The camera: 1950s vintage Nikon S rangefinder 35mm with 50mm f2 Nikkor lens
I don’t know whether this is a guy thing, but, boy, getting this camera was a dream come true. I had been working for a couple years for a small town newspaper, from which I had the use of an IkoFlex 120 camera (even if they didn’t know how much). In those days, old cameras had no particular value, and my sights on a good but ancient used rangefinder camera seemed a reasonable goal. It took two purchases (I couldn’t wait to get all the money together first)—first, the body, then the 50mm f2 lens.
By this time (1968), I had pretty much standardized on using Kodak Plus-X film developed in Baumann Chemical’s Diafine developer, which pushed the speed to 400. This gave the speed of normal Tri-X together with—I think you’ll agree—a gray-scale resolution much closer to the normally ASA 125 Plus-X. I used a Weston Master V reflected light meter, and, in general, the exposures (in the admittedly well-lit rooms) were right on.
I was surprised to find, using my Minolta Dimage film scanner, that the lens was not as sharp as those of my later Nikon SLRs (what you see has had some much-needed digital enhancement). The camera was killed in a freak accident about a year after this project. A couple people who also used that camera enough to get used to it also still remember it as exceedingly comfortable. Now, I can see that the viewfinder must have been too small and dim (their later models corrected this), but something about how it all went together still remains in muscle memory.
By the way—just try to find one of these (or any other old Nikon rangefinder) today. Evidently, demand is sufficient that Nikon has produced a limited edition of the S3 (much larger viewfinder)—for nearly twice the price of a new Leica M6! What a world...
Regarding browser appearance
I design for a 1024X768 screen size, and if you are so inclined, I’d recommend at least temporarily sizing your display for that size. Alternatively, if you normally look at a larger desktop size, you can size the browser window to be smaller than your monitor display.
I typically choose fonts from the Microsoft “Web core” collection. You almost certainly have these already, if you use either Windows or Mac computers, but just in case you might look at: http://www.microsoft.com/typography/fonts/default.asp.
Although it’s pretty much acknowledged that Microsoft’s Internet Explorer has about 90% of the market, what I think is more important is the standard that now unites modern browsers. I test my Web pages with Mozilla, which is an Open Source browser. Mozilla is available for all platforms, so if you hate Microsoft, try http://www.mozilla.org. This is an excellent browser, and its imaging engine is even better than that of Internet Explorer.