I wanted to say how much fun I've been having with the folding MF viewer I got from Sam.
(I believe he calls it the "Small Wonder") Since I end up doing most of my shooting at
night I taped mine to a 4X5 Cabin light panel. (Possible design suggestion : an adapter
for hooking onto portable light panels?) Last week while I was in Dublin a former member
of the Stereo Club of Southern California spotted me with my twin YashicaMats and
introduced himself. I was able to pull the viewer out of my camera bag and show him a
bunch of slides. The optics look great, and people generally seem to find it easy to focus
and fuse.

Unfortunately I won't be able to get to this year's NSA convention. I'm anxious to hear
how the slides from the new Chinese camera look. I would have loved to see flash sync at
a higher speed than 1/60, although I realize this limitation is inherent in the type of
shutter used. I just find fill flash so helpful, especially for shooting people in contrasty
light during the day. I guess I'll have to find a really powerful flash to provide fill for the
small apertures 1/60 will dictate in daylight. Of course my beloved Sputnik probably
doesn't really shoot much faster than 1/60, regardless of what the marked shutter speeds
are.

I've read about Fuji introducing a new version of Provia 400 (400X?) that's supposed to
have better color accuracy and finer grain. I haven't been able to find any of it yet. This
would be a great match for an MF camera with 1/500 shutter speed.

Jim Harp