Greetings All,
I returned from vacation and thought I'd share a few of my experiences.
Spent about half my trip in New York City, a place I haven't visited since
1980. Amazing the difference made by a few decades. Still busy, crowded and
expensive BUT much cleaner, friendlier and less intimidating. I don't know what
has become of the droves of homeless I saw in 1980 but there are very few now
in mid-town Manhatten that I saw. All in all I felt much more comfortable there
than at any other time I have been. My kids are already begging me to take them
back.
About half way into our week there, while my wife and daughter went to
the American Girl store, my son and I took the trip to the holy of holies; no
not the house of worship but B&H Photo. Wow, what a place! Now of course I live
in a photographic shop backwater with nothing more than a R*tz to visit so I
was really impressed. The place is huge and has everything you could want right
there for examination. I left my fingerprints on quite a bit of equipment. They
have a unique way of handling orders. You tell them what you want at the
counter which they enter into a console. The item makes its way from the
basement by way of a conveyor that ultimately runs above your head. The basket
is brought to you for inspection whereupon it is replaced in the basket and
sent on its way to the check out line. There you pay your money and head to the
pick up zone where your bag awaits you.
The only thing I bought (for now) was two PEC-12 kits. My dad passed on
to me about 250 Kodachromes dating from 1950-1960 that included photos from
their honeymoon. They had not been stored properly and were very cruddy and
some early fungus growth. I had read about PEC-12 for cleaning slides but it
cannot be shipped through the mail. B&H won't ship it by any method; you must
pick it up. So I bought two bottles and a few packs of their cleaning pads.
I've tried it on some of the worst slides and it is nothing short of amazing.
It removes any manner of non-water soluable grime, even the fungus is gone so
long as it hasn't worked its way through the lacquer they used to coat
Kodachrome with. That magic Kodachrome color is still there. Makes me want to
shoot some more before it disappears entirely and leave some images my kids can
for sure have 50 years hence (not so sure about those on CD's).
Charlie
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