User talk:Dustin McAmera
This is the discussion page for Dustin McAmera. Click here to start a new topic.
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Hello! This is my Talk page. This is the place to ask me questions or leave messages: I will get an email whenever someone adds text to this page. Alternatively, you can use the Email this user link (at the bottom of the left-hand column, in the normal wiki layout).
To write here (or on any wiki page) you must be logged in. Then you'll see (at the top right, beside the Search box) a link called Add Topic; an edit-box should appear when you click this (You could use Edit instead, but don't edit other people's messages here).
The Add Topic box has a space for a heading; please give one, so your message stands out from the existing stuff. It's also good to sign your message at the end, so I know who I'm talking to (under your text, click the 'signature' button at the top of the edit-box, seventh from the left: looks like a fragment of hand-writing). All you'll see in the edit-box is ' --~~~~ ', but when you preview or save the edit, that code will turn into your username, with a link to your user page and a date/time stamp.
Cheers! --Dustin McAmera (talk) 06:05, 25 September 2014 (PDT)
Blocking
As we continue machine-gunning down the kamikaze waves of spammers, I'm very doubtful "Bailey Helton" was a real person... but for names like that, which look marginally more plausible, lately I do try googling, searching Flickr users, etc. and maybe give them an extra day or two before nuking them. I did accidently block a friend of Steve's once ;-) --Vox 06:45, 27 March 2012 (PDT)
Yes - I have been a bit red in tooth and claw today! I'll take some deep breaths, and have a weak green tea instead of the next coffee...
--Dustin McAmera 06:53, 27 March 2012 (PDT)
Century
Write the Century Graphic its own page (perhaps the Crown should also be separated from the Speed too: a focal plane shutter is quite a big deal, and the lens usage of the two is different too). The CG isn't a small Speed, it's more like a small Crown; and what the hell is a flexible wire viewfinder?
The phrase seems to be lifted directly from this list. But I don't know what it means! As far as I can tell from your photo, both our CG's are identical—although originally mine had the rangefinder flashgun bracket you can see in some people's photos. In any case, I agree with giving the CG its own page: Of the whole Graflex press series, it's probably the one that is most practical to shoot with today. --Vox 07:26, 31 January 2012 (PST)
Information source? And publicizing new work
Hi again,
I've been lurking on the IDCC mailing list, which seems to include a number of "wood & brass" -era collectors. Might it be useful to put out a call there for photos or info, regarding some of the early British brands you've been adding? I can relay the request if you'd rather not get buried under the (surprisingly high) traffic on the list. The wiki's Flickr stream can host images from non-Flickrers, if needed.
Also—whenever you get a new or much-expanded article to a reasonably settled place, don't be shy about calling it to my attention. I periodically tweet when there's a noteworthy category, article, or contributor deserving attention. Things like this can help with our Google search rankings, and I'm often pleasantly surprised when Twitter followers retweet these posts.--Vox 17:50, 29 January 2012 (PST)
- Hi Ross! It certainly looks worth investigating. I've signed up to the list. Did you see there is also a list called Woodandbrass on the same system (apparently dead - the archive of past posts goes up to April 2008). I'll watch what traffic there is for a bit, and judge what, if anything, to ask for, and maybe we should post something general about CW, the site and the Flickr group. Will people on a system like this have heard of Flickr? It all looks a bit old-school (says a man who's never seen Twitter or, for that matter, Facebook).
- Another thing I really have to do is visit the National Media Museum (which used to be the National Museum of Film and Photography, and has Kodak Uk's collection of cameras, and (I think) most of what used to be the Science Museum's colection too). I don't know how much is actually on show, or what their policy is on photographing the exhibits, but it's only in the next town, and I've never been to the museum part (I've been to their cinema a few times). They seem to have a research access system; need to find out if that extends beyond documents.
- To be honest, I don't think it's a disaster if a page on CW doesn't show a picture. If we're aware that a certain camera existed, and we know a few facts about it, that's worthwhile even if we don't have a picture of it. Of course, pictures are great, and I like at least to have some to link to. Some of the Westlicht pictures are excellent, and they still have listings up that are ten years old, so I think they intend them to be there long term.
- I'll try to keep a note of my (any anyone else's) best work; but, although I have enjoyed myself in CW over the winter, I'm not sure many of the new articles I've turned out are excellent. They improved coverage, and they let me continue writing when (as I said somewhere before) I have already gone beyond what I know a lot about. --Dustin McAmera 19:18, 29 January 2012 (PST)
- maybe we should post something general about CW, the site and the Flickr group.
- I have already made a few posts explaining what happened to Camerapedia, and inviting contributions to CW—in fact, a few may be sick of hearing about it ;-) But it would certainly do no harm to pop up there and explain that you're trying to improve CW's coverage of some particular eras/styles/brands of camera.
Westlicht
Pete, I think, where you can, you should always provide a link to the 'real' Auction house site, eg Westlicht, Breker etc, and not to a secondhand aggregator like Live Auctioneers. IMHO Westlicht is the primary source and Live Auctioneers a secondary one. I only use the latter is there is no proper Auctioneer's site that has an archive (Which Westlicht, for ex. does)...keep up the good work and the trawling!--Heritagefutures 23:06, 24 January 2012 (PST)
- I think so too; and where I can, I do. Perhaps you saw that I just replaced a liveauctioneers link with one to Westlicht, which I hadn't found the first time I edited the page. --Dustin McAmera 03:42, 25 January 2012 (PST)
USSR: a discussion of articles about countries, in January 2012. Click to read it. | |
USSRSpeaking of the "Former USSR" versus "Russia" question, I find the article Soviet Union a baffler. It should either disappear, or turn into something useful like a manufacturer list. Your thoughts? --Vox 07:28, 10 January 2012 (PST)
I do agree that there is a place for articles here that address countries and even world locations relative to the photographic industry but it needs to be factual and contain dates and even production levels at specific times. Getting these facts may be difficult. In the case of the USSR there is the issue of the fake Leica's, who did that ? When you stop and think, two of the major producers of cameras were Japan and the USSR in terms of volume, yet neither of them had any role in the early development of the photographic process. With reference to Russia, the title must be USSR, volume production of Soviet 35mm cameras began in the Ukraine. I am sure many Ukrainians will tell you it is not Russia. No problem with the edit on the Zenit, I overlooked the Zenit C page Piewacet 12:48, 7 April 2012 (PDT) |
Image links: a discussion in July 2011 about linking to images which aren't in our Flickr group pool. Click to read it. | |
Image linksJust a couple little points: In this edit, you removed "in/pool-camerapedia" from a few image URLs. There's a subtle reason not to do that: When someone doesn't have a Flickr pro account (or if they let their Pro status lapse), and the linked photo is older than their most recent 200 images, the "plain" page URL becomes inaccessible. That's a problem, because sometimes a photo's caption or tags have additional details that may be useful to us. If the URL includes "in/pool-camerapedia" then all the members of the Camerapedia group can continue to see that page. The /in/pool-xyz URLs also preserve the Flickr-page visibility if someone changes a photo to private for some reason.
In this edit you changed the photo rights from NC to "with permission" after a photo was added to the CW pool. Actually, the rights always stay the same as shown on the user's Flickr page. The theory here is that they've granted creative commons rights to everybody, so we can't add more restrictive rights than they did. If someone wants to duplicate a wiki page elsewhere, with its image in place, that's okay as long as the the CC license allows it. Cheers! --Vox 11:02, 22 July 2011 (PDT)
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Albada Viewfinder: a discussion in July 2011 about where this name comes from. I was wrong, of course! Click to read it. | |
FinderHi Dustin, Just read the nice article on viewfinders. Impressive ! But i have one question ; i noticed that for an explanation of the name Albada the latin word Alba = white is used. Just curious from which source you got this information as i allways was under the impression that this name came from the Dutch General Van Albada who invented some stereocameras and viewfinders ? Regards, Hans Keiren
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Image rights: a discussion in March 2011 about using images under Fair Use: Click to read it | |
Image rightsHi Dustin. Since you're interested (or interestable) in copyright stuff, take a quick look at this list. Many still assume that this website is "Camerapedia" -- ouch! Well, this is straightforward, and I'll fix it in the next couple of days. However, there's another problem (I think). It's exemplified in French document in public domain, after 1923, though it pops up all over the place. I quote:
Click the link to "fair use". Do you see anything there that suggests that republication of this is likely to be thought "fair use"? I don't. Of course, common sense says that if either (a) it's mere advertising or (b) it's anyway in the PD in the nation of its origin -- let alone both (a) and (b) -- then only a loony would kick up a fuss about it. But this is a question of law, not of common sense. (You're not a lawyer? Neither am I. But I think that we're both qualified to read an article about "fair use" -- not that this article should be assumed to be authoritative, of course.) Zuleika 03:44, 24 March 2011 (PDT)
Actually, I think it's okHmm. for what it's worth, I'm an out-of-work engineer. I'd be entirely happy to leave the whole field to someone else... As you suggest, common sense suggests that the original owner of the advert, be that an advertising company who owned it as artwork, or the camera company who used it to sell cameras, would have been happy to see it distributed as widely as possible. The present owners of copies of the advert might be unhappy to see it reproduced on the web because their copy is rendered less valuable as a collectable object; but I don't think those people have any share of copyright in the image. I had a look at the Wikipedia article, and convinced myself that there is a case that this is Fair Use. I've written a bit about that below. Now, there is an image_rights category called Fair Use. As I recall, it's discourgaed in the Help pages. I suppose categories like this 'French doc in PD after 1923' one (and its like) exist to embody the fact that someone has considered whether it's fair use or not, so that less intellectual/interested editors don't need to. I think it might be worth adding some words to the Help, encouraging people to consider whether their use of an advertising image is scholarly; our use of them is less defensible if they are just decorative.
1. the purpose and character of the use, including whether such use is of a commercial nature or is for nonprofit educational purposes; I think the use in the wiki is usually defensible as scholarly and non-commercial. The old advertising is (in the overwhelming majority of cases) being used because it provides a picture of a camera (or other product) or information about the specifications and price when the camera was new, or information as to what the makers claimed about the camera, or even simply the identity or address of the makers (I've seen this use of Japanese adverts in some of Rebollo_fr's articles on Japanese cameras). 2 the nature of the copyrighted work; The Wikipedia article suggests that in principle, the nature of the work doesn't limit the applicability of Fair Use, or make it open season on any category of work. However, I suspect it would be taken into account that the original purpose of the work was short-lived; to advertise the availability of a product. That purpose is over. It might be argued that the work has a new nature as a collectable document; but I don't think we threaten that anyway, because its nature as a collectable object comprises more than the reproducible image; it rests on its authenticity; age, condition, nature of the paper, etc. none of which we are using. 3 the amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole; I have a tiny doubt what 'the work' is in this case. I have seen old advertising on Flickr as individual adverts scanned from magazine pages, and also as whole pages of adverts. I've seen it as pages or part-pages of books too, elsewhere on the web (e.g. Google books and some US libraries' web sites, who have downloadable PDFs of whole photographic manuals from the early 20th century, including advertising). If 'the work' were the book or the magazine, it would be arguable that the proportion being reproduced is small. However, I think the division between editorial content and paid advertising is clear enough to dismiss that argument; usually we are reproducing a whole 'work'. However, I don't think it's a problem. I think the issue of amount used and that of the purpose of the use have to go hand in hand. The Wikipedia article says under 'Practical effect': The practical effect of this law and the court decisions following it is that it is usually possible to quote from a copyrighted work in order to criticize or comment upon it, teach students about it, and possibly for other uses. Certain well-established uses cause few problems. A teacher who prints a few copies of a poem to illustrate a technique will have no problem on all four of the above factors (except possibly on amount and substantiality), but some cases are not so clear. All the factors are considered and balanced in each case: a book reviewer who quotes a paragraph as an example of the author's style will probably fall under fair use even though he may sell his review commercially. But a non-profit educational website that reproduces whole articles from technical magazines will probably be found to infringe if the publisher can demonstrate that the website affects the market for the magazine, even though the website itself is non-commercial. Although we may be reproducing the whole work, we aren't threatening a market for it. We are that teacher with the poem.
I think this one is clear. In any case where the advertising is old enough to be PD in France, the camera is no longer available as the new product advertised, so the value of the advertisement cannot be harmed. I doubt that its value as a collectable document is harmed by reproduction of a small image of it on the web. A third party could download the image, and try to make fakes for sale; but that would be their offence, and the same could happen to any image we use. --Dustin McAmera 09:53, 24 March 2011 (PDT) Cheers Ross! I have yet to dip my toe into using anything but new photos of old cameras. --Dustin McAmera 15:01, 24 March 2011 (PDT)
I've looked at this a bit more, though perhaps not exhaustively. I'm now happy that whoever wrote those 'Japanese document in PD: 1927-28' categories (I'd bet money it was Rebollo_fr, because it applies mostly to his materials) spent an appropriate amount of time considering the justification of the PD claim where it is claimed, and the presumption of Fair Use where PD differs between the US and elsewhere. I'm also happier to have seen (somewhere) that advertising is generally taken to be anonymous, if published by a company and not signed by an individual. So I think we have more important work to do, (i) writing about cameras, (ii) hunting down photos that are in CW illegitimately (especially given the rumpus that CW members are making in the outside world about CP's use of photos). As I said before, it might help to add some words, perhaps in Adding Images, to encourage people to use images for 'scholarly' purposes rather than as artwork.--Dustin McAmera 05:48, 26 March 2011 (PDT) |
XHTML: a discussion in March 2011 about Wikitext: Click to read it | |
XHTMLA tiny point within this edit: You "corrected" "<br/>" to "<br>". However, Mediawiki uses XHTML rather than HTML, so "<br/>" is right and "<br>" is wrong. (Not that either of us should lose any sleep over this. And maybe your finger just slipped or similar.) That aside, I'm impressed by your continuing work. I got stuck revising "TLR" because I could/can three-quarters-remember all kinds of stuff but just didn't have raw material on me in authoritative, quotable form. Zuleika 08:53, 30 March 2011 (PDT)
Deep breath. . . . Here is the page as edited by you. Let's feed it to W3C's validator. Here's the result, which isn't pretty. It's clear that the page purports to be XHTML 1.0 Strict, but (through no fault of yours) dismally fails to meet this lofty aspiration. ("Strict" markup is cleaner and less forgiving than "Transitional" markup.) The failures don't include any instances of "<br>", because the Mediawiki software has obligingly converted HTML "ground glass<br>screen" to XHTML "ground glass<br />screen". Or anyway this version of the Mediawiki software has done so. Who knows about the next version? Perhaps it won't do so. And perhaps there are circumstances in which even the current version won't do so. Let's imagine that for one reason or another the Mediawiki software fails to convert "<br>" to "<br />". Browsers are told that the page is XHTML 1.0 Strict but (as far as XHTML is concerned) a tag that is opened and therefore must be closed is not also closed. (In XHTML, I believe that "<br>" isn't necessarily wrong, as long as it's promptly followed by "</br>". But the latter is very likely to confuse real-world browsers.) Since present-day web browsers are designed to do their best with "tag soup" (i.e. the equivalent in web markup of diarrhea), and since this is a pretty straightforward error, all is likely to be well. However: (i) the average level of competence web pages is (at last!) rising (thanks to the gradual disappearance of truly bad "web authoring tools", and also the near-disappearance of totally incompetent "hand coding", as blog software makes it all so much easier); and (ii) browsing by hand-held devices is rising, and they don't have the puff to run vast browsers such as Firefox and their leaner browsers may skimp on some of the modules required to guess what to do with mistakes. So all in all it's better to do XHTML by the book, with "self-closing" tags where appropriate. You ask for new comments to be placed at the top of your page. It's your talk page, so I'm happy (well, fairly happy) to do that, of course; but it flies in the face of what virtually everybody else does in wiki talk pages (prescribed/described here). I don't think you're going to be able to change the general trend; and as long as you don't, I fear that having two patterns (new stuff at the foot of some talk pages, at the head of others) is going to cause confusion and irritation. How about asking people to leave a note at the top of your page that they've left a note somewhere below? (Though since you should be automatically notified by the website that you have a new message, I don't really see how even this would be helpful. Still, it's your talk page.) Zuleika 17:08, 30 March 2011 (PDT)
On TLRs: Yes, you've certainly improved it. Perhaps the article didn't know what it wanted to be -- it was (and is) marked as a glossary item, but in places it was very unlike my idea of a glossary item. Anyway, it seems silly to me to have detailed articles on this or that specific (and often obscure) TLR but no article on TLRs in general. (NB I don't want to knock the former. They're fine.) Then again, I don't mind much if material is missing from this website; but I do think that it, like any other website, has a responsibility to try to make sure that what it does say isn't wrong. That article had some statements that were truthy but mistaken, and it was by no means an unusually poor article by the standards of the site. There's a systemic error, and I suppose the only way to fix it is to attract a larger number of people who know (or are willing to find out) what they're writing about and who then write it up carefully. Zuleika 18:39, 30 March 2011 (PDT) |
Exa: a discussion in June 2011 about an edit I did on Exa: Click to read it | |
exa originalHi Dustin, I could not understand that you wrote for the Exa (original) page, typos? If I did a mistake, please change it. Best regards--Dr.Süleyman Demir 22:33, 22 June 2011 (PDT) Hi Süleyman!
Hi, thanks. I do the same thing always, then I edit the page many times. Cause, at first sight, we can not see them :) I am trying to collect all of the Exakta and Exa versions. eg. I need Exa 1 to 4 and Exakta Kine versions and VX :) Cheers--Dr.Süleyman Demir 07:26, 23 June 2011 (PDT) |
Plurals
Dustin, you're doing good work. But you're not using HotCat (it seems). As soon as I started to use it, I found that it helped. Now that I've used it a little more, I find that it helps a lot. Try it! (How you do this is explained here.) You'll be glad you did.
Oh, and, uh, [cough] . . . could you please take a look at Ernemann Kino I? This (unsourced) piece defeats me, perhaps in part because it's an hour past my bedtime. -- Hoarier 07:42, 6 February 2012 (PST)
- I have hung back from HotCat because it would be my first gadget, and I'm not sure I want it there if there's only going to be a short flurry of this stuff. I'll give it a try some time.
- As for the Ernemann Kino, you found it... :p (I'm still trying to kick myself into going back to Voigtländer).
mamiya 645super..etc
Thanks for updating the page re the various system parts. I started it but was a bit lazy and never got around to finish it. Was hoping you noticed it and felt the urge to update it! ;) Plus you most likely know the system better since you own the camera system. Looks like most of the major and a few minor MF camera systems now have decent system parts info. What is left is maybe the Hassalblad H series... but I have yet to even start anything specific on it other than a single sentence. --Tkmedia (talk) 18:55, 25 August 2013 (PDT)
- Thanks (and sorry for taking over your edit!) I confess I didn't know the limits of what there was until I looked the system up. There are more lenses than I knew about, at both ends of the scale. I guess they must have been very expensive and not many sold, so you don't see them for sale now. Good luck with Hasselblad: I know very little about them.
Cheers! --Dustin McAmera (talk) 06:41, 26 August 2013 (PDT)
Error to edit correction
I have a Mercury one with a sticker on it that says "Made in Belguim by Gevaert for Universal Camera Corporation N.Y. USA", but now that you pointed out the error, I think this must be a sticker from a roll of film. Thank You
- Ok! Thanks! --Dustin McAmera (talk) 06:35, 26 August 2013 (PDT)
<CPO> <EP> Latin or Katakana
Latin or Katakana <Katakana> marked <CPO> <EP> was the normal engraving during the C.P.O. office period of US Allied Army Occupied Japan 1947-1950 or M.I.O.J. to some. <Katakana> is a very rare mark, which says in Japanese <C.P.O.> and the camera was made only for Export production and was NOT too be Taxed! You can think of it as = to the <EP> mark = Export Production, Not the often referred to incorrectly stated on eBay & other web sites as, thinking Exchange Post, or military store; which is really called Post Exchange! Truth be told all <EP> marked cameras were also sold in Military base stores world-wide , ordered by the C.P.O. division of US military occupied Japan, because they were NOT too be Taxed! That said <EP> products of all kinds of optics and metals, were also Exported without taxation to other areas of the world. The point here is <EP> marked cameras were not only sold in just military bases. <CPO> was the earlier 1947, 1948 marking and <EP> the later marking. <Katakana> C.P.O. is extremely rare, and those cameras so marked command respect and higher prices! Regards, Don - Eastwestphoto
How to Rename/Delete a user account?: a discussion in February 2014. Click to read it. | |
How to rename a user account?Hi! My user account contains a real name. So I want to rename it into '**ji97%/&$'. There is no help page, no link , no nothing, not even a notice in the search box. Is it possible simply to delete the account, or need I to practise some vandalism first until I'll GET deleted?-- My deletion requestThanx Dustin for your answer, please merge the account to the 'Spammer' one and then try to delete my old user and discussion page with my real name. At least a retired tag would be helpful. CU-- |
Various short discussions: some are dated and some aren't. Mostly not that important. These include enquiries like 'Where should I put this information?', 'Why was my picture edited out?', New users saying hello, etc. Click to read them. | |
removed imageHello, I added a photo in the 'Zenit' page, but now the image was removed do you know why? thank you very much No 4. Cartridge KodakI cut & pasted this title from the Kodak page (104 film) but didn't notice it had been typed with a full stop after the 4. To match the others it should be No. 4 - can you correct it? Geoff 25 January 2013 OK I've found how to correct it - done. Geoff 25 Feb 2013 polaroid questionhello, I have been reading the Polaroid page, but to me it seems a bit unlogic...apparently there are no links to several series of cameras, or I am looking at the wrong places. I wanted to add the Polaroid Colorpack 88, but where?? Picture is already in the flickr pool. Thanks! Hello from fatcatimagesSorry - I have not contributed anything yet but I am a member of the Ann Arbor Area Crappy Camera Club. I am a real person... Scott
Looks great on Agfa! Best, MarkDilley
Leica 1cThere is an incorrect picture on this page. It needs to be transferred to the Leica C page. It's caption should read "with accessory rangefinder", delete "accessory finder".
Template/infoboxHi, I'm new here and along with a wealth of camera knowledge I know a bit about wiki formatting. Would it be ok for me to create an "infobox" template (something like this :http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nikon_D800) for use on pages to display important information quickly? Can I create one? Would you like me to send you a draft first? Thank you Angad Gooseta (talk) 15:20, 10 July 2013 (PDT) ReCool, I see you guys aren't too concerned with utilitarian info boxes and things like that. For now I'll just stick to editing then. Gooseta (talk) 19:01, 10 July 2013 (PDT) |
response
Hello, thank you for the welcome. You're right I haven't quite figured out this site yet. Willy Hermann Neumann of Neumann & Heilemann was my grandfather. I'm trying to correct his name, because literally every single site has it listed incorrectly. I dont know what Mr. Heilemann's first name was (my mother doesn't remember either as she was 4 when her father Willy Neumann passed away) but I know it wasn't Willy. Anyway, if you're able to help me correct the names I would really appreciate it! I dont know if me trying to figure out the editing feature is helping or hurting. Regards, Lani
Flickr
You mentioned that Flickr was still the best place to host photos. Do you have an account there and a user name a person could search for to see some of your images? And possibly some of your cameras? Oh, and have you thought about updating that phrase "Flickr is still the best place to host?" Lately, they seem to be imploding. Also, I find Ipernity to be just like Flickr back when it just worked and that site seems to be running quite smoothly. Maybe not many people have joined as have Flickr, but small sites have to start somewhere. Kenny HaarFager (talk) 13:05, 15 August 2016 (CDT)
- Here's my Flickr account (screen name is the same as here; the URL uses my original user name, century_graphic). I haven't uploaded anything to Flickr for a while though: the bike race on page 2 is the Tour de France 2014! Several of the cameras I've used a bit have their own albums, and there's one album called 'Cameras' with pictures a few more (mostly has pictures I took to put in the CW pool).
- I don't know Ipernity. I'd have been happy without some of the changes they have made to Flickr since I joined it (videos, bottomless scrolling, autotags) but I can't get as angry about it as some people seem to. Certainly not bothered enough to go through the work of uploading everything somewhere else. What has annoyed me most has been the times they have changed the URLs of images and of their pages, so we had to find out how to embed Flickr pictures here all over again.
- Cheers! Pete --Dustin McAmera (talk) 16:25, 15 August 2016 (CDT)