bj_rn_nilsson

Regarding your limited height: <br>

You can take away the wheels at the base to gain say 1/2 inch there. (The wheels are quite useless unless you plan to put the enlarger on rails anyhow. The rails are used for easily moving the enlarger sideways if used for horizontal enlargement of huge enlargements.)<br>

For the top, you just have to be careful not to bang the head into the ceiling. (Which is easily done if you use the smaller, ligher condensers, or e.g. the cold light insert. The counterweight spring(s) are normally adjusted to balance the head with the heavier condensers.) You will lose roughly 1 inch of height, which isn't of great importance, unless you need it for that extra hefty large enlargement. The baseboard is almost as easily adjustable as the head.

<p>In a recent thread (about 210mm lenses) I read that someone stated

that an uncoated (old) lens would give better shadow detail than a

coated lens. The way it was written gave the impression that this was

a "feature" of older lenses and that this feature was "lost" with the

coating of modern lenses.</p>

<p>First, this "feature" is hard to control. (Unless you always use

the same light in your pictures.) The improved shadow detail comes

from the lens flare creating a preflash of the film. As any preflash

affects the least exposed parts of the negative the most, the shadow

zones are lifted and somewhat compressed. In total the flare gives

less contrast, a fact I recon is known to most of us. I don't know

whether this preflash caused by lens flare is totally even across the

negative, but I assume it is relatively even.</p>

<p>On the other hand, a multicoated lens, especially with a good lens

shade will produce much less flare, which in turn gives you better

contrast. The "trick" of getting better shadow detail is indeed

simple. Expose for it! (I guess that you all know the rest, i.e.

develop for the highlights.) If you want the very same look and feel

that uncoated lenses give, i.e. the somewhat compressed and lifted

lower zones, preflash the film! You will get exactly the same effect,

but now you are in control of it.</p>

<p>Now, say that you use an uncoated lens the way most of us

(including me) do, i.e. maybe possibly with a hat or something as an

excuse for a proper lens shade. In certain backlit situations the

negatives becomes virtually unusable. (I'm not saying that a coated

lens would give you a much better result.) In other situations, like

in a dark forrest, noone could tell the difference between an

uncoated and a brand new multicoated lens.</p>

<p>Please don't get me wrong here. I'm not saying that old lenses

are "crap", nor am I saying that new lenses all of a sudden will give

you better pictures. It's (as always) a matter of knowing the pros

and cons of your equipment.

<p>I will not be able to read or answer any responses to this for a

week, but I will sure read any answers and respond if needed.</p>

<p>Well, some of my thoughts about pictures in this forum. (I am the moderator, so ...)</p>

<p>First, keep the picture(s) size down in order to preserve bandwidth. While many of us have fast and fixed-price connections, you cannot take it for granted. Someone mentioned 80 Kb, which should suffice for most matters.<br>

Second, I'm sure that a lot of questions/answers would benefit from some kind of illustration. There are many threads which have lots of "fuzzy" answers due to not using this feature. An illustration of the answer would in many cases make a lot of comments unneccessary.</p>

<p>OK, uploading or linking to pictures does take knowing your html and knowing how to manipulate pictures in your computer. This forum is not the place to learn about these things, but there are numerous other sites where you can learn about html and computer graphics.</p>

<p>Last, this is not a forum for photo critique. I absolutely don't mind nice pictures, but if someone uses this forum as a place to post his pictures without making any real LF photography point with them, apart from being his/her nice work, that post/thread will probably be removed. Besides, given the first "rule" (max. size of say 80 Kb.) it will be very hard to tell if it's LF or 35mm.</p>

<p>Please note that I'm now waving the whip on you here. I just thought that the moderators opinion would make things easier for you all. So, if you can "throw" in a picture of that strange lens or whatever that you are querying about, please go ahead. You will most probably get a much better answer.</p><div></div>

I take it that you want to look at the pictures to evaluate them. (If you intend these contact prints to be the final prints, check with the links mentioned in the other answers.) In that case a very simple setup will do. As a lightsource a normal lampbulb in a holder and possibly a timer connected to that. (Ordinary darkroom light is also nice.)<br>

A piece of relatively thick glass (6mm or 1/4") will press the negative to good contact with the paper. You can order that from the nearest glass shop for a couple of bucks/euros(?). You can also make a simple frame out of wood with a bottom board where you use some kind of strong tape at one end to hinge the glass.<br>

Finally, see to that you keep the lamp at the same fixed distance from where you put the neg/paper-sandwich until you know for sure that your exposure times are too short or long.<br>

<p>First, you don't have to excuse yourself about your English. You make yourself perfectly clear. (Well, apart from the word "cup", but you provided an excellent picture instead.)</p>

<p>As for your macro work, I think that either of your 135 mm lenses will do very nice. Working in, or close to macro, means that there will be a lot of bellows draw, so using a relatively short focal length will help you. The Symmar (and the Sirionar) are almost symmetrical and even though they are corrected for best performance close to infinity, they perform well at close range as well.</p>

<p> If you will work a lot with macro (and get paid for it!!!) it might be worth paying the extra money for a dedicated macro lens, but the question is whether you really need it. (A macro lens is better in the macro area, but not by much.)</p>

The Rodenstock and the Caltar are really the same lenses! Both are made in the Rodenstock factory and are only branded different. (Caltar is the "home brand" for Calumet.) The Caltar is around $100 cheaper than the Rodenstock, else it should be the same. (I.e. $799 at Calumet. Badger graphic sells the Rodenstock for $875 and the Schneider for $825. I.e. they are all within your budget.)<br>

As the new Schneider lens is indeed new, noone really knows anything about it, but given it's a Schneider lens you will not go wrong with it.<br>

If you can find a used lens in nice condition, there is of course money to be saved there too.<br>

The main factor is obviously the price, as any of the three given lenses are equal (and very good) performers. Buying used

I, for one, cannot tell you which lens of these three to buy. But I'd be happy with either one.

<br>

About the Leitz V-Elmar. The one that comes with the Focomat IIC certainly covers 6X9 cm, as that is the maximum size for that enlarger. (I used to own a Focomat IIC, and I certainly miss that one. It's the best 35mm - MF enlarger that I've ever encountered. I normally use Durst enlargers, but the Leitz enlargers are in another league.)

In my role as the main moderator of this forum, I've contacted Fine Art Supply and I hope that they will explain how they collected the email-addresses and why they misused them.<br>

I will report back to the forum as soon as my discussion with them have concluded.

In my role as the main moderator of this forum, I've contacted Fine Art Supply and I hope that they will explain how they collected the email-addresses and why they misused them.<br>

I will report back to the forum as soon as my discussion with them have concluded.

New Sinar bellows often behave like that when having been compressed for a long time. It should probably be OK. Use it as the "first" bellows for a while and it will behave as it should, without the noices, after a little while.

First: Try changing the battery. A weak battery can often make the meter play tricks on you.

<p>Noone seems to mention it, but there are of course more modern versions of the Sinar spotmeter. I've used a stick that connects to a Gossen Ultrasix (Mastersix in Europe), which also connects to the decently modern Profisix versions. That one did give reliable readings. (Then I also used the binocular mirror hood, which had a built-in "darkhood", so stray backlight was no problem.)</p>

<p>The most current version of the Sinar spot meter stick called Booster, connects to a Minolta "whadayacallem" IV, and should, as far as I've heard from other users, be very reliable.</p>

<p>As most of this community seems to use their cameras for outdoor work (landscape etc.) using a hand-held meter is quite straighforward. As Sinar cameras are more common in studios, where bellows draw compensation often comes into play, a meter that meters off the film-plane is certainly of more use.</p>

<p>The Super Symmar XL lens is indeed a very fine lens, but the reason for it being overkill for (normal) 4X5 is its sheer bulk and weight. It has lots of movement, but the question is whether you have use for that much movement.

<p>Using an LF camera takes a lot of things, apart from the camera and the lens, to carry around. A sturdy tripod, a light meter, film holders etc. Last but not least, filters. The filters are huge and very expensive. Good but huge lenses will more or less brake your back when trying to use the equipment in the field. LF field photography is cumbersome. If anyone tells you anything else they are not really looking at facts. After carrying the equipment around for a day you will regret every single gramme that you carried around without having any use for it. And a tired photographer is not a good photographer.

<p>For 4X5 work a normal plasmat will do nicely. (E.g. a Symmar S or similar.) An, in my opiníon, even better suggestion would be e.g. the Nikon M 200 lens. It's a very small lens (180 grammes.) with ample coverage for 4X5. It's very sharp. (I'd say it's at par with the Super Symmar.) It's quite cheap. (At least compared to the Super Symmar.) It also takes small filters (52mm).

<p>Ok, the Nikon lens may not look as impressive as the Super Symmar, but you are much more probable to bring it along with you (and save a lot of money in the process). Your final prints/transparenies will look just as great with any of the lenses mentioned.</p>

Gaah, hoo hummm. I'm not sure if we were to go that much public with the testing, but never mind.

The forum is almost done. The functionality of the forum is there, but some of the links in the headers doesn't work the way they should. The q and a stuff does work as intended though.

Another thing is that whatever you post in that forum may not be carried over to the new place. (If we move that is!!!) There was never any intention to run the forum from the binoni.nu site, as I only use it for testing purposes.

The server is physically located in Sweden, for whatever that matters. I would like to find out how you people on the other side of the puddle (the Atlantic that is) feel about response times etc. But all of that could and should be discussed in that forum and not this one.

 

About the look and feel of the forum: It was my and Tuan's intention to have it look and feel the same as the old LUSENET. We think that it's a good idea to have things the way the community is used to. There are a few small differenties and we might add some more. The programming language and the database are different though, so all of the development is done from scratch.

 

See ya all over here, ehh there, ehh never mind.

If any wooden camera should be able to cope with high humidity is should be an Ebony. (Considering Ebony being a very pricey camera, the camera should really be able to cope with these kinds of situations. I really wouldn't mind owning one of these gems though.) It's probably a matter of the tolerances being slighly tight, which should be easily resolved with either Ebony or the reseller.

There are a few things that speaks for a monorail camera, e.g. a Sinar F (F1, F2), Arca Swiss, Calumet, Cambo ...

First, as you will be working at (or close to) macro range, long bellows extensions really come into play.

Second, as you will do most of your work indoors, you don't need the special folding features of a field camera that often. For the occational outdoor shot, a monorail isn't that hard to carry, unless you go for a Sinar P, Linhof Kardan MT or similar.

As you ask this question, I take it that you are not that well versed into LF photography, in which case a monorail is easier to handle.

 

About lens choice, a good normal lens around 150 mm is probably the best choice. There are special macro lenses, which will perform marginally better around 1:1 range, but unless you have unlimited budget, you'd probably be better of with e.g. a Rodenstock Sirionar N or S. (You cannot go wrong with any of the 4 big brands. Rodenstock is just a suggestion.)

I'm sorry if anyone feels that I picked upon choice of words. I did in fact use the very same word, as it is "good enough" as a metaphor and that everyone here understands what we mean. I still hope though that the point that I made came through.<br>

As for filters in front of the meter, I prefer to take a straight meter value and then adjust the value with the filter factor. This is due to the fact of the meter having a different way of "seeing" the colors than film. This is especially important when it comes to red filters, where the difference is more pronounced than with the other colors of the spectrum.

Neither meters nor film does have an even coverage of the color spectrum, so the idea of using a color temp. meter is not that bad. I guess that "modern" B/W material does have a straighter curve, but that it's still a curve and not a straight line.<br>

As for meters, the same thing goes there. Several statements says that the meter "sees" 18% grey. I don't think that they "see" 18% grey, or any other gray for that matter. They simply read the light and give you a reading that will render an 18% grey. What they "see" is interesting though, as e.g. the Zone VI modified meter is supposed to be corrected for the fact that the color sensitivity curve for the meter cell differs from the curve of "normal" B/W film.

The obvious choice would be a 90mm lens. There are several to choose from, but I recon that you want something that gives you something extra when compared to the 50mm Mamaya lens on a Mamaya 7. As the Mamaya system is excellent as such, you will not gain much, if anything, in terms of sharpness. The main reason, in my opinion, for using a LF camera compared to MF is the possiblity to use movements.<br>

 

There are a couple of lenses, such as the Schneider Angulon 90mm f/6.8, which just about covers 4X5. They are nice, compact and wellknown lenses, but 30-60 years old. As they just about covers the film format, you cannot really use movements with these lenses.<br>

 

What I recommend is rather e.g. a Schneider Super Angulon 90mm f/8, which is a more modern construction (A Biogon deriviate, i.e. virtually the same as the Mamaya 50mm lens.) that covers 5X7, i.e. you'll have plenty to move around. There are equivialents made by all four of the major manufacturers, and telling them apart by result is hard or impossible. A new lens costs around $700-$900. But there are plenty of used lenses in that category around, which could be found for around $300 or so.<br>

 

There are also f/4.5-5.6 90mm lenses, but they are much bigger in size and are primarily intended for studio work. The same goes for the Schneider Super Angulon XL lenses.<br>

 

Another option could be the Schneider Super Symmar XL 80mm f/4.5. But that would set you back some $1300 or so.<br>

 

Finally, you can learn much more at <a href="http://www.thalmann.com/largeformat/lenses.htm">Kerry Thalmanns pages</a>.

As you don't process yourself put the check of the film holders as the last thing to do. If you have access to a Polaroid film holder, that will save you a lot of time and probably money too. Else, rent one. As you don't process yourself, the cost of the polaroids will probably be less than the developing costs and you will have ruled out everything except the possibility of leaking film holders within the hour.<br>

The most probable thing is a leaky or pinholed bellows and you can easily start up with checking for that. All it takes is that you, in a darkish room, put a flashlight/electric torch inside the camera and extend the bellows. You will quite easily see if and where there is a leak.

Again, don''t panic. It seems like you are doing some of the basic things wrong. You say yourself that an EI of 800 cannot be correct and you are right there. BTZS and Jobo are fundamentally quite equal, being rotary and constant agitation processes, so the times should be in the same region.<br>

What I'd advice is that you start from scratch, meaning that you <b>really start from scratch</b>. Don't take your first tests for granted. (I got the feeling that you "have developed a habit" and do the test runs without really thinking. I'm saying this because of my own personal experience.) What Pete et al. have said is all good advice. So see to that you have no flare playing up with your readings. Focus on infinity (Which I recon that you did, as the results would have been on the "other side" if you use more bellows draw.) and use a black surrounding and a good shade. See to that you are working in a "constant" light, and that it is open shade and not direct sunlight. (I normally go to the shady side of my house on a sunny day.) And again, "reboot" your head and set up the tests from the very start.<br>

Besides, as you have, in a similar process (BTZS), already found the EI for the film/developer combo, what you have to concentrate on is finding the white point, not the black point (EI).<br>

Please let us know what was wrong, as these kind of things costs us all a lot of time and money. There is obviously something to be learnt from this.

<p>What kind of tests have you run? I recon that you set the camera focused on infinity and shot an evenly colored area (18% grey) that fills up the whole frame and underexposed by 3 1/2 steps and that you also bracketed that shot. (By going for a bracket series of 4 1/2, 4, 3 1/2, 3, 2 1/2 steps below the meter value.) Preferably you should also have masked of a part of the negative with e.g. a black cardboard darkslide that is cut in half along the long side, so that part of the negative isn't exposed at all.<br>

In that case there are two methods "left" apart from the densitometer method.</p>

<p>The best of the two methods is using an ND 0.10 filter, which is contact printed along with the negative. (As the EI is determined by the exposure being .10 above the base+fog.)

<ul>

<li>Now contact print a negative a time at the highest contrast printing paper you can find. The higher contrast the better. You should adjust the time/aperture to get a middle gray from the base+fog area.</li>

<li>Now find the print where the black point exposure and the base+fog+ND filter are the same (or at least very close). That should correspond to your EI reading.</li>

</ul></p>

 

<p>The second method needs a good and steady timer. You are to compare results with this method too, but instead of using a density difference, you use a time difference. To compensate a density increase of 0.10, which equals 1/3 step, you should increase the time with 25%. This method needs extra care in regard of stray light in the darkroom, so turn out as much as possible of the safelights in the darkroom.

<ul>

<li>First you should expose a piece of paper with the base+fog part of the nagative in the enlarger. The paper choosen should be the highest constrast possible. You shuld adjust the height and aperture of the enlarger so that you get a middle gray from a 10 seconds exposure. You don't need more than an e.g. 3X3" piece of printing paper. When you found the height/aperture for a 10 seconds exposure, cut a corner from that paper.</li>

<li>Next, cut 5 more pieces of paper into similar size as the first one. Expose the papers for 12.5 seconds from each of the negatives in the test series that you shot.</li>

<li>Develop the 12.5 seconds pieces, and fix, wash and dry as per usual.</li>

<li>Next, you rank the pieces according to density. The darkest piece comes from the least exposed negative.</li>

<li>Now you can compare which piece corresponds to the 10 seconds piece. That one is the one that will give you the EI for the film/developer combo.</li>

</ul>

</p>

<p>Again, as you didn't say how you ran the tests, it's hard to say if these method suits your test negatives, but this is at least the way I do it.</p>

<p>The G-Clarons are available at 240mm and 270mm as well. (And of course other focal lengths.) According to Schneider the 240 doesn't cover 8X10 at infinity, but Schneider usually are quite conservative, so the truth is that it will probably cover 8X10 at infinity. Now, as you are interested in the lens for macro work, you should have plenty of coverage with a 240. Else, you can go with the 270 mm lens.</p>

<p>You are obviously going for the very best of breed. I'm not saying that you shouldn't, but please ask your self if the huge and expensive APO Macro lenses will give you anything extra apart from a lighter wallet. The process type lenses are small, light and quite inexpensive. Being constructed for process work their performance is excellent in the macro range.

Christopher: Yes, those cameras have movements, but practical work with movements does take a fairly big groundglass. Doing movements on a small GG is hard, as it is "precision" work. Given a low light situation and the relatively small GG of e.g. a Hasselblad, I'd prefer a 4X5 (or larger) with a good fresnel lens. You also loose the "time" factor that I wrote about in my previous post, as setting up the Hasselblad or Fuji camera will take as long time (or longer time) than a 4X5.<br>

If you want a "quick" LF camera for architectural work, I cannot think of anything better than e.g. a Sinar P/P2/X camera. It is very sturdy and precise and finding/setting the tilts/swings and shifts is very easily done. They are for sure much more quick than a Hasselblad Flexbody or a Fuji. The downside is of course the sheer weight and bulk of those cameras.

<p>Most of the question have already been answered (in terms of camera movements etc). But you also have to take into account the time factor. Many of those shots don't really need any movements and then the MF camera is much faster to use than any LF camera. Some other shots can be tricky, but they can still be made without movements. It's actually a matter of "knowing your trade". What I'm saying here is that a MF camera will give you say 100 shots in a couple of hours, while you might get 10 in the same time using LF. The LF shots may be better than most of the MF shots, but having the choice of a number of small variations (on MF roll film) also helps.<br>

Rambeling on about "time", the time spent should also include the "recognition" time, i.e. the time preparing for the shots without the camera. Some sites needs days or even weeks of preparation and planning, where you can use a smaller camera as a "notebook". In such cases, the time spent on the actual shots is only a small fraction of the total time used. Another not uncommon situation is when you don't have unlimited time with exclusive access to the site. There are lots of places where you'll get "15 minutes maximum" or so even though you are assigned by the owners of the site.<br>

Film and developing costs might also be a factor, in which case a roll of MF slide film will cost about the same as a single LF tranny.</p>

<p>The term "knowing your trade" is still the major issue here, and that of course applies to knowing your MF OR LF camera, as well as the film, light and everything else. Knowing what to do before you do it is the key to most professional work, in whichever field. The choice of tools is part of that knowledge. I know that this answer doesn't directly answer "which camera is best", as there is no simple answer to that question. Given that you have all the time you need (and that you get paid for all that time) LF is the obvious answer, but most assignments "in the real world" are probably due "yesterday" with a very limited budget.</p>