lemastre

Tripods are like other photo gear -- don't buy it till you figure out whether it does

what you want to accomplish. If your main criterion is something easy to carry,

then go for a tabletop tripod that opens up to six inches or so and lets you set

or brace your camera on rocks and vertical surfaces. If you want a sturdy

support for working at waist or eye level, you probably need something that

folds down to no less than 24 inches or so. Some of the new materials are

pretty light, but they still take up some space. If you go too flimsy, you'll have to

wait for the camera to stop jiggling after each shot before shooting again.

In my initial message, I now note that the multiline URL I quoted

contains a few blanks, which came about during copying and

pasting. They no doubt would render the URL ineffective, but I

think closing them up would put things right.

There may be a digital back that fits your Hasselblad. Try

Calumet, for starters, where they have backs for $8,000 and up:

http://www.calumetphoto.com/syrinx/ctl?PAGE=Controller&ac.ui.

pn=cat.CatTree&ac.cat.CatTree.prodIndex.param=09;Digital+Im

aging;030;Digital+Image+Capture;720;Digital+Backs&ac.cat.Cat

Tree.prodIndex.branch.node3=720-030

I'm not any sort of Hasselblad aficionado and have no idea

whether any other cameras can accept Hasselblad lenses.

The black foam in cameras seems to be a petroleum product

that begins turning back into crude oil as soon as it's exposed to

air. The crumbs that eventually flake off are extremely sticky and

will foul up anything they touch. If your foam is the least bit sticky

to the touch or shows crumbs, scrape it out and replace it. This

stuff is insidious because we pay little attention to it until spots

show up on film or in the shutter.

You have reason to be puzzled by my assertion exonerating the

shutter. I was envisioning a horizontal slit moving from top to

bottom or vice versa. The horizontal movement you mention

actually describes a vertical slit moving from side to side. If that

is what your shutter does, then the partial exposures are totally

consistent with shutter malfunction. Finger misplacement is not

ruled out, but the shutter is more likely at fault.

If your shutter moves horizontally, then the incompletely exposed

frames must be due to something other than a shutter problem.

It almost looks as though you put your finger in front of the lens.

The first thing to do is put the camera on a tripod, remove the

lens, open the back and peer through the shutter at a uniformly

lighted area. Then run through the shutter speeds and see

whether the shutter is moving smoothly and completely across

the opening. Repeat each speed a few times to see whether the

movement is consistent. I expect you will see no problem. I'd

have a technician check the shutter, seals, and mirror if the

problem persists.

Would the fact that 120 film has a paper backing and 220 has no

paper and is thinner (I believe) lead to film-plane problems?

It's considerably harder putting the film on a plastic reel with the

emulsion out, since you're working against the natural curl of the

film. I used to load two rolls back to back on one reel, and I don't

recall that the outside one curled any less than the inside one

when both were dry.

To me, shooting square images would seem less important

than some of the advantages offered by a number of MF

cameras of recent vintage. I'm thinking of light weight,

changeable lenses and backs, etc. Rolleiflexes are

considerably limited by not having interchangeable lenses, and

Mamiya C cameras are heavy and cumbersome to handhold. If

you are a tripod user, though, they are versatile. I have both a

Rollei TLR and a Mamiya C330, and when I travel, I carry only an

Olympus XA, which fits in my coat pocket. I use the C330 only on

a tripod.

You can get perfectly acceptable art shots with a good 50mm or

longer lens. I've not noticed objectionable distortion until about

35mm. Getting the paintings properly aligned is the key. I use

an angle finder of the sort found in hardware stores or builders'

supplies to match the tilt of the camera with that of the paintings.

With proper lighting, polarization is not often called for, although

some testing to find the right color correction filtration to match

your lights to your slide film is necessary.

I don't know exactly what a "cleaner" image is, but both Tri-X and

Plus-X will give fine grain. Plus-X is usually considered the finer

if only because it's slower than Tri-X, but at 200, Tri-X may be

equally fine.

Film is not perfectly transparent. The unexposed areas of

properly processed film have a slight, uniform fog due to the

action of the chemicals. This fog should be a whole lot less

dense than the images, except for the darkest shadows or

underexposed areas of the images. If your fog is so dense that

you can't print on a number 4 paper, say, then you have a

problem of light fogging your film or inadequate fixing.

What's the meter looking at? It's possible that the light is too

bright for your film speed at any of the shutter and aperture

combinations your camera provides. Films of EI 400 and faster

are often too fast for convenient use in bright, outdoor conditions.

Of course, the "sunny 16" rule suggests that on a sunny day your

meter should indicate 1/400 or 1/500 second at f/16. Try pointing

the meter at a gray card or something close in reflective value.

If Dan Fromm's attitude toward the operating theory of

rangefinders has informed his own understanding of gadgets in

general, I'd like to invite him to bring his car over to my garage for

repairs -- I've a boat payment due.

The red dots are to be aligned with the arrow. But you seem to

have closed the door before the arrow reached the dots.

Whatever you did, you need to crank another couple inches of

leader before closing the back. If the dots are no longer visible,

they were 14 mm above the bottom edge of the film gate. A

properly wound roll shows about an inch of blank film at each

end, as I recall.

I shoot only 220 film, but for 120, I assume that the instruction

manual is correct in telling us that the leader should be cranked

onto the takeup spool until the black arrow appears and points at

the red-dot index marks on the camera. Then the back is closed

and cranking continued till the crank stops. You didn't mention

which end of your rolls had the missing or partial frames, or

whether you experienced great big gaps between frames, so I

don't know whether you cranked too much or too little before

closing the back or whether the spacing mechanism is off.

(When loading 220 Plus-X or Fujicolor, I usually crank about an

inch farther than the index marks before closing the back.)

The holes are no doubt necessary for air circulation. As Ed

Buffaloe suggests, paint the ceiling black or hang a piece of

black velvet up there. You might check the effect of the light leaks

by putting a piece of paper on the easel, laying a coin on it, and

turning on the enlarger several seconds with the lens cap on or

an opaque card in the negative carrier. (You might flash the

paper very slightly before this test to increase its sensitivity.) If

the coin shows up as a lighter circle when the paper is

developed, you have some leakage. It might be possible to

overcome it by using short exposures. Better to baffle the holes

so that air can pass through, but not much light.

The Paterson tank that holds two rolls of 120 (or 220) or three

rolls of 35mm is a good size, and the smallest one I'd fool with.

Paterson reels adjust to take 120 and 35mm film, and maybe

some other sizes, too. The main thing to look out for with used

Paterson tanks is cracks in the plastic tank or center column.

Don't buy anything but Paterson reels. I have some so-called

Paterson reels from another manufacturer that don't fit the film

well enough to work at all.

I prefer the bigger boxes that cover both lenses. The one I have

was a bit of a chore to install, though, since it atttached to both

lenses with a pair of retainer rings. So I epoxied on a sleeve that

slips over one of the lens barrels and locks on with a set screw.

Sounds good to me. I have no builit-in meter; so I usually peer

through the polarizer and turn it until the scene looks right, screw

the polarizer onto the lens, then position the index dot as it was

when I was looking through the thing.

Rate the Tri-X at 200 and ask the lab to process it accordingly,

which means they may pull the development a bit. I usually don't

pull it when I process it myself, though. It's a pretty tolerant film.

Is yours one of those with the coupled shutter and aperture

controls?

I've never shot any IR, but I assume that insofar as you can vary

exposure and developing, you can adjust the grey scale in your

negatives. The first thing to do would seem to be to shoot some

tests for basic exposure based on the film mfr's

recommendation and work from there.

Without knowing what you're trying to accomplish, I can only say

that if you want light containing all colors, go for a

broad-spectrum light source. The sun is the cheapest of these.

Strobes work well, too. Then, if you need a narrower part of the

spectrum, add some filters to the lights or over your lens.