bhuij

Update: After spending an hour or so troubleshooting, I found that my transparency unit was not functioning. Not sure why or what the deal was, but I basically unplugged everything (including unplugging the top half of the scanner with the TPU from the bottom half with the sensor), let it sit a few minutes, and plugged it all back in. Everything went back to normal, including my VueScan "Mode" options. No explanation for why a disconnected TPU would result in gaining a nonfunctioning "35mm Film" and "35mm Slide" option on my scanner, but there you go. All's well.

I like to consider myself fairly competent scanning with Vuescan, as I've been doing it in multiple formats for several years. But I'm stumped at this. I use an old Epson Perfection 4490 to scan my 120 negatives. The scanner itself can be used as a flatbed or transparency scanner, by adding or removing the white barrier that blocks the backlight. For years, my workflow for B&W film has been to set VueScan to "Mode: Transparency," then preview, set my black point on a space between frames using the "lock exposure" box, and scan each frame at my desired settings to a 16 bit lossless TIFF. This was working fine even a few days ago when I last scanned B&W negs. Today I fired it up to scan a roll of 120 that I developed last night. Set everything up like normal and opened up VueScan to get going. In the "Mode" drop down, I now have Flatbed, Transparency, 35mm Slide, and 35mm Film. Um, okay. I went with Transparency since that's what I've always used. Upon previewing, I got this lovely monstrosity instead of my usual smaller area which shows the negatives plus a bit around the edges (defined by the size of the actual backlighting hardware in the scanner): http://i.imgur.com/bZKhlz9l.png If you couldn't tell, that is the entire plastic negative carrier that came with the scanner, holding a strip of 120 film... and obviously it looks awful. I can't get a decent scan out of this. Tried every other mode. 35mm Film and 35mm Slide force the preview area to be the wrong shape, size, and area no matter what I set the other settings to. Flatbed obviously doesn't work as it isn't backlit, although I tried. What changed here? I have even tried earlier versions of VueScan, thinking that my update to 9.5.77 broke the workflow, but even going back as early as 9.4 I still had the same 4 options for Mode under the Input tab, two of which were never there before. See my settings (I tried all 4 modes, no dice): http://i.imgur.com/MNbUewQl.png

<p>Thanks for all the help on this guys. Everything actually worked out great.</p> <p>I removed the front/mid elements (gummed together) from the Vario shutter and gave it an overnight soak in a cup of denatured alcohol. This morning the front and mid elements came apart with normal finger pressure; didn't even need to use tools.</p> <p>My shutter is actually in remarkably good shape. Shutter blades and aperture blades are snappy and show no signs of oil, grease, or stickiness. I need to actually check the shutter speed on my computer (the microphone + Audacity technique has served me well in the past) for accuracy, but I don't think it's far off.</p> <p>I thoroughly cleaned all lens elements and all threads with q-tips and denatured alcohol. Kind of insane how much green gunk came out of those threads. After applying a couple of tiny dabs of fine non-drying lube from the hardware store and working it into the threads really well, the focusing front element was buttery smooth.</p> <p>Reassembled everything and used my RB67's ground glass taped to the back of the body to collimate the focus again. After that I had to get to work, so I loaded up a roll of PanF+ to test it out and left it on my desk. I'll probably burn that roll and develop it today to see how bad the light leaks are.</p> <p>The bellows need some serious love, so that may be my next project. Anyone have tips for materials to use in bellows construction? I like making my own parts and this is actually a perfect practice project before I attempt to make my own bellows for a DIY 4x5 camera. I think I'm addicted to this camera restoration thing.</p>

<p>Yeah I'm dipping my toes in the "restoring old cameras" game, because I'm terrified of a future where there is nobody left who knows how to get these treasures back up and functioning. I'm 25 now and hope to still be shooting my Zeiss Ikoflex, RB67, etc. etc. when I'm 80.</p> <p>If this works I will definitely be investing in some watch oil.</p>

<p>I'm restoring an Ansco Speedex 6x6 foldout camera (one of the Isolette types) and it has the dreaded stuck focusing, from dried up lubricant between the front and middle elements.<br> <br />Most of the stuff I'm seeing online says either heat (oven or hair dryer) or a day-long soak in naptha or alcohol is my best bet to get the two elements unstuck so I can clean out the threads, re-collimate, and reassemble the camera.</p> <p>The lens is an Agfa Agnar 85mm f/4.5. It's three elements and I'd be flabbergasted to find out that any of the elements are coated. Is denatured alcohol safe for me to use? Is there something that would help liquefy and loosen up the old caked-in lubricant better?</p> <p>I also read that a tiny, tiny amount of petroleum jelly is an ideal lubricant for the focusing mechanism (which is just threads between the front and middle elements). Seems questionable to me; anyone have experience using petroleum jelly as lubricant for threads?</p> <p>Thanks, in advance.</p>

<p>I shoot two kinds of photography:<br> 1. Portraits on my DSLR of various types, where my aim is to create images that the client loves. I enjoy this type of photography but mostly it's just there to keep my hobby somewhat self-sustaining.<br> <br />2. Personal work which is almost all done on various formats of film. This focuses on nature, where my goal is to capture photos that contain at least part of the emotion of what it's like to BE in that place and admire the beauty of it. I like experimenting with new ways to help the experience of viewing one of my photos convey the experience better, and for that reason I've been shooting and printing a lot of orthostereo photographs lately.</p>

<p>I did some side-by-side tests with Tri-X vs HP5+ (Ilford's equivalent) recently to see which I preferred. For my own tastes, I preferred TriX, but not enough to pay more than twice as much for it. Subsequently bought a 100' roll of HP5+ and have been very happy with it.<br> <br />Depending on the speed you need, FP4+ is another great film from Ilford. If you don't like classic grain and want something a little more modern, Delta 100 and 400 are also very good films available for pretty reasonable prices in 100' rolls. Still can't get my head wrapped around who is buying $120 rolls of TriX.</p>

<p>Didn't even know they made guides. When I decided to transition to steel reels and tanks for chemical economy reasons, I just loaded a sacrificial roll of 135 and 120 in the daylight a few times, then tried a few times with my eyes closed, then started doing it in the dark bag with real film. Wasn't too hard to pick up.</p>

<p>Yeah, I think my problem boiled down to two things:</p> <p>1. Bad density readings. I was using Vuescan's density reading feature with my CoolScan 4000. Either I'm using it wrong or it's just not very accurate. I went instead to a tried-and-true Minolta Spotmeter F with a Ziess 50mm f/1.4 reverse mounted to it with a PVC Pipe contraption, reading tiny areas of each frame on my light table. Results were more consistent and made way more sense.<br> <br />2. Severe overdevelopment. Not sure if it's my water chemistry, agitation, temperature, or some combination thereof, but my Zone VIII densities were significantly too thick, suggesting way too much development. Every time I toned it down my Zone I densities started suggesting more and more realistic true film speeds.</p> <p>I believe I have now settled on EI 250 and HC-110(H) for 6:45 as my N for this film. Now I just need to find N+1 and N+2, then repeat my calibrations for FP4+ and Rodinal 1:50 :D</p> <p>Thanks for everyone's help.</p>

<p>Okay, I have done another round of test rolls (have not yet had a chance to compare my results to a different densitometer, but I still have those negs).</p> <p>I did two rolls shot in the same environment. Both rolls included the same flat, out of focus subject filling the frame under the same lighting, with exposures for Zone I and Zone VIII bracketed around EI 400 (specifically, EI 400, 600, 300, and 200). I developed one roll in Rodinal 1:50 for 9 minutes, and one roll in HC-110(H) for 10 minutes.</p> <p>My film speed for the Rodinal roll came out to either 400 or 600, with Zone I frame density readings (after subtracting FB+F) of 0.12 (for EI 400) and 0.09 (for EI 600). This tells me EI 500 would be perfect at this dev time. The corresponding Zone VIII frames showed "net" densities of 1.69 and 1.55 respectively, indicating that I'm still at least 15% or 20% overdeveloping.<br /><br />HC-110 was a much stronger developer for both shadows and highlights, which is consistent with conventional wisdom. I was testing it to compare grain and sharpness to Rodinal and see if I like one or the other better for this particular film. With HC-110, EI 600 at Zone I showed a density of 0.12, so that's about right. The corresponding Zone VIII frame was way too dense, clocking in at 1.88 DU. So I'm severely overdeveloped here.<br /> <br />This is freaking me out. I've never heard of anybody finding a true film speed of 1/2 stop faster than box speed. I'm to the point that I want to now check my meter calibration and my shutter speed accuracy for the camera.</p> <p>I'm pretty confident it isn't my temperature or agitation scheme giving me much shorter than expected dev times (or much faster than expected film speeds), but just so I can get a second set of eyes on it, I'll list them here:<br /><br />I'm developing at 68°F in a steel tank with 30 seconds of initial agitation (1 inversion per second) and 5 seconds of agitation (3 inversions) every 1 minute thereafter. It's probable that my soup temperature is creeping up a degree or two over the course of the dev time since my apartment is at an ambient temperature of about 75°F and I'm not dunking my tank in 68° water or anything like that after I pour the developer in. All subsequent chemicals (water, stop bath, fixer, water, orbit, a 7 minute rinse, and then photo flo, in that order) are basically room temperature since I don't bother cooling them down before use, but at worst that should only affect grain structure, not film speed or contrast.</p> <p>Am I way overagitating or something? If you got these results would you trust them or suspect something was wrong?</p> <p>Here is a link to my actual data from the two rolls if anyone cares to look:<br> https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1F2_e3eAQWbpCiiDOTC3gDLAYWR6BfNlIkMYm6tWNG-M/edit?usp=sharing</p>

<p>Thanks for the clarification. It sounds like from what I'm hearing, the ideal gamma to use when calibrating for zone system use is about 0.55 to 0.6. This supports the numbers found in the article (and in The Negative) for target density for Zone I and Zone VIII, so that's what I'll shoot for.<br /><br />Anyone here shoot HP5+ and find that 400 or 500 is the EI? That seems weird, most of what I have read indicates that EI usually falls somewhere around 1/2 of box speed depending on individual water chemistry, processing, etc.</p>

<p>Okay, so it sounds like my mistake is rooted in the erroneous assumption that a change of 0.3 density units on the film corresponds to one stop of exposure difference. Thank you all for your answers, they have been very helpful.<br> It sounds like I should be aiming for an EI of closer to box speed (according to these tests, a little higher than box speed actually), which is surprising to me. I also appear to be overdeveloping pretty drastically. Do you think it's possible my development was so excessive it led to slightly denser readings even in the Zone I frames? If so, my EI would fall somewhere right around 400 and I would start by about halving my development for my next tests.<br> Before I do any of that though, I want the opinion of a second densitometer...</p>

<p>Hey guys—<br> I've been shooting, developing, and printing my own B&W film for years in several different formats, but I finally decided to actually calibrate for Zone System use. I'm starting with HP5+ and Rodinal, a combo I really like.<br> I've been using this article, which describes a process of basically finding film base + fog, then comparing Zone I and Zone VIII exposures to dial in true film speed and optimal N development.<br> http://www.zone2tone.co.uk/zone-system-film-testing.htm<br> Everything makes sense and is explained really well, except the math at the end, just before the table where he gives you densitometer results with corresponding adjustments to make to EI and dev time.<br /><br />Everywhere I have found online, as well as this very article agrees that 0.1 "density units" is equal to 1/3 of a stop, or 1/3 of a zone, or 1/3 of a print value. By this math, assuming FB+F is an ideal "Zone 0" (no exposure to light, full development), a frame exposed at Zone I should be 0.3 density units above FB+F. This table says it should be 0.1 DU above FB+F, which doesn't make sense to me.<br> Furthermore, again assuming 0.1 DU = 1/3 stop, a Zone VIII exposure should correspond to 2.4 DU above FB+F or 2.1 DU above Zone I. This article tells you to look for Zone VIII densities 1.2 DU above Zone I. It even goes so far as to say something about Zone VIII being "4 stops" denser than Zone I, which just doesn't make a darn bit of sense to me.<br> Am I off my rocker or missing something here? My own results seem to back up my own interpretation of the math as it should work:<br> I hypothesized based on research from around the internet that my EI would probably fall somewhere between 200 and 250 for HP5+, and that Rodinal 1:50 for 11 minutes at my agitation/temp/etc. would be a good starting point. On my test roll, I shot Zone I frames at EI 400, 320, 250, and 200, as well as Zone VIII frames. I also left a few frames blank for FB+F density readings.<br> At EI 200, my Zone I exposure came out to 0.34 DU above FB+F, so right in the ballpark of where it should be according to my math, and close to right on for my hypothesis. At EI 200, my Zone VIII exposure came out to 2.15 DU above FB+F, indicating slight underdevelopment.<br> However, if I use the target values of 0.1 and 1.2 as outlined by the article, then I should be shooting at something like EI 500 (just doesn't sit right with me to find true film speed faster than box speed), and 11 minutes is a gross overdevelopment. I've shot a lot of HP5+ at box speed, and I used to develop for 11 minutes in Rodinal 1:50. The results generally came back lacking in film speed and somewhat flat, so these results using the article's math seem all wrong to me.<br> I'd love to get your feedback before shooting another test roll. I'm confident it's not my shutter or aperture throwing off my results by giving inaccurate or inconsistent exposure. I am however going to re check the frames from this first test roll with a different densitometer to see if that's part of my problem here.</p>

<p>Yeah, I'm thinking 120 calibration will get me close enough that 4x5 should be a matter of tweaking things a bit. Thanks for the feedback, all!</p>

<p>Heh, that's basically what I was worried about.<br> <br /><br />I have 3 rolls of 120 FP4+ on the way from B&H. I think I'll calibrate with 120, then use my findings as a baseline to start calibration for 4x5. Not only will the 120 calibration be good to have, since I still plan on shooting some 120 in addition to my 4x5 work, it should also provide at least a reasonably good baseline from which to start my 4x5 calibration work, hopefully allowing me to dial in my 4x5 calibration with a minimum of wasted sheets.<br> <br /><br />I'm using the method outlined by David Kachel where you don't burn up film on "tests" with no artistic value, you just go out and shoot like you normally would, and basically calibrate from your mistakes. That way you end up with a lot of negatives that are probably still viable from a technical standpoint even if they're not spot on with contrast and exposure. Better that than $80 worth of film that contains images of gray cards and step wedges :D</p> <p>His article is here, I quite enjoyed it and find his method a good match for me: http://davidkachel.com/assets/calibrat.htm</p>