User talk:Dustin McAmera

Hello! This is my Talk page. If you're a registered Camera-wiki user, this is the place to leave me a message or ask me questions: I get an email whenever someone adds text to this page. To be more private, 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), or to see that 'Email this user' link, you must have a CW account and be logged in. Then you'll see (at the top) a link called Add Topic; an edit-box should appear when you click this (You could use Edit instead, but please don't edit other people's messages on this page).

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 (put the prompt under your text and click on the 'x-squiggle' button in the toolbar of the editor. 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.

If you don't have a Camera-wiki account, you can contact me at Flickr about setting one up. Note that you only need a CW account if you want to edit wiki articles. You don't need to log in to read the wiki.

Cheers! --Dustin McAmera (talk) 06:05, 25 September 2014 (PDT)

There is a stack of old conversations here, hidden in 'collapsible text' blocks. click the 'Expand' button if you really want to read one of them. If you add new text here (to leave a message) it won't be hidden, until I get round to another tidy-up.

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 Graphic

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)

IDCC Mailing List: 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.

The National Museum sounds intriguing! I wish something like that were a little closer to me... All I can do is fill in the occasional Argus gap... --Vox 19:37, 29 January 2012 (PST)

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

Speaking 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)

...perhaps along with Japan, Germany, USA and Great Britain, though the Soviet Union one is the worst of them. It's the curse of Category:Essayistic again. We must be collegial though; it seems that considerable change is afoot, and when Uwe next comes by, he's likely to have strong opinions about it. It may help if one of his favourite articles hasn't just been summarily deleted too!

There is a place in the world (and perhaps in the wiki) for an article on the Soviet Union and how its system created its unusual camera industry, but this is not that article. I would be in awe of the task of writing a more serious one, and I think it's been done quite well by Alfred Klomp, but if someone wanted to try I wouldn't discourage them. A list of camera-makers might seem to duplicate the function of the category (whatever it's called: now I've spent time thinking about this, I think 'Soviet Union' or 'USSR' is the category I'd have, not 'Russia'). Perhaps it's better just to refer to the effects of the Soviet system and history in articles when they are relevant to a particular camera or maker. I recall mentioning that Orwo had information and equipment taken in war reparations by both Soviet and Western powers, for example; and somewhere it must say that KMZ were freely given the FED to copy.

Similarly, it would be wrong not to mention Germany's history in the 20s and 30s where they are relevant. --Dustin McAmera 16:28, 10 January 2012 (PST)

Perhaps an article "History of photography in Country XYZ" could have some value—as long as it steers clear of vague editorializing re: politics or the "personalities" of different nations. Key inventors and breakthrough inventions; manufacturers; history of public adoption; significant photographers—I would read that. But as you say, it's daunting to begin. In any case, those article names should be changed, as we have no reason to write about a country in its entirety.

Point taken about not acting arbitrarily… but giving the opinions of those who actually get the work done more weight seems only fair ;-) --Vox 06:51, 11 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

Just 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.

That makes sense (but my primitive mind was more comfortable with 'CW=Us, CP=Them'!) I'll go and undo the same change which I think I did today on Mansfield Skylark :( . On the plus side, I'm working on a killer page about payday loans for overweight Polish people - you're going to love it.--Dustin McAmera 11:28, 22 July 2011 (PDT)

Ulp!

Yes, decreasing "Camerapedia" instances is one reason why I've gotten into the habit of inviting everybody's photos to the CW pool, whether creative commons or not… --Vox 11:37, 22 July 2011 (PDT)

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)

Yes, I even knew that one, but had forgotten it. Thanks Ross! --Dustin McAmera 11:28, 22 July 2011 (PDT)

Somewhere in the wiki I'm sure I've added incorrect rights myself, just distractedly from having too many browser tabs open ;-) --Vox 11:34, 22 July 2011 (PDT)

Finder

Hi 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

Yes, it's one of those things I 'knew', but can't tell you where I learnt it. I find your version of history all over the web, and no support for mine at all; a good example of the need for a reference! Go ahead and edit ('mercilessly', as it says in the help)!

Thanks for the kind words about the article: a lot was there already, including the diagrams at the top (by Uwe, I think...). Editing it, I came to think that as soon as you make a classification, you discover a camera with a VF that bridges two of your types.

Cheers!--Dustin McAmera 07:16, 3 July 2011 (PDT)

(I went ahead and did it myself: see Viewfinder#Albada finders) --Dustin McAmera 07:26, 11 July 2011 (PDT)

Image rights

Hi 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:

[These materials] are not in public domain in the United States [...]. Republication of advertising material published in France in that period probably falls under fair use for US legislation, and it is thus accepted in Camera-wiki.

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 ok

Hmm. 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.

To consider each of the factors in the definition of Fair Use given:

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.

4 the effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work.

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)

Not to butt in, but just as an example of "fair use" take a look at this scan, or this one which I used here. In the captions to those scans I laid out my own "fair use" reasoning. It may be helpful in considering what kinds of cases to take into account. --Vox 10:52, 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)

Dustin, I feel compelled to say that I'm sorry to hear that you're temporarily out of work ... but actually I envy you. However, I do hope that your income (if not your workload) recovers quickly and solidly. Meanwhile, you've had time to give this more thought than I either have done or will soon be able to. Now, I guess this doesn't much interest you (or 99% of sentient humans), but if you could somehow muster the time and energy I'd love to see a bit more work toward a draft of a "fair use" justification. If Vox and others could then look it over and check it, it could then eventually be shown to somebody or other's anonymous lawyer acquaintance, and thereafter turned into a new "'FU' justification" page to which mentions of "FU" could point. -- Zuleika 16:48, 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 tiny point within this edit: You "corrected" " " to " ". However, Mediawiki uses XHTML rather than HTML, so " " is right and " " 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)

Thanks for your kind words. But seems to give me a new line, which is what I wanted it to do. Is there some unwanted consequence I don't know about? Otherwise, why does it matter?

I still don't like 'TLR' much; some of the discussion is really about WLFs. I have edited 'Viewfinder' recently, and am adding a bit to it now. Please add any more new messages on this page at the top, where they get seen without scrolling. Thanks--Dustin McAmera 09:23, 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 " ", because the Mediawiki software has obligingly converted HTML "ground glass screen" to XHTML "ground glass 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 " " to " ". 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 " " isn't necessarily wrong, as long as it's promptly followed by "". 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)

If there's a comprehensive tutorial somewhere within this wiki describing how markup syntax is supposed to work, I would very much like to read it, because I desperately need that knowledge myself. Otherwise, a newcomer who arrives (with all the best intentions of being helpful) is naturally forced to use trial and error. I'm sure if you examine my own contribs you'd find any number of head-slappers in my misuse of the syntax.

The solution to this problem is to expand our help pages—explaining the information that every user is "supposed" to know.

We must always keep in mind that wiki markup (and indeed the "culture" of how various wikis have done things in the past) is not an end in itself. It is simply a tool, and frankly, a horrifically dated and unfriendly one. We are stuck with it for the moment, because so much content has already been built with it. But the goal is to share knowledge. Many who have vital knowledge of camera history or technology have no interest in the nuts and bolts of our publishing platform. In just our first two months, I can give the name of someone who would have been a hugely valuable contributor: He created a login, tried to add a photo, failed—and decided the whole business was too tedious to pursue. Frankly, he was quite justified. --Vox 20:02, 30 March 2011 (PDT)

I can agree with much of that, but not all. The markup system at Wikia is friendlier for newbies than is the one here. I like it less. This is not because I like to prove how manly I am by using a system that others find difficult, but because (in my opinion) although it's easier to learn it's harder to use. Now, part of the Mediawiki syntax is indeed pretty horrendous. An example is tables. How so? Well, Mediawiki works as a preprocessor for XHTML, and XHTML markup for tables is itself pretty horrendous. I'm no Mediawiki expert but I'd guess that if the table markup were much simpler then the conversion process would be more iffy, and there'd be a higher risk of serious rendering errors.

If you want a comprehensive tutorial here describing how markup works, then you want something very much like this at Wikipedia. Indeed, it would differ from that only in not suggesting the use of templates that (as yet) don't exist here. But even if we had that, it wouldn't be the kind of thing I'd recommend to a newbie. What I'd suggest instead is a brief guide to markup, one that made no claim to comprehensiveness. No such page is linked from Help:Contents -- in which [ahem!] most of the links need updating -- and such a page would be useful. Time permitting, I'll work on it. Zuleika 00:17, 31 March 2011 (PDT)

Can I appeal, for my part, that you (or indeed anyone) don't start writing such a guide? This place is getting a sight too didactic for my taste as it is. In the little bits I've written, I tried to aim at a very low level of interest in code, because our typical user is interested above all in cameras. You can explain everything a new user needs as simply as 'Copy this bit, and fill in this here, and that there, and it will work'; the users don't even need to know what language they are using, as I didn't and still don't, really. Maybe put up the link to that WP page, and maybe this one in an appropriate place, and people who care enough will find them and get into learning the clever stuff. Exhortations to make sure your code is absolutely orthodox, however, will stop people from even starting (even more surely than standing on a box in the town square lamenting the awful quality of our writing). So to return to my point, no more style guides or house rules please; the site got here without them, and is actually damn good. Stop trying to manage, and start writing about cameras.

Any reply to the rant component of the above can be put here with my blessing; anything more about use of markup ought to be in a more public page.--Dustin McAmera 11:42, 31 March 2011 (PDT)

I agree that scaring off potential contributors is the worst possible outcome of all—far worse than generating a bit of malformed page code which might choke some (hypothetical) future browser. My contribution to our help pages is the FAQ which is quite deliberately constructed to hide complications from the newcomer, until they care to learn about them. (I did just add a link to the Wikipedia markup guide for the brave few who are curious.) --Vox 13:48, 31 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 original

Hi 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!

No - I think these were my errors! I did some small edits on that page (months ago). I saw it in the 'recent changes' list, and went to see what you were doing - it's nice to have all the versions up there! I only have one Exa - the V6. But while I was on the page, I saw some 'typos' (typo='typographical error' - a slip of the hand) in the bits I think I did, so I put them right. For example, if I write 'Exakta' six times, I'll always spell it 'Exacta' at least once - I'm just used to English spelling! I forget what the other things were, but they were tiny, and again, I think they were my mistakes. Cheers!--Dustin McAmera 05:31, 23 June 2011 (PDT)

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 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 request

Thanx 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--

It's worth adding that renaming accounts later became much easier.

No 4. Cartridge Kodak

I 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 question

hello, 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 fatcatimages

Sorry - 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

Glad you like it! (RightTOC)

Looks great on Agfa! Best, MarkDilley

Leica 1c

There 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".
9/1/13 I've moved it on to the correct page and corrected the caption.

Great! Thanks for that. Sorry - I didn't see your original note here. --Dustin McAmera (talk) 06:19, 10 January 2013 (PST)

Template/infobox

Hi, 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)

Re

Cool, 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 (to a new-user welcome message - DMcA)

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/Ipernity

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)

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