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Update! I've just watched a bit more of the video and mine is a METER II which takes a CR1632 whereas the one here takes a CR2023. They seem to be otherwise identical but there might be internal differences.

Nah, that would be too extreme. Try a small industrial laser…

You're welcome. I've actually gotten accustomed to its foibles enough that it's my first choice when I just need to process one roll, but I still think most learners are better off starting out with a conventional tank system...

A lens with a marked 21mm focal length will cover an angle of view of about 62 degrees horizontally on a Pixii Plus. That's quite a bit wider than the angle shown by the 28mm framelines, which cover about 48 degrees. The framelines are designed to show the area covered by that lens ON THE PIXII, so the 28mm frame shows what a 28mm lens will see. If you want a more accurate guide for your 21mm lens, you could find an auxiliary viewfinder that's designed for FILM cameras and is marked "28mm". A 28mm lens on a 35mm film camera covers about 66 degrees, so it shows a little more width than a 21mm lens will "see" on the Pixii Plus; you can try to allow for the extra room when composing. Because of all the confusion among different format sizes, I find it easier to think of lenses in terms of their angle of view rather than in terms of their focal length; if you watch the video I just posted about the forthcoming Pixii Max, there's a LOT more info in it about that!

I don't disagree that it would be nice, but I can't think of a time when I've ever actually needed it for the kinds of photography I do with the Pixii. I shot a lot of photos in the rain when I was in Chicago last summer, but I just stood under hotel awnings, shot out open windows, etc. and was fine. Obviously an outdoor or wildlife photographer would want a more weather-sealed camera!

The specs say it covers about 45 degrees, while a 50mm lens on a 35mm film camera covers about 40 degrees (horizontally) so a bit wider. Keep in mind that these specs aren't necessarily based on any actual measurements! With mine I try to get as close as reasonably possible; if it's not possible to get close, I'll meter off a substitute subject. An old trick that still works is to hold your hand in the same light as the subject, meter off the palm of your hand, and then open up one stop from the reading (this usually works regardless of your racial background because palms are pretty uniform, BTW.)

Somebody should start a vintage camera rental business, like the ones now offered for vintage cars! Then curious photographers could try out older cameras that interested them. I can't imagine myself buying, for example, a Nikon SP, but it would be fun to be able to rent one for a couple of weeks to see what it was like...

Thanks, I'll look into it! I'm not sure how significant the improvements are to the latest Topaz Gigapixel (other than ease of use)... have you heard of anything else that's worth trying?

Yes to all. Having started in photography back when film was all there was, I'm pretty much over the it's-so-magical hype; shooting film is just an occasional amusement for me, so I want to take as much of the drudgery as possible out of it. I put a motor on my Ars Imago Lab-Box so I can do something else while developing, and I got the auto-pull-through Plustek so I can do something else while scanning, and so far that seems pretty manageable. The cost, though: yikes! Maybe I should be working on a way to print money 😹

[Translation: “I have it - the model number may be similar”] Yes, it was in production for a very long time, so there are many versions with similar model numbers but different lenses, viewfinders, shutters, and additional features. The very earliest ones date back to the era of the Second World War, and each of those probably has an interesting history… if only it could be traced!”

You're welcome! It's your call, but I'd be a bit hesitant about reversing the rotation every 30 seconds as I think the Lab-Box is designed for one-way rotation: if you look at the 35mm reel ends in particular, you'll see they've got agitation "paddles" around the outside, and if you reverse the direction there's a risk of splashing chemicals back up into the loading compartment and cutter blade. (Ask me how I know this 🙀) On the other hand, it might be a really worthwhile improvement to use the Arduino to pause the motor occasionally at random intervals, to help break up flow patterns that otherwise might cause developing streaks -- as shown in the video, I give the tank a sideways shake occasionally to do this, but having completely hands-off operation would be nice! If you complete this build, be sure to post up and let us know how it works! One more point about agitation: If you're using partial fill (300ml) as I do, you're already doing a form of intermittent agitation. The point of intermittent agitation (regardless of the type of tank) is that while the film is static, the developer immediately adjacent to the film surface performs development and then becomes depleted by chemical action; when you agitate, fresh developer is brought into contact with the film, and this depletion/replenishment cycle helps provide a compensating effect. In the Lab-box, the time the film is at the top of the reel corresponds to the static part of the cycle -- the thin coating of developer clinging to the film becomes depleted, and then is replaced when the reel rotates the film back down into the developer. Since you're already getting intermittent agitation just by this cycle, there may not be any benefit in reversing the reel... other than reducing the risk of flow marks, which also could be done just by stopping the reel for a moment occasionally. Anyway, be sure to let us know how this works out!

@@jlwilliams wow. What a thorough reply. Thank you. Your points are all very valid and the random pausing is very interesting. I could also reverse the motor for only, say, 90 degrees and then brake it and head forward once more. I can also reverse the motor very slowly as I’ve discovered that using the arduino motor shield Rev 3 I can alter the pulse width modulation and hence the effective voltage and also the direction. If you google ‘Controlling a DC Motor with Motor Shield Rev3’ you’ll see the very essence of what I’m thinking. I bought the lab box on the kickstarter project, but I develop a lot of film and very soon realised that it was impractical for the same reasons as you. Today I was clearing out some cupboards and found it. It’s really cold and miserable in the UK in January so I saw a project, then found this RUclips video and now I’m fully onboard. I probably still won’t use the lab box as my mainline development tank but I love the journey and so you’ve really got me started. As for posting the project here, yes I certainly will but in essence it’s your mechanical design but with the motor controlled by software as seen in the document referenced in the Google search above. Thank you again. Wonderful.

@@jlwilliamsI typed a long response to this but RUclips seems to have deleted both that response and the other message (which I expected to be deleted) where I gave the link to the arduino pdf re motor control. I give up.

@@jlwilliams but it was an appreciative response.

Glad it worked out for you. I admit that once I got used to its quirks, I started using mine more and more, and now it's all I use unless I need to process more than one roll at a time. Still, I think it was legit to point out the drawbacks. And for first-timers who discover they just don't enjoy developing film, it's easier to walk away from a $35 investment (typical price for a two-roll Paterson starter tank) than a $180 investment!

Yup, if I get hired to photograph the Formula I season next year, it's not the camera I'm going to use for track action. On the other hand, for normal human-speed activities, I don't typically notice any issues. And since it doesn't shoot video, no worries about the "jello effect"!

Glad you liked the music track... I was going for a hard-boiled film-noir feel to match the hilarious but apt illustrations I got out of MidJourney. I agree that really enjoying black-and-white photography is a very good reason for buying a monochrome-only camera... the results may not be technically "better" than b&w conversions from a color camera, but if it helps you put yourself into the monochrome mindset, that's a strong advantage. I don't know what prompted Pentax to roll out a monochrome camera, but they seem to have made up their minds to zig when everyone else is zagging (for example, sticking with DSLRs while Canon/Nikon/Sony are trying to move users to mirrorless) and I applaud them for this gutsy call!

Interesting info! Until the video started getting longish, I had planned to mention that mono imagers do have specific, easily visible advantages for micro and astro photography (of course, one of the first places digital imagers appeared was on the KH-11 series of spy satellites, and these were strictly mono.) I agree that in mainstream photography, as sensors have improved, the one-EV-step advantage gained by omitting the Bayer filter array is only noticeable for "edge cases" such as extremely low-light shooting. However, one thing I remember from when the M9 Monochrom came out was that the original color M9's low-light performance was, er, lackluster at best compared to its Nikon/Canon competitors, so it was speculated that among other things, making a mono version was an easy way to squeeze out a bit more low-light/high-ISO performance for journalists and documentarians who needed better image quality but could do without color...

I have had my Ricoh GRIII converted to monochrome and couldn't be happier. I totally agree that it alters how you see things, scanning for monochrome picture opportunities.

The Canadian bros' review (linked in the description) is actually very helpful. One interesting claim it makes is that Pentax's Simplex-format camera, the K1, actually makes better monochrome images because its larger sensor has better gradation… so the appeal of the K3 Mono depends mostly on how much you like the idea of having a dedicated b&w camera…

I began all the prompts with “black and white movie poster for a film noir movie…” For the camera images, I included the URL of a publicity image of each camera. I didn't expect the results to look quite so ridiculous, but once I saw them I had to keep it going as a running gag…

This prompt me to learn more about A.I imaging. Btw, I had to wait unit late January for my Pixii upgrade.😄

Glad to hear it piques your interest. When it comes to AI imaging, I think "known your enemy" is a good motto! Well, it's not really the enemy, but it's bound to cause some confusion potential between it and photographically-based imagery until people get more used to it and realize it's not really "intelligent"! Re Pixii, I had a similar experience: I ordered the 1.5x magnifier eyepiece and was told it would be delayed until January because they had received some out-of-spec components from a supplier and had to request replacements. I guess supply-chain issues are still a problem for manufacturers big and small!

Hello... sorry for the slow reply, but I was curious about this myself and wanted to perform an experiment before I gave you an answer. I don't have access to any of the Rotolight lights (although they sound excellent) but I do have a Godox ML60Bi, which is advertised as a flicker-free photo and video LED light. I also have a Godox M1, a small dual-mode LED light which can be operated either in color-temperature mode over a narrow color range using bicolor LEDs, or an HSV (hue/saturation/value) mode which gives a wider range of colors using RGB LEDs. For my experiment I set up a simple scene in which banding would be easy to spot. I made test photos with the Pixii at shutter speeds of 1/4, 1/60, and 1/3000 (the highest speed for which the lights were bright enough to get a good exposure.) The purpose of this choice was to see if banding was more likely at a slow, medium, or fast shutter speed. I also made test photos with each light set to 20% power, 50% power, and 100% power. The purpose of this choice was to see if power levels affected the risk of banding. I don't know how much you have examined this, but LED lights can't be dimmed just by reducing the electrical supply, the way "hot" lights can... the LED will dim slightly, but once the voltage drops below the LED's minimum value, it will simply go out instead of dimming smoothly down to 0. To get around this, LED lights are dimmed using "pulse width modulation" [PWM]. The power supplied by the light is controlled by a PWM clock -- the speed of this clock may be anywhere from ~50hz all the way up to 25kHz for special video-safe theater lights. Within each cycle of the clock, power is supplied to the LED only part of the time, called the "duty cycle": a 100% duty cycle means power is applied all the time, a 50% duty cycle means power is applied only half the time, etc. (Duty cycle doesn't correspond exactly to the output of the LED -- a 50% duty cycle may not produce exactly 50% light output because LEDs aren't perfectly efficient.) The concept of duty cycle explains where the risk of banding comes from: an LED with a slow PWM clock rate and using a short duty cycle may produce "blank spots" in the light output that produce bands in the camera image. I have even taken photos under old "deejay-style" LED lights in which banding, or a stroboscopic-type multiple image, appeared even with a camera using a mechanical shutter! After all that explanation, the results of my experiment are going to come as an anticlimax. With the ML60Bi light, I got NO banding at any combination of shutter speed and LED power setting! With the M1, I did see some banding in either color-temperature mode or HSV mode, ONLY at a 1/3000 shutter speed. I should note, though, that the M1 wasn't bright enough to give a good exposure at 1/3000, so it's possible that some of the banding may be a noise effect caused by underexposure. Another thing to keep in mind about dual-mode lights such as the M1 was that I did my HSV mode experiment with the light set to zero saturation, which produces a white light. These lights also can be set to produce light in deeply saturated colors; I didn't test all the choices here, but based on experience I think this scenario would be more likely to produce banding, since only a single color channel is used and its PWM clock rate may be lower. Sorry for making you read so much to reach the conclusions, but based on my experiment I feel you DO NOT have to worry about LED banding at all when using the Pixii at any shutter speed, AS LONG AS the scene is lit by photo/video LEDs. The situations in the past in which I have run into banding are scenes lit either by old-style fluorescent lamps or by inexpensive household-type LED lamps, which flicker at the household current frequency (60hz in USA, 50hz in Europe) instead of having PWM control. In particular, a situation which constantly drives me crazy in my practice of theatrical photography is that the newer stage lights are usually high-quality, photo-safe LEDs using PWM control, while the white "work lights" are the cheapest possible white LEDs made for use in garages, warehouses, etc. In this type of situation, any area lit only by the stage lights will look fine, but any area into which the work lights intrude will exhibit absolutely ferocious banding! There isn't much which can be done about this situation except to be aware that it's a potential problem. I hope you've gained some helpful info from your investment of time reading through this long reply! [PS -- Oops, I thought of one more thing: another thing that affects the risk of banding is the type of LED used. It's impossible to make an LED that directly emits white light; from what I've read, the only options are red, blue, green, or a purplish-red that LED enthusiasts call "blurple." To make a white-looking light that's cheap and efficient, it's common to combine a red, a green, and a blue LED within a single envelope. These direct-emission LEDs can switch on and off very rapidly, raising the risk of banding. To gain a more naturally-colored white light, photo/video LEDs are coated with phosphors -- chemicals that are stimulated by the direct light of the LED and then phosphoresce (glow) over a wider spectrum that can simulate daylight or incandescent lights. The phosphors continue to glow briefly even when the PWM cycle is off, which is another reason photo/video LEDs are less likely to cause flicker problems.]

I've never tried any of the MS Optics lenses, but Bastian on PhillipReeve.net seems fascinated by them and going solely from the pics in his reviews, I've never understood why. Even the people who love them seem to appreciate them more for “character” and distinctiveness than for merely making reasonably sharp pictures without excessive flare. The Brightin Star lens is much more mainstream: wide open it makes sharp-looking pictures with a tight “halo” around highlights that I personally find appealing. It's pretty flare-prone if you include light sources in the picture, but that's easy to avoid. The biggest knock against it I see from others is that there's a lot of focus shift in the extreme corners on a 36x24mm-format camera, but I'm mostly using mine on a Pixii so I never see that!

Tanks you for you quick response! I’m too using a Pixii and in the process of constituting my lens kit. I came from a Leica CL analog which I loved (40 f2 and 90 f4 ) but sold this kit for a m9 with a 35 summicron, which corrodes… any suggestion for a 35 to 40 equivalent first lens ( street photo and ambient portraits ) ?

A lens with a focal length of 28mm on your Pixii will give you a 48-degree angle of view along the long side of the image... exactly what you got with the 40mm lens that you liked on your Leica CL film camera. So, I think that might be a great place to start! I personally like the super-compact 28mm f/2.8 Brightin Star lens that I featured in another video (ruclips.net/video/MeC5mgZlSKg/видео.html) but its susceptibility to flare (and its soft corners if you also use it on a 35mm film camera) might be drawbacks for most people. The Voigtlander Ultron 28mm f/2 is probably a more sensible choice, although I haven't tried one so can't speak from personal experience. I'm very interested in the new Thypoc Simera 28mm f/1.4 lens because of its sophisticated design (floating element for better close-up performance, aspherical element, high-index glass) but although Thypoc has a big presence on Instagram, so far I haven't seen any photo examples from independent reviewers... so far they are "all talk, no action" as the saying goes! Let us know what you decide for your starter lens and what you think of it...

@@jlwilliams Hi, does the brightin star have focus ship as you stop down?

Until recently NO cameras had weather-sealing, and people managed (plastic bags, standing under awnings, there was even a clamp thing that let you attach your camera to an umbrella!) But if you do shoot in the actual rain -- which I agree is a great way to get distinctive photos; I've done it occasionally with a Fujifilm X-Pro 2 -- then that would definitely be a good reason the Pixii would not work for you.

It depends a lot on how you work: Do you shoot a lot, and wait a long time between photo dumps? Or do you stroll around, shooting a photo here and there, then maybe stop for lunch and see what you've gotten? Or something in between? I often shoot fairly large documentary projects, and was afraid I might get into a situation where I was shooting a lot and there wasn't time to stop and download the images, so I sprang for the maxed-out 128gb model... but I've never come even close to filling it up, so I probably would have been fine with 64gb. The 32gb or even 16gb versions probably would be fine for a very selective shooter, the one who goes out all day with a film camera and comes back with six frames exposed. If you plan ahead, you'd never need to worry about being caught short... you could drop one or two 128gb USB-C sticks in your pocket and just empty the camera into one of them when it started getting full (there's a built-in utility for this.) No matter what, at least it's not like buying an iPhone... you're not locked into your choice forever. If you get one of the smaller ones and later wish you had the full 128gb, you can send your camera back to Pixii's upgrade service with a stack of euros and they'll goose it up for you...

@@jlwilliams Hey, thanks! Great advice. I would probably go for the 64 gb since I am a casual shooter. Mahalos! 🤙📷