Comments for Sean Esopenko

Comment on Hired and Assistant: Alex Moon by Ted Moon

Ted Moon — Mon, 20 Feb 2012 12:11:02 +0000

ET Call Home(AKA Joe AKA Alex)Please

Comment on Colour Darkroom 100% Ready. Finally. by SeanEsopenko

SeanEsopenko — Wed, 01 Feb 2012 19:42:56 +0000

Oh and I don’t know anybody in Southern California so I wouldn’t be able to get you in touch with anybody doing the same. The apug forums and the largeformatphotography.info forums have a lot of people that still do RA4 or have done a lot of RA4. Two good places to go for advice.

Comment on Colour Darkroom 100% Ready. Finally. by SeanEsopenko

SeanEsopenko — Wed, 01 Feb 2012 19:39:07 +0000

Hi Matt,

Here’s a link to a scan from an old magazine detailing the specs of the pulley required to speed the CAP-40 machine up for RA4 colour negative chemicals. I couldn’t find a pulley exactly to match so mine runs a little slower than 45 seconds. At the 1 minute 10 seconds mine runs at I run at a temperature of 92F. It works beautifully well and I get very nice prints out of it. I’m unable to get photos of the inside of recent because I haven’t had a whole lot of time. It’s pretty simple, however. There is a drive pulley attached to the motor and a short belt that goes from there to the pulley on the corkscrew drive shaft. You replace the drive pulley (the one on the motor) with a bigger one to speed it up, basically.

I took the drive pulley out of the machine using an allen key and brought that and the magazine print-out to a transmission supply shop where they matched it up with the closest pulley they had. I had to use a drill press to bore the mounting hole of the pulley a little larger (actually a friend did it for me). I mounted the pulley then wrapped a string around the two pulleys to get the belt length which was then ordered from the same transmission supply shop. The belt I got was a little on the long side so I had to use a file to grind some of the metal arm that holds the motor away so that the gap between the two pulleys could be increased a little. If I went back and swapped it for a smaller belt I wouldn’t have had to do that but I didn’t want to make another trip due to a lack of patience.

When you’re done, fill it with water and turn it on. time how long it takes from when the paper touches the first bath to when it touches the second bath. That’s your machine’s new processing time. I found a Kodak data sheet detailing adjusted temperatures for non-standard processing times. Adjust the temperature of your machine to match kodak’s recommendations and you now have an RA4 roller processor!

If you have any other questions feel free to let me know.

– Sean

Comment on Colour Darkroom 100% Ready. Finally. by matt stage

matt stage — Wed, 01 Feb 2012 19:25:17 +0000

Hi Sean,
Love your website! I’m just getting a darkroom set up. I made the mistake of buying a surplus lot of equipment from a local community collegs. There was way too much cool stuff, including an Ilford Cap 40. No manual of course. I’m trying to figure the thing out. It is in several pieces with trays and rollers loose all over the place. I like the sounds of what you are doing. It sounds like you have made one to work with currently available paper and chemistry. Do you have any specifices of what you have done or photos of what it should look like when put together properly? Honestly, I would appreciate any help or guidance or direction you might be willing to send on the unit to get it up and running. Do you know of anyone in Southern California who is using one? I greatly appreciate your consideration.
Many thanks,
Matt Stage.

Comment on The Importance of Contact Sheets by SeanEsopenko

SeanEsopenko — Thu, 05 Jan 2012 00:20:21 +0000

Thanks for the compliment. Out of curiosity, are you shooting film for commercial work?

Comment on The Importance of Contact Sheets by Darren Roberts

Darren Roberts — Wed, 04 Jan 2012 23:56:43 +0000

Just found your site. You have a lot of good info on here. Thanks for sharing it all.

A Fellow Film photographer

Comment on Voigtlander, Skopar and Ektar, Oh My! by SeanEsopenko

SeanEsopenko — Fri, 23 Dec 2011 16:50:50 +0000

I like it so far. I wanted the 15mm but the local shop didn’t have it in stock. I think the 21mm is more useful though if you are using the lens on both digital and film.

Comment on Voigtlander, Skopar and Ektar, Oh My! by Patrik Borgenhard

Patrik Borgenhard — Wed, 21 Dec 2011 19:13:19 +0000

Hi. Saw your post on another site that was testing the CV 15mm on a Sony Nex-5n. I saw that you are using the CV 21mm on your 5n.
I am thinking of on of these lenses for my 5n and are wondering if you could give me some input on with one is the better, or why you bought the 21mm.
I am more and more into landscape photography and want a good wide angle lens for my 5n.

Thanks from Patrik Borgenhard in Sweden

Comment on Abandoned Rural Home by Oscar

Oscar — Mon, 14 Nov 2011 12:29:22 +0000

The above makes me think of ‘The Road’ (or it might be another similar movie…eh), nice work!

I’m also reading your darkroom notes with a lot of interest, I’m only doing b&w printing myself but it’s still very interesting to read, so keep it going! :)

Comment on LS-2000 vs V700 – Ancient Scanner Wins by 35mm Film Scanning Comparison: Epson V700 and Nikon LS-2000 | Sean Esopenko

35mm Film Scanning Comparison: Epson V700 and Nikon LS-2000 | Sean Esopenko — Wed, 24 Aug 2011 04:00:17 +0000

[...] Frequently I have told people that from my experience the V700 is a great scanner at the price but compared to a dedicated film scanner, such as a Nikon, it’s not perfect. For almost a year I have been scanning my medium and large format film with a V700 and for about half that my 35mm film with an old Nikon LS-2000. I’ve begun shooting primarily colour negative film and I decided to show a comparison of colour negative film scans using the two scanners. This complements my previous findings that my LS-2000 outresolved the V700 when scanning 35mm b&w film. [...]