies is medical bills. For shame!

I'm waiting for a substantive proposal from the Republicans. Or are they willing to wreck the country because they can't get their way. They sound like a bunch of four year old spoiled brats.

What has happened to the Party of Lincoln, of Eisenhower, of George Romney, of Gerald Ford, of Nelson Rockefeller, all Republicans when that party had a heart and a brain and a conscience, not just rabid partisanship?

And what do you and like-minded Republicans, Libertarian, Tea Party whack-jobs offer to improve the delivery of health care in the US? We pay more than any other industrialized nation in the world, yet our outcomes, from life expectancy to infant mortality rates, are way below Canada, for example. We've been using the current model for a long, long time and it needs fixing. Where are the suggestions from the Republicans? Why can't they present a coherent program? Inquiring minds want to know.

Check your history. Mitt Romney introduced a program in Mass. very much like "ObamaCare." And the Heritage Foundation espoused the basics of both Romney's and Obama's programs. I never heard the Heritage folk accused of being Democrats! As I recall Richard Nixon tried for health care reform.

Or could it be that all Obama's opponents can offer is obstructionism? Sure looks like it!