I assume you are talking about the square photons?

Note: What you use depends on how old the negatives are. You do not want to use a solution that is able to dissolve the film base.

70% isopropanol is the most effective concentration for disinfecting. Below 50% tends to be ineffective. Above about 91%, because of how quickly it denatures proteins, can cause formation of what amounts to a protective shell on the infectious agent and significantly slow penetration of the alcohol. Many spore forming bacteria are able to form spores during the delayed penetration and survive disinfection.

If you want to be sure of no unidentified additives in your cleaning solution, you can purchase a variety of absolute alcohols from a scientific supply house (Flinn, Fisher, etc.) and dilute to your desired concentration with distilled water. Interesting fact: 50 ml absolute alcohol + 50 ml distilled water = <100 ml of solution -- it has to do with the way the molecules can fit together.

Both good shots. Until you notice that they are on different legs, the first looks like they could be marching in formation.

My parents used to use one of those cameras to take photos that were used for Christmas cards. The camera was passed to me and I got another from my uncle. Unfortunately, I lost both of them when our house was leveled by a wildfire five years ago.

Not unlike a recent campaign add where the candidate is shown as a boy in a Boy Scout uniform. The image was flipped and everything on his uniform is in the wrong place. Made me wonder how much attention would be paid to details if he were elected.

I used one of those in the 1960s. The purpose of the post was to provide a mounting point for a small, accessory polarizer (neither polarizer was circular). The accessory filter allowed viewing of the effect of the filter while it was mounted on a range finder camera (or the post could be used to identify desired orientation before mounting the filter). The accessory filter was removable so that it would not get in the way when using a SLR.

The methods and precision level for generating fractals can be various, though we cannot illustrate something that goes on to an infinite level. However, I have a way I used to use to illustrate the concept to my physics students. If you put a small drop of nail polish between two crossed microscope slides and then pull the slides apart, it will produce a fractal-like pattern. Once the polish has dried, there will be a repeating pattern that decreases in size and can easily be examined. With careful preparation, the smaller repeating patterns can even be viewed under a microscope.

Our boarding stable has been gone for many years. It was a classic old barn complete with post and beam structure and square nails. Shortly after we left, the owner died and it got leveled and replaced by new buildings and facilities related to tomatoes. That was about forty years ago. You can see the "new" buildings in the distance (about 3/4 mile) from Mace Blvd. looking left when headed toward the freeway shortly before Mace makes the bend toward the right. I have been there a few times since, but it has been years.

Going north on Pole Line, there is a road that goes to the east a mile to a mile and a half north of Davis. There used to be 100 or more acres on the north side of that road that was designated as a raptor preserve.

I was the animal control officer in the area (working for the county, but assigned to Davis) while my wife was finishing her graduate work at the university. I was the first animal control officer in the county with graduate degrees (they seem to have an abundance of teachers in the area and we needed to eat). There was one summer that I had the entire City of Davis under quarantine for rabies. Apparently, when they started building the El Macero area, nobody noticed that, on the old maps, it was called "Skunk Island". About 70% of the nearly 100 skunks I removed that year came back positive for rabies.

Thanks for the memories and great photos.

My wife and I used to have a boarding stable on the Davis side of the bypass. However, it has been many years since I have been in the area. Is the raptor preserve off Pole Line Road still being protected?

[quote=jcboy3]The drawback with these heads is that you have to level the tripod. Most photo tripods do not have built in levelers, so you either add a leveler or you adjust the legs (using a bubble level). With practice, leveling a tripod by adjusting the legs can be done pretty quickly; just not as quickly as leveling with a leveler or a ball head. The other drawback is that video heads can be pretty big and heavy.

My Manfroto tripod includes a bubble level as does my 3-way Manfroto pan/tilt head.

I will admit to unreasonable prejudice. I first started shooting in early high school (about 65 years ago). At that point, my major limiting factor was cost. My first tripods were small and light weight with permanently affixed ball heads. On several occasions it was only young, quick reflexes that avoided disaster when the ball failed to hold the camera in place. Since then, I have used exclusively pan/tilt heads and find them no less efficient or easy to use than the ball heads I replaced with them. I am sure there are high quality ball heads available that are more than adequately secure. However, I am now an old dog. I am totally happy with my pan/tilt heads for stills and have no plans to change.

When I move to a new area with which I am not previously familiar, one of my early excursions is to the local cemeteries. What people elect to put on headstones can tell you a lot about the community and its values. For example, in one community cemetery I found most of the men's headstones prominently featured something about military service. The marker on one relatively recent grave (1970s) that had only a name and "PFC World War I" pretty much summed it up. Many times, old or well established cemeteries can yield some very interesting shots.

As a member of the U.S. Coast Guard Auxiliary, my crew and I used to help maintain the security box under the San Francisco Fleet Week air show. One year, we were assigned to the center of the end of the box toward the Golden Gate Bridge. At that location, there were several times that the Blue Angels passed over us low enough that we could make out the colors on the pilots' helmets. Unfortunately, we had a job to do and photography was not an option. That was the same year that, on Sunday afternoon, we were assigned as the port side escort to help get the Abraham Lincoln safely out the Gate. She is huge. We had to stand off nearly one-hundred yards just to be visible from her bridge.

I heard that exact quote directly from Ansel. In the context of our interaction, he easily made a print from one of my own negatives (exposed and processed by myself using the zone system) which I have never been able to match. It is obvious and no surprise that he was a far better performer than I have ever been. The quote tied his photography to his also being a concert quality pianist.