I love photography, especially movie cameras.

For many years I used this camera and got excellent results with its excellent zoom lens.

The link below is to a site that shows the Swiss made Paillard Bolex P1 Standard 8mm precision built movie camera with its Som Berthiot f1.9 8-40mm reflex zoom lens, and gives a really excellent descriptive write up on the  Paillard Bolex P1 camera.  

http://home.pacbell.net/mnyberg/super8mm/8mm/bolexp1.htm

Although the main film-stock on sale for Standard/Regular 8mm was

Kodachrome 25 ASA for day and 40 ASA for artificial light (I think

is now discontinued), (see this link http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/8_mm_film ) I used to buy 100 foot reels of low light use 125ASA and 400ASA 16mm Video -Television news double perforated film stock, was I sent away to be perforated for 8mm.

To use the now perforated double 8mm film in my P1, I had to re-spool it to 4 X 25ft reels in the dark to avoid exposure. After filming back in the darkened room under the blankets re-spooling back it onto the original 100ft spool for developing.

After receiving the film back from the E6 developing process, I split the 16mm wide film into 2 X 8mm and joined the two halves together for viewing. Film splitters and 16mm wide film stock are still around for use. Another website offering 16mm and the later Super 8mm film and equipment is:

http://www.filmcamerakit.com/index.htm

The Alt Neu Synagogue - Prague

http://www.scrapbookpages.com/CzechRepublic/Prague/Josefov/OldNew.html

The above link lets you view a write up and pictures of the Synagogue. I had the pleasure of visiting the Synagogue in 2000: It is well worth the visit.

Today I use a Panasonic VHS-C video camera that gives me fine results, and it saves me a lot of money on buying movie film stock, which today is quite expensive. The newer technology allows me to re-take (shoot again) over anything that is not up to scratch or to my liking without high expense. I look forward to the new flash-card multi million pixel cameras to take over where Video tape took over. Cameras are more portable therefore useable. Clarity and sharpness likewise will improve with time.

It is very debatable which gives better clarity film stock or digital pixels. A lot depends on the quality of the equipment, and obviously equipment is improving all the time as cameras become more compact and bristling with new options.

Editing with digital and video in the past was a headache, not that film-stock editing was that much easier. An editing room with its Movieolla a sort of hand or electric wound real to real frame inspector was then the norm and nails holding dangling cuts of movie film for editing.

Sound stripe on movie film helped with sound synchronisation, and sound was copied from the film before editing as the sound head is positioned 18 frames from the shutter aperture inside movie cameras.

Editing video requires special Time Base machines to retain the original quality when making a copy for editing. There are a number of excellent PC and Macintosh computer programmes available for editing and enhancing movies, with them you can add special effects.

Computers

I love working with computers and showing people how to use them, which has brought me to write my Beginners help files on Paint Shop Pro 7 & version 8 and Adobe Photoshop CS2.

My first computer was an  Apple //C a fabulous small concise portable desktop model that had a black 8 inch screen and no hard disk: text in green and I had to keep inserting floppies. I then progressed to a Mac Classic, also with an 8 inch screen, but at the time far more advanced in features than 486 computers, and finally joined the herd and moved over to PC. Well nothing like dealing with computer problems is there? - It makes life so interesting!

Linux

I am at present experimenting with Linux and am using Ultimate Gamers 2.8

(Link to see pictures)  which is a derivative of Ubuntu 10.10, which I find to be quite interesting indeed. There are lots of forums on the Internet that do give excellent free advice.  Ultimate Gamers 2.8 is nice to use and user friendly! It is stacked out with ready to use programmes.

The latest version is 3.0 and is built in a new format which according to reviews speeds up installation and use. It comes with LibreOffice installed. LibreOffice is an open source free at no cost alternative to Microsoft Office^TM. There are versions for Microsoft Windows, Linux and Mac.

The advancement of Linux with its free open source software means that you can easily find free programmes to help you.

Click on this link and you will be taken to Tux Magazine. Tux has ceased to issue new magazines. It was an excellent magazine full of information for the newbie. There archive lets you download all the editions, they are all in PDF Acrobat and easy to read and understand!

The advancement of Linux with its free open source software means that you can easily find free programmes to help you.

There are several free bootable CD's available based on Ubuntu and Knoppix for downloading. See this link http://www.knoppix.net/, that you can download.

Because these CD's boot up and operate in a virtual Ramdrive, they do not alter in any way your standard computer settings. You can try the Live disk, decide whether you like it or not. When you shut down your computer nothing is altered in any way, as RAM dies when the computer switches off.

At the time of upgrading this webpage January 2012, http://distrowatch.com list of Linux distribution downloads shows that the new Linux Mint (based on Debian) is the most popular download - pushing Ubuntu into 2nd place.

Ubuntu/Mint/Knoppix/Mandriva and others come packed with programmes ready to use. On these Live CD/DVD's you will find the new LibreOffice based on Open Office, this can open 99% of Microsoft Word documents even the new Office 2007 docX and PPSX and PPTX type files.

LibreOffice is an excellent FREE office suite. It is available for Microsoft Windows/Macintosh/Linux.

You can then save the .doc to be opened by Microsoft Word in a My Computer partition. Most CD's/DVD's come with Acrobat reader, mp3, and graphic programmes besides diagnostic ones; in all on the 700 MB bootable disk in the ISO download there is an astounding 2 Gigabyte of compressed programmes that automatically expand and open when you click on them. On a 4 Gigabyte DVD there could be over 6 Gigabyte of compressed programmes.

Don't let "ISO" scare you! Once you have downloaded the "ISO" file Linux application programme of your choice, Nero Express can easily burn the boot up disk for you.

To burn a downloaded disk image to CD or DVD disk do the following:

1. Download and save to a folder of your choice the .iso file if you haven't downloaded it already.

2. Select the option "Disk image or Saved Project" - Left click on it and select Files of type: Image Files (*nrg, *iso, *cue) select the file in the download folder.

3. Left Click on Open and then Next choose the burn speed do it, select X8 for quality!

4. Left click on Burn; Nero will burn the disk for you.

Linux distros (nickname for distributions) give you the chance to share files between sections of your hard disk, you can save a file to a Microsoft Windows Computer partition. Linux can do what Microsoft Windows does not do, it can recognise and open items on all parts of the computer. You can even diagnose your computer find and delete a virus on it.

To help you configure Linux there are free tutorials and stacks of help available along with forums. People are standing in line to help you solve problems.

www.linuxquestions.org

I have found that people who use Linux installed on their hard disk as a second or major option love the freedom it gives them to experiment and obtain an abundance of quality Freeware programmes that easily rival those made for PC.

Various Software producers openly supply their products as Freeware without cost to Linux users, and often they are compatible with PC.

You can use Wine Emulator, Codeweavers Crossover and Playonlinux to install Microsoft Windows^TM based programmes to run in your Linux distribution.

Chazanut Cantorial Music

I love to listen and sing the Cantorial Chazanut Music of the great Cantors. I am often asked voluntarily to lead the local Synagogue service on the Shabbat (Sabbath) and festivals as I have a Tenor voice.

I enjoy learning the Daf Yomi via the Internet; the daily Talmud study.

http://ouradio.org/daf

www.e-daf.com

www.hadafhayomi.co.il

http://www.guyshachar.com

Slide shows from around the world. European Synagogues.

http://www.kaluach.org/

Jewish - Hebrew - English calendar page. The calendar is full of features, times for Shabbat, Festivals, and Daf Yomi – The daily Talmud study page. You can download free this excellent calendar either as a zip or .exe file: It is only 388 Kbs.

http://ouradio.org/daf

http://www.hadafhayomi.co.il

http://e-daf.com

http://www.dafyomi.co.il  

A comprehensive updated daily Talmud - Gomorrah Audio - Visual Page Lectures.

Languages: English, French, Yiddish and Hebrew.

There are lecture archives available for streaming,

and there's a question answer service.

http://www.aish.com

A variety of Torah lectures and Jewish Interests.

http://www.torah.org

http://www.mechon-mamre.org/

English Hebrew Torah Databases: Excellent Mishneh Torah Rambam Dos database, for all Windows applications, and is easy to use as long as in Full Screen setup, English/Hebrew Help included.

www.virtualjerusalem.com

www.virtualjerusalem.com/ipix/

Jewish world subjects, interesting articles.

See the Ipix page views of Israel through the camera lens 360 degrees.

www.protonic.com

Got a computer, hardware, software, Windows, Macintosh or Office Problem – ask here, volunteers will try to help you solve the problem.

www.pcpitstop.com/

Give your computer a free test and find out how to improve it – Go to the Pit-stop.

www.yadsarah.org/

The English page of the Yad Sarah Organization.

www.jewishtelegraph.com

Manchester England based weekly Jewish newspaper full of interesting articles on community life.

www.skype.com

Talk to your friends computer to computer PC, Pocket Pc, Linux or Mac for free. They also have a computer to telephone setup.