Life on forum

[alex ph]

[alex ph]

[visualopsins]

[Lucse]

This forum is having the same problem as so many others:
A clique of longtime members who think they rule the place and who behave as if they are the undisputed kings who have to be treated will all possible respect.

It's because of them (and my very bad experiences with their reactions when I just started on this site) that I still hardly post anything here.
And I plan to keep it that way.

[visualopsins]

[Lucse]

Are you a clique?

The fact that you take my post so personal proofs my point.

My post was not meant to anybody in personal.
But if the shoe fits.. feel free to wear it.

So, in fact you do prove what I am trying to make clear.
(Oversized egos that feel wrongly addressed is a characteristic of it).

[visualopsins]

[paulhofseth]

Occasional rough advice does is not firm evidence for this conspiracy theory, and does not prove that this forum is governed by a malicious cabal.

Looking at the original squabble it appears that if one filters out the aggravation, some informative texts is contained and as always, digressions are fruitful and digging into the lode of knowledge here can lead on to interesting knowledge.

In the case of J.Schneiders ISCO I recommend looking at its early wideangle roots in the work of its ex-DDR lens designer..

The diatribe certainly inspired me to bring out my distantly related ISCO Edixa westromat 135 and take some snaps. Although without any sushade. and having to battle my NikonZs unfortunate tendency to move the focus point around at random, the results do not leave much to be desired-.

p.

[e6filmuser]

I tend to take a look every day.

I have purchased several new or used lenses during the past 12 months. Most were w/a or uw/a, with some emphasis on shift potential. That was (except for one) entirely or partly based on comments about them here. At the end of last summer I went out on two days, each time with several of them. I posted some results here.

The UK variations on lockdown have meant I couldn't do any more.

I think this will trump all excuses:

On 28 February I was in our kitchen when, to cut a long story short, I had a minor stroke or TIA. All I experienced was very slurred speech for a few minutes. I was taken by ambulance to A&E where scans found no bleed but quite a bit of reconfiguration of my small blood vessels. I have yet to discuss the consequences with my doctor but I feel no different than before the event and have no physical or mental impairment. (Maybe a poll on that? ).

As for my photography, I am prevented by law from driving for a month and then I need my doctor's opinion to restart.

As a special bonus, they told me I had been next to a COVID positive patient on arrival. so I am now self-isolating for a second week.

At the very least, I can do my macro in the rich resources of my garden.

There is a complication. My wife had started complaining, last year, about me, being old (75) and roaming extensive nature reserves by myself. I am probably not going to get away with that any more but have opportunities to join active groups.

That only caters for macro. Other lenses need a different tactic. My wife can't walk far but locations accessible by car should be open to me.

On the digital side, I have had my main 50mm repaired after replacing it. I have now purchased an as-new duplicate of my camera body. Years ago I invested in a stereo bar (no longer made) with the intention of shooting stereo pairs of moving subjects.

[DigiChromeEd]

E6filmuser, I hope your long term health doesn't suffer from the effects of your TIA.

I too check in here nearly every day and due to this forum have accumulated far too many lenses.

There is a wealth of quality information here and that is part of the reason why I don't contribute as much as I used to. Nearly anything I need to know can be found here without duplicating queries. Having said that, I still enjoy browsing the forum as much as I ever did.

[e6filmuser]

[HansMoleman]

[e6filmuser]

[calvin83]

Life will go high and low. I learn most of my knowledge from the member here. Some of the members helped me a lot. I wish my contribution helps the others too.

I will try to post more lens samples later. There are many lenses in my dry cabins waiting for testing...

[stevemark]

[visualopsins]

[benadamx]

[alex ph]

[eggplant]

For the weirder military/industrial etc surplus items I'm interested in, its usually spread out across a few places (here/dpreview adapted lenses/nikongear etc) where a handful of particularly active users are. I wish I could get them all in one place, as is done with many successful Facebook groups, but for the time being I can just about keep up with where people are.

[Sciolist]

[fiftyonepointsix]

This forum is a good resource when someone posts first-hand information on lenses.
Klaus is a stand-alone resource. I've picked up some rare lenses, typically very little information available.

http://forum.mflenses.com/vivitar-series-1-35-85mm-f2-8-kiron-made-t6344.html
I picked up a Vivitar 35~85/2.8 Series 1 not long ago, tried to find into on it before doing the Ebay BIN. I hit the above thread started by Attila in 2008. Was an old thread, did not post on it. I was happy to see it bubble to the top as I could post some pictures to it. I also picked up very useful information posted this day on that old thread, I'll quote it here:

[alex ph]

Any forum or community cannot avoid controversy. What I found here, as positively compared to many other places, is a short tension cycle. People who contribute here do not mostly find pleasure in holy wars. So, when a tension happens, it serves mostly to pick up the feed of relevant conversation in order the exchange to come back to its meaningful and joyful dimension.

Eggplant, that's a nice utopian idea, to find everything you are interested in most in one place. I imagine there are possibilities with the newest sotftware to produce kind of macroextensions whih pick for you thematic posts from different forums and assemble it for you in a kind of feedreader. But this does not contribute much to active community maintaining, as this kind of selection gives you what you already know and wish.

I was asking myself if it could be a good idea of adding to the forum a simple plugin which permits to comment from for example facebook accounts, for those who are logged in. That makes it easier to contribute, but it would also modify quite considerably the structure of authorship, as many of us enjoy this place as a place of detachment, and not of personal and constant all-inclusive presence (which is the facebook model).

[guardian]

It is difficult now for me to recall with precision the timing. Will do my best:

I acquired my first MF lenses, before joining this forum, owing to gut instinct and in the face of a massive dose of MF lens ignorance.

"Gut instinct" in this instance refers to the fact the lenses were insanely inexpensive. I was risking so little money for (what seemed to me) such nice lenses that I bought them anyway, without regard I had no idea how to use them and no immediate need. Those, my fellow MF lens admirers, were truly the halcyon days. Oh God if only I could go back and know then what I do now. It cannot be.

By the time I finally joined here, perhaps several years later, things had already begun to deteriorate. But there were still bargain MF lenses out there available for purchase and I was able to snag a couple hundred with help from knowledge gained here. It was late but not horribly so. It was still fun.

Fast forward to the present. It has been rather a long time since I have purchased a lens. Cannot honestly remember my most recent purchase. I do keep up the search, though, on a daily basis. But the wonderful, crazy, bargains available circa 2005 (plus or minus) are sadly long gone.

[vivaldibow]

[!Karen]

I pretty much left when this became a forum mainly to push sales on ebay. That doesn’t seem to be the case anymore though.

But coming back to it from time to time just to see if something interesting is going on.

I personally think the forum needs a thorough revamp.

The thing is, this forum is called MFlenses. I think it is a bit of a shame that there is like one subforum focussing on mflenses(this one). Most of the other subforums are pretty much dead weight (as proven by the fact that a lot of them are completely inactive).
It is also difficult to find something. I would rather have the manual lenses split up. Wide angle, fifties, Tele, zoom, macro. So that if you want to find yourself a good wide angle lens you can easily find the topics on wide angle lenses instead of digging through a huge amount of discussions.

And even though I have continued with using and buying mf lenses, the motivation to really test them and post them here is not really longer there because by now, pretty much every lens has been tested right?

I learned a lot here though and it is absolutely a great community with super friendly people that all share the same passion. It is still a great resource and I will continue to pop in from time to time.

I will try to post more often.