Happy New Year! By the time you read this, the year will be well under way and I hope you will have great fun from your Rollei photography. This issue completes our third year. Looking back over that period, which has passed very quickly, it has been an enjoyable if not challenging time for me as Editor. I should like to take the opportunity to thank all those who have helped to take the magazine over from Ian Parker and to keep it on a steady path.
Many have contributed articles and photographs; some have helped with the organisation and been of moral support too. I hope that it will continue to receive your enthusiastic input. Dáithí ó Scannláin asked, in the previous issue, if the magazine could have more pages. Well this time it has. There have been a lot of contributions which seem to ‘gel’ and so I have included all of these - a bumper issue! I do not promise that every issue will be of similar length, that depends upon continued higher levels of contributions.
Although the original suggestion of a spring meeting received minimal response, Denis Camp feels that by fixing a date, members may be more enthusiastic now that we are into the new year. The idea is to have a less structured ‘meander with camera’ get-together for a small number of interested people. Further details are attached. David Morgan is also organising our second postal auction, details are also attached.
The Digi-vs-Film debate still rumbles on and I have been reading comments on the Rolleilist. A recent thread has been the comparative ‘true cost’ Not only are there the obvious costs of photographic equipment, computer, software, printer, etc.; the ‘running costs’ of paper and ink (dye or pigment types); file storage and back up but there is an additional un-attributed ‘cost’: your time.
Something I had never really given much thought to was the time that it takes to sort, name, catalogue, adjust and file a batch of digital images at the end of a day’s shooting. These files must then be backed up and re-backed up at intervals to prevent deterioration. These backups must then be catalogued so that in the event of a loss, a replacement file can be retrieved. Much further into the future, when one’s descendants eventually come across a box of CDs, memory sticks or hard drives, they will not bother to look through every file to ascertain its content, they will probably ‘bin’ them. What a waste of our precious time! Now, with negatives or better still, transparencies, the contents would be instantly recognisable as to having potential interest or not and probably would be retained for further attention at a later date.
Contents:
Front Cover: ‘Marzena’ by David Morgan – November meeting portrait competition winner
3 Accessories and Supplies by David Morgan.
4 Ballybeg Priory by Dáithí ó Scannláin
6 Slide Projection by David Morgan
7 November Meeting 6×6 Slide Show
8 Rolleinars and Rolleigons by Ken Williams
10 Rollei Mutar Lenses by David Morgan
14 Ian Parker’s ‘Blurb’
15 Zeiss and Schneider Lens Serial Number Dates
16 2009 Calendars by Denis Camp and Max de Silva
18 Your Forum
20 November Meeting 2008
21 November Meeting Photo Portraiture Competition
23 ‘H.M.’ uses Rollei Cameras by John Abbott
Back Cover: ‘Marzena takes the wheel’ by Michael Coles – November meeting portrait
competition runner-up
