Free PDF book: The Permanence and Care of Color Photographs

Wilhelm Research has released their book, The Permanence and Care of Color Photographs: Traditional and Digital Color Prints, Color Negatives, Slides, and Motion Pictures, by Henry Wilhelm with contributing author Carol Brower—originally published in 1993—as a free, downloadable PDF.

You can get the individual chapters here at Wilhelm Research’s site, or from this direct link to the whole thing in one 79.6MB PDF file.

While I haven’t read it yet, chapter titles such as "Traditional and Digital Color Prints, Color Negatives, and Color Slides: Which Products Last Longest?", "Print Mounting Adhesives and Techniques, Tapes, Rubber Stamps, Pencils, Inks, and Spotting Methods for Color and B&W Prints", "Display and Illumination of Color and Black and-White Prints", and "Handling and Preservation of Color Slide Collections" have bumped it to the top of my reading list.

Thanks, Wilhelm Research!

Via Silverprint News

Agfa chemistry, including Rodinal, is back!

From Silverprint News:

"As they promised, the German company a&o, who aquired Agfa’s chemical range after the dissolution of AgfaPhoto, have lost no time in relaunching the range onto the market . All products are available apart from one or two of the more esoteric ones, Viradon toner and Sistan image stabiliser, and these are unlikely to be made again. However all the favourites are there, including Rodinal neg. developer and the Neutol print developers, and we are expecting the first big delivery on 1st March."

Resolving power record with Zeiss 2.8/25 ZM lens

Apparently Zeiss’ Biogon T* 2.8/25 ZM lens for Leica M is ludicrous in at least one department.

From issue 24 of Zeiss Camera Lens News, released today:

"The result was a whopping 400 lp/mm on film, recorded with the Biogon 25 at f/4 in the center of the image. This value, 400 lp/mm, corresponds to the maximum resolution theoretically possible at f/4; in other words it represents the calculated ‘diffraction limited’ performance at this aperture…"

Continue reading at Zeiss.com

Um, seriously: holy shit.

Of course this is only one specification, and I’d personally be more interested in rectilinearity (the lack of which drives me utterly batshit when I’m after sharp photos) and chromatic aberration, but this is just insanely impressive.

(lp/mm = line pairs per millimeter)

Zeiss ZF lenses: test results and pricing announced

Some updates on the new ZF Nikon F mount SLR lenses from issue 24 of Zeiss Camera Lens News, released today:

"The best we had ever achieved before with any SLR lenses was 250 lp/mm.

"The new Planar T* 1.4/85 ZF achieved that same resolution at f/5.6, and even down to f/2.

"The new Planar T* 1,4/50 ZF went even further: It reached 320 lp/mm in the aperture range from f/5.6 to f/2.8, and 250 lp/mm at f/2…"

Continue reading "The Sharpest SLR Lenses we’ve ever Tested"

Pricing was also announced for the first two models (excl. VAT):
Planar T* 1.4/50 ZF: 499.00 EUR
Planar T* 1.4/85 ZF: 999.00 EUR

The lenses will be available for ordering from Zeiss’ Web site starting 1 April, 2006.