Primitive 8x10 Photography?

Hello, Ive just picked up Alan Greene's very interesting "Primitive

Photography". As a cash-strapped student interested in the history of

photography I'm attracted by the idea of building a simple large

format sliding box camera. Im intriqued by contact printing 8x10's.

Ive heard that contact printing allows you make beautiful photographs

with less than stellar (expensive) optics. Alan Green has a design

for a simple positive meniscus and a more advanced Steinheil Periskop

lens. I understand that if you use such lenses at f/64 they work

quite well which is fine because with RC paper my daylight exposure

times would be between 1-8 seconds so I could get away with using a

lenscap as a shutter. I guess what my question is is what would be

the "quality" of the resulting photographs? Could I make beautiful

photographs within certain limitations? Any other ideas for 8x10 on

the cheap gratefully received! Thanks!

I would suggest buying an inexpensive process lens and making a camera. You can get process lenses for cheap in many different focal lengths. I've not read this book but making a sliding box camera is a pretty simple concept. You can make great images with one. The image quality will depend mostly on the lens, assuming the camera is made square and level and doesn't leak light. I would be hesitant to think you can get sharp images with a home made lens. You may enjoy the effect you get from such a lens but if you want sharp images you'll probably have to buy something.

 

You may also consider trying graphic arts film instead of RC paper. They are both ortho and very contrasty as neg material but workable. I've made acceptable negs in camera with kodalith type materials by reducing the contrast using diluted down developer. They can expose at iso 3 generally and if you go w/ f64 the exposures can easily run into minutes! Anyway RC paper is just fine too and you can do a water bath development to help reduce contrast. The bonus of both of these materials is they can be used under safelight and you can see your neg develop.

 

All that aside you can certainly make beautiful photos with this type of camera. It may not be as convenient as an 8x10 field camera but the end results could be spectacular.

Even the best human eye can rarely see greater than 10LPM, so a contact print of a neg. shot at f64 (which would be at around 20LPM) should be more than enough to produce an excellent contact print. Most photographers do not realize how much resolution is lost when printing through an enlarging lens (about 1/3-1/2), as well as lowering contrast.

 

The cheapest way is to shoot directly on paper using a pinhole, since paper is less expensive than film and there is no camera lens to buy, but then the print is not reproducable. Good luck.

What you might find most daunting is the abbreviated spectral range of process-film or paper (for negatives). If you could put your money into one item, I would suggest you use a good, slow conventional film. Then invest in a good film holder. Pay modest attention to construction and be happy.

So, the lens is the most critical (only critical?)- as well as the most expensive - part of the camera in terms of image "quality". What is the simplest cheapest option bearing in mind I will be contact printing my 8x10 negs? I know Sally Mann uses antique lens in her work are these a good bet? What are the "process" lens that have been mentioned? What should I go for? How much would it cost? Wheres a good place to look for them? Also, what are the problems and solutions in using RC paper negitives rather than film negitives? A big thank you for all your advice!<div></div>

Sally Mann deliberately pics old lenses for their imperfections and she really only did this for one project, which was her book of landscapes of the South. I would go with a carefully calibrated pinhole. You can actually buy pre-drilled pinhole boards that are very good.

> "So, the lens is the most critical (only critical?)- as well as

>the most expensive - part of the camera in terms of image "quality".

 

No, the lens is not the most critical component for 8x10 contact prints. Many lenses will suffice.

 

The film is critical. If you use paper negatives, you are at a grave disadvantage. Similarly, if you use graphic-art film, you will likely be very unhappy with the results. The issues with those materials are short tonal ranges and lack of certain sensitivity. Look at some old ortho chromatic film and plate images, for example.

 

And, BTW, Sally Mann didn't choose just any old crappy lens. She chose those that gave her the look she wanted (for better or worse) and she used them for her book, "What Remains", as well as the Southern landscapes.

 

About lenses, see Jim Galli's site(s).

http://tonopahpictures.0catch.com/Bokeh/HallBensonWaterbury/CheapOldBrassLenses.html

Hi, theres something called "Kowa Graphic 270 f9 process lens" on ebay right now currently at �50 ($90). A quick google suggests it might be the sort of thing you guys have been suggesting? Only, at its max of f45 - using 100 ASA film rather than RC paper, as suggested - I would have to use an exposure of 1/15 of second. How would I get around the fact the lens has no shutter? Thanks

Shutters - First, I don't know the dimensions of the lens in question. However, many people, myself included, work well with the Packard shutters which are still made. See: http://www.packardshutter.com/

 

They can be mounted in front, or behind the lens. Besides the Packard, you might find some old pneumatic swinging-door type shutters (I have a couple in good shape). More exotic, but very old front-mounted curtain-type shutters can be found but they are far more trouble than they are worth.

 

Sorry I can't remember where I saw it, but someone had a great little article on an ingenious rubber-band controlled shutter. It might be worth surfing it out.

Thread about ortho http://www.photo.net/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg?msg_id=00BHhx&tag=

You will need some way to check the focus of your home made camera. If you want to focus on a close up and later a landscape. How will you check it without a ground glass? Maybe preset it for infinity and shoot all landscapes?

 

J

hi peter

 

i wouldn't worry about the spectral sensitivity of paper, but i would use fiber instead of rc paper. i dunno, rc just doesn't do it for me :) if you can find a box of outdated paper that will work the best. a little fog is always good when it comes to paper negatives ...

instead of sinking a ton of cash into olde brass lenses that have a cult following, i would think about using a zone plate or a pinhole ( you can use the 3-3.5 * focal length to see if it will cover your negative without having to bend it ), or even an optical supply house that might sell diopters, it won't cost you much and you will probably get the results you are looking for ...

 

good luck!

hello,

 

i too was looking to do something similar. i have been shooting a 4X5 pinhole. the results are excellent and i ask myself why i have been using lenses for so long. seems i am slipping into the past. evreyone is moving to digital and i am moving "backwards" and now i am shooting with the pinhole exclusively. i plan to shoot paper negs soon, and i would like to shoot 8X10 also. please see here for a few pics. http://www.photo.net/photodb/folder?folder_id=565448

 

eddie

Peter, thanks for the shot of the sliding-box camera, I might be able to use that concept the next time I cycle back around to the "making some ridiculous cameras just because I can" project.

 

The Kowa Graphic lenses have a bit of a following, in fact most of the adequate process lenses pull higher prices than they did a couple of years ago. Apo-Gerogons will work, I think the 270mm will cover 8x10 at infinity but can't promise that right now. The Konica Hexanon GRII 210 will do it, and so on. The 305mm Apo-Nikkor will do a very nice job and seems to pull about the lowest final bids of all the Apo-Nikkors. Actually, that's the one I'd probably suggest with my admittedly limited experience.

 

If your exposures will be a second or more, a shutter doesn't really matter much. You can pull a lenscap in one direction, count a careful second, and replace it from the other direction, right? Even if the lenscap is made of black construction paper and masking tape? If you do that with a flourish it'll look like you know what you're doing.

 

Paper will work (pick one with no manufacturer's printing on the back), as will pinhole setups, and a pinhole camera and a package of paper is a good place to start. Film is better, but far better if you have a real lens on the front. There are some cheaper ways to do film if you just want to "do stuff" (like me) but they have their drawbacks, like limited/odd sensitivity, slow speed, extreme contrast requiring special pictorial development, having to cut from rolls, and so on. However, last summer I was shooting 5x7 IR with extremely fine grain at minimal cost (asa/iso = approx. 1 behind an R25 filter).

 

Setting up focus can be done several ways. You can set up for infinity, hyperfocal, or do a variety of measurements and work up a scale to apply to the outside of the camera so that you can align marks to focus.

 

On this bit of foolishness, I stuck my head inside the end of the box and kept adjusting until I had something approximating hyperfocal: http://www.9000shops.com/bsc/index.html

 

Have fun...

Gary, I just love your Big Stupid Camera! Talk about back to basics. It gives me hope that I really can put a smaller 8x10 version together. How do you manage without a shutter? As I understand it you can do it if you shoot at f/64 and only use paper negs but if you use film what do you do? Do you have any photographs taken with the BSC you can email me? thank you!

Peter, glad you liked it - a few might be offended by it because I wasn't really taking the format seriously.

 

Since the imagesettng film is rather slow, an accurate mechanical shutter isn't really necessary. I set up the camera, put any handy object that weighs a couple of pounds on top of it to keep it from moving (no tripod mount on that thing), and I pull the lenscap while starting a stopwatch with the other hand. After the alotted time, I replace the lenscap. An sixteen second exposure isn't unusual, so half-second of manual inaccuracy doesn't mean much.

 

For film with a bit of speed (~100) it's helpful to stop down to a point where your exposure is about one full second, and whipping the cap off and back on with an open time of a second may take just a little practice. If you want/need to use a shutter on the cheap, get a packard shutter that has an "instant" setting. I believe that's supposed to be about 1/15 second and they do work.

 

Since I have yet to put together a contact printer big enough to make a contact print, there's no prints. No scans either, and the thing is difficult to deal with so I've only taken a couple of shots with it. (lug awkward large unbalanced box into the basement, cut and load big piece of roll film under dark green safelight, tape it all shut, lug same awkward thing back upstairs and outside, make exposure, lug back into basement, untape box and develop/stop/fix film [inspection method] in rather large tray, again a ways from very dark green safelight. It makes 8x10 seem easy to deal with.)

Peter:

 

I was interested in the same kind of camera project last summer and the photos show what I built. My box camera was for 4x5 and the lens/shutter and viewfinder were salvaged from a Polaroid 110. Focusing was by ground glass and sliding the inner box in and out. I built a simple ground glass for focusing from a piece of dollar-store picture frame glass and covered it with Scotch tape. It fits under the elastic fastening devices. After focusing, you replace the ground glass with a film holder.

 

I had to add the tailboard to keep the inner box parallel with the outer box. But the tailboard made an already bulky camera really awkward to carry. I could have made the tailboard hinged though. I have since switched to a Crown Graphic.

 

I have more construction photos of the camera in progress if you want to see them.

Another shot.

Frank, thats terrific! basically the same design as the mid 19th C Daguerreotype sliding box cameras. Do you imagine it would be as easy to make for 8x10? Do you have any pictures to share? How did you makr the rangefinder and do use use that rather than a gg or is it just for composing the image? Any other issues that might be useful in building a scaled up version of your camera? thanks

Making one would depend on your skills with a table saw. I used the ground glass for critical focusing. I added the viewfinder (which I salvaged from the Polaroid) for handheld shots. I have not used it since I went to the Crown. I'll send you some information.

Thanks to everyone for your kind advice, Pete