Thanks to all my friends here!! Got a Green Calumet 8x10.

[chris_jordan3]

Well guys, thanks to all of your thoughts and advice, i'm the proud

new owner of a beautiful BIG green metal Calumet 8x10 with film

holders and all, and my Nikkor 450mm lens is on the way; both were

purchased from guys here on this list. hopefully now i won't need to

worry about any equipment-related stuff for another ten years or so.

(i can see myself in a year: "what's a really good lens for 16x20

format...").

 

Thanks to you all for your guidance in my 8x10 purchases-- with your

help in a couple of weeks i went from clueless-and-confused to having

exactly what i needed, all more-or-less within my budget. Now as soon

as i get all the knobs and cranks and stuff figured out, and i'll be

off to do battle with the lowest depth-of-field situation i've ever

imagined!

 

warm wishes to you my friends,

 

~cj (Seattle)

[ellis_vener_photography]

Just remember that the old C1 can be both a good offensive

AND defensive weapon, if used properly.

[ellis_vener_photography]

I guess you mean by "lowest depth of field situation I've ever

imagined" you are iamging an extreme anti-schiempflug

situation where only a single point is in focus.<P>

What does the schiempflug rinciple state/ That when a subject

plane,the lens plane, and the film (or image0 plane all intersect

in a line , everything in the subject plane will be in sharp

focus.<P>so what you have to do is simple: get those three

planes to intersect only in a point! (If two of these three planes

intersected in more than one point you'd have a line, and erypoint

in that line would be sharp)<P>

so pick the point you want in focus, focus on it and start

swinging and tilting the lens and film plane away from each

other till only that point remains in focus. If you want to get a

larger area around that point to be in focus you'll have to stop

down.<P>It really helps to really try and get a mental picture of

the three planes and where they intersect so you can figure out

which way to swing & tilt the standards.

[chris_jordan3]

Thanks Ellis, i'm pretty familiar with the camera-movements concept from having worked with 4x5 for about 10 years now. The real challenge comes in my night-street work, where i'm photographing the surface of the street close-up (camera right down at street level, me squatting under my umbrella like a dork...), all with the lens wide open. Under that circumstance, even with my 210mm the depth of focus at f/5.6 at that distance is only a millimeter or so, which makes the fine-tuning of the movements difficult (especially when it's at night so the image on the glass is dim at best). plus, the street is never flat, so i always have to decide which part of the image i must relinquish to fuzziness. now, i'll be using a 450mm lens with even smaller depth of focus, plus a bigger camera with non-geared movements.

 

now there's a reason i'm doing all this, what was it again...??!?!?

[michael_sherck]

I like to think of the Calumet C1 in terms related to old computers. A decade ago there were two categories of portable computers: suitcase-sized "luggable" models weighing 18-22 lbs. and the newer "laptop" models weighing 10-14 lbs. Models similar to current notebooks came (mostly) later.

 

In this domain, the C1 is a "luggable", meaning "portable if you tug on the handle hard enough." Oddly, suitcase-sized computers disappeared fairly rapidly once "laptop" computers became widely available. Well, perhaps not so oddly, as anyone who tried to catch a connecting flight while tranporting one of these beasts can attest to.

 

My best guess is that after 10 years of lugging the C1 around what you are going to need most is a truss. But you won't need to fear dark alleys.

 

:) Best of luck to you!

 

Mike

[chris_jordan]

Oh great, Chris Jordan... now I'm going to have to get an 8X10

too!

 

-Chris Jordan (Boston)

 

(ps congrats and have fun!)

[steve_feldman]

Chris,

 

2 yaks and a llama are on the way.

 

-S.

[chris_jordan3]

Steve, that covers the tripod, film holders, light meter, and me; now, what about the camera?