Camera body

Photos on this website taken before 2002 are from slides made with a Contax 139 Quartz 35 mm manual focus single lens reflex camera body bought in 1986. As from July 2002 photos were made with another camera body: the Contax Aria. The Aria is a 35 mm compact manual focus, lightweight, multi-mode automatic exposure single lens reflex camera. It is a perfect camera for travel and wilderness exploration.
Under the brand name Contax, Kyocera (Kyoto Ceramics) has launched excellent cameras with Carl Zeiss lenses on the market for many years. Many Contax owners regret that Kyocera had decided not to continue these since April 2005.

Camera lenses

Most slides were photographed through a Carl Zeiss Planar T* 50mm f/1.4 standard lens while others were taken with a Tokina AT-X M 90mm f/2.5 macro lens also used as a short tele or a Yashica ML 28mm f/2.8 moderate wide angle lens.

Filters

For corrections and special effects Cokin filters were applied of which a polariser filter was the one most used. To have total control on the depth of field and on the effect with some of the Cokin filters, the cameras were almost always used in the aperture-priority auto exposure mode.

Film material

All the slides were exposed on Fuji RD 100 and later on Fuji Sensia II (100 ASA) film.

Film scanner

The slides were digitised with an Acer ScanWit 2720S Film Scanner (later taken over by and rebranded as Benq) in combination with the multi-vendor scanner software VueScan from Hamrick Software for better quality scans and more scanning flexibility than with the original supplied MiraPhoto software. The scanner and software were profiled with an IT 8.7 scanner calibration slide from Wolf Faust for optimal colour reproduction.

Scanning technique

'A few scanning tips' by Wayne Fulton is recommended for those who are interested in improving their own scanning technique.