Last week I updated the core switches at one of our sites to two new fancy HP 5406zl. Along with all the nice new features that came with these two beasts was PoE on all ports. All was good and well, until today, when the logs on one of the switches started filling up with 3 errors about PoE delivery on a specific port.

After a lot of cable-tugging and google, it turned out that a subcontractor had installed a small V1810-8G switch in the network. And among other things, these small buggers can be fed by PoE on Port 1. But since it was hooked up with a wall-wart, that collided with the PoE-feed. One would think that HP could put in a bit of error checking on the PoE side so that a device that already have a functioning power supply does not request a PoE-feed.

So, if you’re struggling with a log full of PoE errors (I got 110 000 events in half a week), do a quick google if the connected device supports PoE.

Apparently the shutter speed and the vibration of the strings on the double bass are sufficiently close to each other to create the interesting interference pattern seen in the video. Keeping in mind that the lowest notes in the double bass are below 100 Hz, the shutter wouldn’t have to very fast to exhibit this phenomenon.

Shot with a Yashica-Mat 124G Fri 21.01.2011

Recently, I bought a Yashica-Mat 124G of eBay, mostly because I was intrigued by both the Twin Lens Reflex camera system and the film format.

Somehow, I’ve got the feeling that TLRs make for better photographs in certain situations than SLRs. The parallax error and the mirrored viewfinder makes for interesting compositions that the photographer don’t have 100% control over, no matter what kind of experience. This, in my opinion makes TLRs especially well suited for street portraits and other medium range photography, where the depth of the image is around 10-20 meters.
The fact that people aren’t used to people taking photographs looking down at a small black box instead of pointing a big zoom lens at them only adds to the pros when it comes to street portraits.

The film format then. First of all, the negatives are big, especially for a guy like me that has never shot anything but 35mm. I mean, 60mm x 60mm of real estate to play around with. Other things I’ve noticed is that the negatives are a whole lot easier to scan, since dust and grain doesn’t get as enlarged as with 35mm, and they allow for insane amounts of pixels, 6400dpi scans yields about 190 megapixels. Printed at 300dpi, that’s about 1,2 meters square. And finally, I find the 120 rolls a lot more pleasant than 35mm cartridges, the 120 rolls are somehow a bit more “organic” or something. Don’t ask me for a better description, suffice to say that I like stuff for the strangest of reasons

Ilford on Kodak

Originally uploaded by sstorholm

Last Tuesday I went out to buy some Ilfotol since I couldn’t get a colorless washing liquid here in Helsinki.

When I came into the shop on the other side of town (http://www.telefoto.fi) I went into a shopping spree and bought the following;

Ilfotol (1 liter)
Ilfostop (500ml)
Rodinal (500ml)
Canon 9000F film scanner
3 rolls of 120 Ilford Delta 400 film.

All the stuff was actually stuff I needed, but I hadn’t actually planned on buying it all in one go. In hindsight though, I have to say that I can’t understand why I haven’t bought stop bath and washing aid before, the stop bath as increased the accuracy of my developing with Kodak HC-110 extremely, and the wash aid is a lot more effective than washing liquid, with this stuff you just wash the film and hang it to dry, no drying necessary.

The scanner is wonderful as well, I still can’t understand how they can sell this scanner at the price they do, it feels like I ripped somebody off (since when do you get 9600dpi scans for 230€ street price?)

Originally uploaded by sstorholm

I recently switched from Ilford ID-11 developer to Kodak HC-110, mostly because of the increased shelf life of HC-110 (syrup as old as from 1979 kept in half-full bottles have been known to work). It’s also a lot easier to work with since you normally use around 10-20ml of concentrate to make 300-600ml of working developer.

My only setback so far has been the first roll I developed with HC-110. As you can see from the picture, the negative turned out very overdeveloped, since I used times given for the older formula for Tri-X (TX) and not the newer 400TX that Kodak sells these days.
The interesting thing is that the variation in time isn’t that big, 8 minutes in dilution E seems to be about right for 400TX shot at EI 400, while 7 minutes and 30 seconds in dilution B rendered this. On the other hand, maybe I should have used some of my intelligence and figured out that if the The Massive Development Chart noted 7 minutes and 30 seconds in dilution B, and Kodak recommends 3 minutes and 45 seconds for 400TX in dilution B, something isn’t quite right.

Anyhow, there has been a lot of debate about this online, and people seem to agree that the optimal time for 400TX in HC-110 is somewhere between this two massively different times. Another theory is that Kodak messed up their testing and that the time posted by them is actually for 400TX in dilution A.

Update 15 Dec. 2011:

I’ve received a lot of emails about this post asking me if I’ve found a better time. And yes, I have, currently I’m using 8 minutes in HC-110 dil. E at 20 degrees C for Kodak 400TX at EI400, and that has given me nice negatives with normal density. The over-developed negatives had about twice the density of the ones I’m getting now. Hope this helps, and please comment if you have ideas/suggestions!