[LargeFormat] The Tread

[Stein]

Dear Ted,

     I trust you will forgive me for my little post this morning - the 
temptation to write and run can be overwhelming sometimes. From your 
original post I would guess that you were on the side of the angels - calm 
rational angels at that  - and trying to save someone on a list somewhere 
from the flame war nightmare.

    Hope you succeeded - I dialled up one of the Google photography lists 
recently on the off-chance that they knew more about the subject that I did. 
( I was right, they do.) But every subdivision of the groups that day seemed 
to dissolve into a name-calling hissy fit and the prospect of stepping into 
a pub brawl each time you wanted to know how to screw in a lens element was 
most unappealing.

     As to the speculations that this list is dead.....well some of us found 
that our posts never got through for a time and then we went out and got 
busy with our cameras and it went on like that. I have been experimenting 
with the old split double darkslide 6cm x 12 cm image which is surprisingly 
easy to do if your camera features a revolving back. As usual all the good 
views are at the top of mountians or down the bottom of canyons and it is 
getting harder to get good slaves who will haul the tripod and camera up or 
down....but I manage. I have also been guilty of using a polarizer on skies 
that are already too blue with the result that I have had to resort to 
gluing cotton wool clouds onto them in the darkroom.

    One final thought. Are Graphic View II's the Dorian Grey of monorail 
cameras? I see examples of them on eBay and they seem unaltered despite 
being over 300 years old. So tempting to get one....

     Uncle Dick