Quickie Time - Bic Camera Edition

It's a national holiday today - which for me mostly means I get to work from home. But I did go out over lunch, and popped in to Bic Camera in Namba.

First, they have the Sony E-reader I mentioned in my previous post. I brought a memory card with a couple of research papers in PDF format to try out. Surprisingly, it works quite well. I first tried playing with the zoom function but that was too cumbersome. Then I noticed it has several modes for PDF reading, and one mode divides each page in four, showing you one quarter at a time. That works perfectly for typical two-column PDFs. Clear and easy to read, and all illustrations and all math came out perfect as well. Perhaps I should see if I can buy one for the project next year...

Second, Bic in Namba has not been very good for film camera users the past year or two, with a small, unreliable selection of films and developing gear. I'm happy to say this has changed. They now have most black and white films I know about, including a complete selection of Ilford films and even Ilfords Kentmere brand films and some Czech Foma films (tip: Fomapan 400 is best used at iso 200).

Third, I asked about medium format film developing at Bic, and to my surprise they do both medium format negative and slide film development in an hour, the same as for 35mm. Most places - including Naniwa and Yodobashi in Umeda - take a couple of days to do it. Very convenient, and worth remembering.