Thread: A Honing Lesson

Did the quality of edges on hidden knives in prison go up after your demonstration?

Originally Posted by guitstik

That, pretty much, is a given. Had he not gotten my attention with honing I would not have been here to see the camera stuff.



You can draw a parallel between photography and honing. Henri Cartier-Bresson said of photography, "Your first 10,000 photographs are your worst". All it takes is the perseverance to keep at it, a practiced eye.

Carl, that is some gorgeous gear makes me want to get my Yashica-24 out.

A parallel can be drawn to any skill practiced by human hands. At least by those who are self-aware enough to recognize that there are things they could do better. Hence the old saying: "Practice makes perfect."

Originally Posted by eKretz

A parallel can be drawn to any skill practiced by human hands. At least by those who are self-aware enough to recognize that there are things they could do better. Hence the old saying: "Practice makes perfect."

There is another adage that is an addendum to that one, "Piss poor practice makes for piss poor performance". Meaning, if your practice is flawed but you continue to follow it improvement will not be forthcoming. I prefer, "Perfect practice makes perfect performance". With honing, this couldn't be more true. If you receive erroneous advice you will never get good. Just look at all the razors on eBay where the toe of the blade has been worn away or uneven hone marks or any of the other bad things that can be done to a blade. Those things usually take time to develop and usually comes from improper technique.

So Carl when are you going to lose that pedestrian Rolleicord and get a real one a Rolleiflex?-Har har

Don't disparage the little Rolliecord, I have both and the 3,5 Schneider is one heck of a sharp lens. Put pictures from the 2,8 and the 3,5 next to each other and you would be hard pressed to differentiate the two.

Originally Posted by guitstik

That, pretty much, is a given. Had he not gotten my attention with honing I would not have been here to see the camera stuff.



You can draw a parallel between photography and honing. Henri Cartier-Bresson said of photography, "Your first 10,000 photographs are your worst". All it takes is the perseverance to keep at it, a practiced eye.

Carl, that is some gorgeous gear makes me want to get my Yashica-24 out.

Yeah, honing and film photography, esp vintage film photography actually makes you THINK about what you're doing. Of course photography is about seeing things, but there is also the technical aspect.

Originally Posted by guitstik

Don't disparage the little Rolleicord, I have both and the 3,5 Schneider is one heck of a sharp lens. Put pictures from the 2,8 and the 3,5 next to each other and you would be hard pressed to differentiate the two.

Ha ha! I think he was joking (maybe). I did consider getting a Rolleiflex but after quite a lot of reading decided not to. The Xenar lens may not be quite as sharp as a Planar but I have read that they are quite close. Also, the focusing knob on the RH side of the 'Cord suits me, I don;t think I'd like to focus on the left, with the big wind lever thing of the 'Flex being on the RH side. I also like to use an old Zeiss Ikophot hand held light meter, and have read that the meters in the Rolleiflexes are often not accurate anymore. My hand held meter seems quite accurate, and if it looses its accuracy I can always get another or even a new hand held meter.

I have read that the focusing screens of the Rolleiflexes are brighter. I have considered a new screen, but elected to take mine off and clean it which made it brighter; although it's still quite dim, esp inside (indoors).