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Pastimes : Digital Photography -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Done, gone. who wrote (14588)	8/26/2006 10:09:44 AM
From: Murrey Walker	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 21652

I'll bet you're JEALOUS of your son, Michal (VVBG). In my travels of all of Europe and Asia, the art and design community in Czechoslovakia far surpasses all the rest. Looks like one hell of an opportunity for him! Now just don't get too big of a head on this, but in yesterday's WSJ, there she was: Miss Strype, and with a credit line to Michal Daniel. Attaboy!!!!!!!

To: Done, gone. who wrote (14588)	8/26/2006 11:11:30 AM
From: Uncle Frank	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 21652

>> ... my son flew into Prague last week, with a one way ticket. Starts working for Isifa Monday morning. What a fascinating turn of fate. How long does he plan to live in Europe? Is he married? How often do you plan on visiting? uf

To: Done, gone. who wrote (14588)	8/26/2006 2:48:27 PM
From: Elsewhere	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 21652

First things first: Oh, and speaking of Czech Airlines, my son flew into Prague last week, with a one way ticket. Starts working for Isifa. Congrats! I wish him success. Prague is certainly one of the most exciting capitals currently. Your 500 mm search result is quite valid as it is the current Walimex offer with this focal length. My version is a non-mirror normal tele lens, though. The story: while browsing eBay listings I frequently came across offers by Sky-Photo stores.ebay.de There's no brand given for their lenses. Usually I stear clear of such "opportunities" but when I had a look at the 500 mm description there were samples which actually weren't that terrible. Here's a current offer: cgi.ebay.de When I obtained the parcel the lens was in a Walimex box. That brand belongs to Foto Walser stores.ebay.de foto-walser.biz Walimex is probably an abbreviation of "Walser Import Export". With 150,000 transactions they claim to be the biggest German photo equipment seller on eBay. Their lens program mainly contains Cosina items, actually the domain cosina.de is linked to Foto Walser. I was interested in the ancestry of my lens and continued to google. I discovered that it's probably just one of many different labels of the same OEM lens. There's an FAQ of the German photography Usenet group on it: faq.d-r-f.de Other labels appear to be Beroflex, Exakta, Danubia, Dörr, Admiral Panagor, Phoenix. Here's a current eBay offer of Cameta Camera which looks exactly like my model: cgi.ebay.com The Cameta package is cheaper than what I got because it includes a 2x teleconverter but buying it there would have been too expensive (shipping, tax (VAT), customs duty). Probably the lens has originally been designed by Cosina in the 70ies. This company doesn't have a particularly high reputation but its products can actually be good. I already own a Cosina 100/3.5 macro which is sufficient for my purposes. Cosina is also the manufacturer of the new Zeiss ZF lenses for the Nikon mount. en.wikipedia.org zeiss.de I can only speculate why Foto Walser doesn't sell the non-mirror 500 mm itself. Maybe the mirror lens is more popular, maybe the Walimex 650-1300 mm zoom has a higher margin and they wanted to dispose of the 500 mm prime. [Son starts job in Prague] Had you told me this would transpire, back when I was a kid and dad blazed our getaway from what was then deadly serious communist Czechoslovakia, I'd have certainly taken you for a dreamer, at best. Same here. I sometimes have to pinch myself. The time of the Iron Curtain only feels like a nightmare now but it was quite real for a long time. Recently I got an Epson RX700 on eBay for 1/3 of the SRP which finally enables me to bring my Canon A-1 negatives to the digital world. canon.com One of my first trips with it was to Berlin in April 1979. Here's a photograph of the Wall: The Wall on the right seemed to be a matter of course then - a decade later it broke down. Now I can spot planes from all over eastern Europe, not only the Czech Republic but also Poland (LOT LO389) trainbird.smugmug.com Latvia (Air Baltic BT211) trainbird.smugmug.com Hungary (Malev MA672) trainbird.smugmug.com Ukraine (Ukraine International PS203) trainbird.smugmug.com Got Skype? I'm michaldaniel. Yes, I'm iotatau though rarely online, it's difficult to get more than 5 min without interruption by the kids...