[KOML] Quality of Koni Lens Questioned?

[Steve Everett]

    Thanks for all the answers to my questions. It's really good to hear I'm
not wasting my time and money on the Koni. To answer some of the questions
on my setup I will explain how I took the picture and the condition of my
equipment.
    I use the 200 body. Greg Weber put in new seals and set the RF less than
2 months ago. Mr. Weber has also rebuilt my 90, 135, and 180 within the last
year. I always use a tripod and most of  my shots are done with a ground
glass. My ground glass in not the original Koni glass but one made by myself
from a piece of Lexan. I'm a machinist by trade so the .008 offset around
the edges of the Lexan was not a problem. I've experimented with many of
these Lexan GG and found that to get the sharpest, detailed, image I could I
needed only a light rub with a 1500 wet and dry sandpaper. The draw back to
this is the image is very dark. To over come this I used a 3X eye piece
mounted in a Lexan box with the bottom piece being the ground glass. I
painted the outside of the box black and focused the eye piece on the bottom
of the ground glass. I installed little pins on the sides of the gg so that
I can mount the whole thing to the film magazine by using the metal hold
downs in the magazine. With this setup I can see the image perfectly. Greg
Weber told me that I didn't need the offset in the ground glass and a flat
piece would work just as well. I'm thinking of building another one with a
flat glass just to try.
    As you can see I'm sure of my focusing; that is, I'm sure of my focusing
at the time I focus. Ten seconds is a long time to takes switching  from
ground glass to film for a 4 year old and I don't have a lot of DOF. There
could be some movement. All the other variables could be giving me trouble.
I don't have much light and with a flash I'm using F5.6 at 1/60sec. I've
also tried Tungsten film with a lot of lights around but I'm still at F5.6
at 1/15sec.
    When I look at my slides through a 10X loop I can see each hair on my
wife's head. Prints of my daughter's picture show her hair but not nearly as
detailed as the slides. So here are my questions:
Should I find another lab? Do you have a recommendation? Is there a
difference between digitally scanned and printed, and old fashion printing.

Will 50 speed slide film show that much more detail that 400 speed print
film?

Could poor lighting cause not only poor colors and dark prints but also
detail and clarity to suffer?
To get a really good picture do I need a pro strobe unit and umbrella?

How important is the light meter? I have an old Gossen light meter that I
use with a gray card. Do you think a new Sekonic L-358 will help me get
better pictures?

Thanks for the help!
steve