david lewis Posted February 18, 2011 Share #1 Posted February 18, 2011 Advertisement (gone after registration) Riding long distance tours on my bicycle, instead of worrying about how to charge my M9 batteries on the road I think I will bring my M6TTL and buy and ship off the film as I go along. This will mostly be in the United States, but the concept is universal. I would like to know of a lab that will accept transparency film by mail, develop and scan at very high resolution, mail uncut or mounted slides along with a DVD or SD card of my images to my home address and post decent previews online that I can link to so I can blog trip updates on my iPad as I go. The whole point is all I have to do on the road is shoot, mail film and link to the previews with my iPad as I blog on the road. No fuss; I just need a post office, film and my iPad. This would all be unnecessary if: 1) M9 DNGs worked on the iPad (no, DNG+JPG on the M9 is not a solution, but thanks for the suggestion). 2) The M9 had a AA or AAA solution. Does it? Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Advertisement Posted February 18, 2011 Posted February 18, 2011 Hi david lewis, Take a look here Expedition Film Development. I'm sure you'll find what you were looking for!
keithdunlop Posted February 19, 2011 Share #2 Posted February 19, 2011 Richard Photo Lab in Hollywood will process & scan your film, provide an FTP download for your scans, and mail your negs home. They can also mail you a disc, but I prefer to download the files with the FTP link they provide. A&I provides a similar service. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
david lewis Posted February 19, 2011 Author Share #3 Posted February 19, 2011 Notice how you wrote FTP? I am talking about an iPad. I need a simple address to link to. If I have to do any downloading AT ALL then it makes no sense whatsoever. You know how Flickr pro accounts let you link to the medium preview directly? Like that! Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
andybarton Posted February 19, 2011 Share #4 Posted February 19, 2011 Keith was only trying to be helpful... no need to snap his head off! Have you any contacts with Pro Labs who process your film when you're not on the road? Do you have anyone who could download scans via an ftp and upload them to Flickr (or similar) for you? Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
david lewis Posted February 20, 2011 Author Share #5 Posted February 20, 2011 I spend very little time in online forums, and I apologize for having little patience. It is often the case that I feel I have asked a very straightforward question with all pertinent facts only to discover that others trying to be helpful have steered the conversation totally adrift from my original question. I was hoping for a one-word answer, or a name of a lab that fit the description I gave, and not a totally different arrangement altogether. I don't have any contact with any pro lab anywhere. I live in Germany and photography is my hobby. I take pictures with my M9 and M6TTL and when I need to develop transparencies I have it done at the local Leica dealer, who also has his own internal E6 lab. It's just an old guy who smokes cigarettes in his office in the back. I want to ride my bicycle across the United States, but I will run out of power with my M9 with no field expedient method of charging its power cell. So I've decided to use the M6TTL and mail off the rolls of film as I go. I just want to know the name of a lab who accepts film by mail who will post decent previews online with a minimum of fuss to access them, so that I can link to those previews in blog updates from my iPad. I don't want to rely on any buddies or arrangements with others or FTPing or anything like that. I want to mail a roll of film and a week later have my pictures on my screen on my iPad. Do you know of any labs like that in the United States? Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
lincoln_m Posted February 20, 2011 Share #6 Posted February 20, 2011 App for FTP on the go: FTP On The Go for iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad on the iTunes App Store Others have thought about needing FTP on the go on the iPhone, iPad before. For $6.99 it may be worth a try before you go? Sorry I can't help on a USA based recommendation for E6 process, scan and DVD and previews. For blogging on the internet surely you only need low res images and a basic digital compact ( that takes AA ) or even one like Canon IXUS 130 (14.7Mpixels !!!) which could be used for the fewer blog shots and 2 Lithium Ion batteries would last months if you only take a few shots per day to give a flavour of the trip? Perhaps I'm missing the point of the need to blog and how it's done. Regards, Lincoln Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
wattsy Posted February 20, 2011 Share #7 Posted February 20, 2011 Advertisement (gone after registration) Perhaps I'm missing the point of the need to blog It makes you wonder how anyone ever managed to go on a long distance cycling trip (an "expedition" - don't make me laugh) before things like blogs were invented. I think the OP's problem is that he is planning on using an iPad and not a laptop/netbook - presumably because, unlike an 11" Macbook Air (which is not much larger or heavier and about 10x more capable), the iPad can be charged through USB via a dynamo of some sort. The problem with the iPad is that IOS makes it hard (impossible?) to upload content like photographs from it onto the internet. If a lab uploads previews of his scans onto the web, the OP could simply link to these online previews using his blogging software. However, the latter assumes that the links would work - my experience of online previews from labs (like Metro) is that they are located inside a password protected environment and you cannot just link to them like you can with a publicly accessible image. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Michael-IIIf Posted February 20, 2011 Share #8 Posted February 20, 2011 I was hoping for a one-word answer No Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
400TX Posted February 21, 2011 Share #9 Posted February 21, 2011 I would like to know of a lab that will accept transparency film by mail, develop and scan at very high resolution, mail uncut or mounted slides along with a DVD or SD card of my images to my home address and post decent previews online that I can link to so I can blog trip updates on my iPad as I go. Here you go - E-6 Film Processing | Digital Scanning | Slide Imprinting | Historical Processor Chrome | AGX Imaging - IMHO, this is the only place in the U.S. to send your E6 for labwork. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
bill Posted February 21, 2011 Share #10 Posted February 21, 2011 Right. All this sounds overly complex due to the hybrid "workflow" . I'm surprised you abandoned so easily the thought of charging your kit as you go. A friend of mine spent a month in the Himalayas, charging camera, iPhone and assorted other bits of kit (including those belonging to others in the party) with an early one of these (they have refined and improved it since). The solar panel sits on your backpack/rucksack/pannier and charges up the Freeloader battery packs which you then use to charge your kit. I have one of the smaller units myself and it is about as easy as it can be to have power on the move. Hope this helps. Regards, Bill Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jaybob Posted February 22, 2011 Share #11 Posted February 22, 2011 Why not shoot full power JPG? Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
david lewis Posted February 22, 2011 Author Share #12 Posted February 22, 2011 Jaybob: You'd think for $7000 Leica would have the most whiz-bang high-tech camera with the best image processing on the planet. You would be wrong. Compare these two photographs. Can you guess which one was the in-camera JPG and which was the American-made Kodak DNG (shot through a Leica lens)? http://a7.sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-snc6/181622_763356480412_8107236_41415175_1944816_n.jpg http://a5.sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-snc6/180872_762842355722_8107236_41403929_973812_n.jpg FYI: A dirty little secret is the iPad cannot read M9 DNGs. They show up as sub-webcam-quality previews. Bill: The Leica factory geniuses decided to design a cell which cannot be charged other than through its supplied charging station, and it requires 12V like in a car battery. There's simply no other way. The best solution is to say screw the Leica, get a D700 and use AAs. I sold my D700 and got an M9 for a reason, and it is incredibly disappointing to find out all its shortcomings like this. One after the other... Which is why I decided to screw it all and just go with film. Hence, my initial question of who I can send film to for processing that I can easily access the results of online with my iPad. I'll deal with more resource-intensive processes when I get home. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
andybarton Posted February 22, 2011 Share #13 Posted February 22, 2011 FYI: A dirty little secret is the iPad cannot read M9 DNGs. They show up as sub-webcam-quality previews. That's not a secret. It's been discussed here for about a year. The fact that the iPad won't read DNGs is Apple's fault, not Leica's. Maybe you should be on a Mac forum to question that? I have a D700 and don't know of an AA battery solution for the camera - unless you count the big, heavy battery pack thing that fixes to the bottom. You must have known that the M9 did not have such a solution before you bought it. I still don't understand why you can't take DNGs and Jpgs while you travel, use the jpgs temporarily, until you get back home. How are you proposing to charge your iPad while you are completely out of contact with mains or in-car electricity? Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
pico Posted February 22, 2011 Share #14 Posted February 22, 2011 Gamma Photo in Chicago will do that for you. They have been around forever and have very high standards. Just set up an account and go. Regarding the iPad and DNG - of course you can view DNG but only the little embedded jpg. However, it's going to happen. OS-X reads about every picture format. The rendering engine is bound to be coded and moved to the iPad simply because the market demands it. Jobs hates Adobe but he also wants to make money. Should he live so long. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
pico Posted February 22, 2011 Share #15 Posted February 22, 2011 How are you proposing to charge your iPad while you are completely out of contact with mains or in-car electricity? Generator run off the hub or rim. Or get a solar panel always connected to a spare battery. Or just charge when at a motel, diner, whatever. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
andybarton Posted February 22, 2011 Share #16 Posted February 22, 2011 If you can charge iPad from a motel or diner, you can charge an M9 battery... Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
pico Posted February 22, 2011 Share #17 Posted February 22, 2011 FYI: A dirty little secret is the iPad cannot read M9 DNGs. They show up as sub-webcam-quality previews. Not true. Get the app named "PhotoRaw" from the app store. It fails to read some common files from Nikon, etc, but it does work for Leica DNG. It is slow, but it works and you can even adjust a few characteristics and save back to the iPad as various sized JPEG. It is brand new this month, so expect updates and improvements in the future. I just used it with an 17mb file. Good enough for $10 USD. I also recommend the app, GoodReader. It has the best FTP implementation for the iPad. It's good when/if you load up the iPad and have to move files to your home service. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jaybob Posted March 2, 2011 Share #18 Posted March 2, 2011 Jaybob: You'd think for $7000 Leica would have the most whiz-bang high-tech camera with the best image processing on the planet. You would be wrong. Compare these two photographs. Can you guess which one was the in-camera JPG and which was the American-made Kodak DNG.... I hope it's not the dark one. I'm not an M9 user, but I do go back to the Nikon D1. If you are pretty sure what the rendition of the full resolution JPEG at 18 Megapixels (measuring 5212 x 3472) is going to look like, then you need to wrap your mind around adjusting or compensating to this perceived rendition difference, either when you shoot or when you adjust and tone your photos later, or you need to bring a camera that produces JPEG files that you can live with. I'd think that with a file SO large, there will be more than enough information in each file to correct whatever flaws you're seeing in either color fidelity or shadow density that you feel are being compromised by the inferior in camera JPEG processing, certainly enough to downsample to web friendly, and post on your blog. What a mouthful. I'm pretty sure there's probably enough information to make 16 x 20 exhibition gallery quality prints, if not bigger. Perhaps you should get a $300 netbook/laptop that runs Windows, and put a copy of Lightroom on it. or you may be better served using a smaller point and shoot camera for this type of trip. No one's going to notice but you. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
david lewis Posted November 18, 2012 Author Share #19 Posted November 18, 2012 My hotel will be a tent. If you can charge iPad from a motel or diner, you can charge an M9 battery... Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
andybarton Posted November 18, 2012 Share #20 Posted November 18, 2012 Haven't you gone yet? So, now are you going to charge your iPad? Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Archived
This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.