andy_eads

I'm crazy; I admit it. But I pack a Horsman LE. The camera, 4 lenses, 6 holders, filters, loupe, etc. weighs 23 lbs. The whole mess fits flat in a carry-on-size computer case I modified for the purpose. I can't pack it too far but I hate giving up the monorail. The camera has nice detents and can be setup nice and square in a blink. I do a fair amount of architecture work and like the ability to put any wide angle lens on it and still have full movements. When I bought it, I could not afford either a Sinar or an Arca.

As you rotate the shutter speed ring to 1/500th you also engage a booster spring for the shutter. As has been mentioned already, it is best to set the speed first then cock the shutter. The mechanism needs a spot of very good grease so the metal parts don't gall. If you suspect a problem, have the shutter cleaned and lubed by a good repairman.

I bent a monorail view camera once and had to make an image before I could get it repaired. I removed the bellows, put a lens on that had a long rear element and ran the standards close enough for the back of the lens to kiss the ground glass. I made a few adjustments to get the lens and ground glass square to each other, got the shot and sent that baby out for repair.

I pulled a Schneider lens apart to find out what the white specs were. Here are my observations. The black paint used to darken the edges of the glass is a soft elastomeric-like paint. That is, it is stretchy even after 30 years. It appears that as the paint ages, it shrinks and pulls apart at some weak spot, perhaps encouraged by a sharp place on the ground glass it sits on. I looked carefully to see if any flakes were present and found none. My conclusion is that Schneideritis is indeed harmless. The very small area revealed by the spots is a small fraction of the total painted area and by my observation causes no perceptible loss of image quality.

Janet, If the problem is exhausted fixer you can salvage the negatives most times by refixing them if fresh fixer. If you are a rollfilm user and you have cut the film into strips, you may have some problems with film curl as they dry.

I worked for 20 years at a govt. research facility as a technical photographer. If this head had been available I would have put it in the budget to buy. The C1 head and a camera with a geared rail on the camera (such as the Horseman) would make precise adjustments easy to do. This would be especially true of close-up photography or any situation where precise alignment with the subject is important. Definitely overkill for landscape photography.

Scott, In addition to the ASMP guide already mentioned, check out books by Tad Crawford. His "Legal Guide for the Visual Artist" is outstanding.

Very flat front surface mirrors are available from surplus stores. Also, rather than drilling a hole in one of the mirrors, you need only remove the silvering from the desired spot. A razor blade and some TLC will do the trick.

One factor not mentioned is the color balance of the bulb vs. discharge tubes. Flash bulbs are in the 3200 degree kelvin range and flash tubes are in the 5600 range. The warmer color of the flash bulb will tend to obscure reddish blemishes which is nice for portraiture. Flash bulbs are coated blue (as in M3-B) so they can be used with daylight balanced color film.

War story.... As a cub photographer for my high school newspaper, I photographed various sporting events. On night I was photographing a basketball game with a new flash gun. I set the camera and gun across my lap and proceded to insert a new Press 25 into the socket. As I was pressing down, my pocket knife was pressing on the open flash button. With a firm grip on the bulb, it went off. It hurt so bad I sat there crying for about 5 minutes. Likewise, I was unable to see very well for a bit as I was also looking straight at the bulb.

The Mamiya RB lenses have a built in shutter. The trick was to cock the shutter and release it. As I recall we cocked the shutter by removing the back from the Linhof and reaching in to the back of the lens. We rigged a paper clip to hold the latch in place and used a cable release from the front to make the exposure. It was a bit cumbersome but it worked beautifully. Oh, I had a machine shop grind off the "lens shade" on the front of the lens else it would show in a full circle image.

I'm a little late to the party but here is how I did it. I used a 37mm fisheye lens from an RB67. I bought a lens flange as a repair part and had it grafted to the lens board of a Linhof Kardan Color 4x5 view camera. The lens will make a full 180 degree image and the image circle will just fit on 4x5 film. I made enlargements up to 40" diameter with excellent sharpness. With the newer films available today, I expect you could better that substantially. Good shooting!

Per, I use HC-110 diluted 1:42 (amber goo straight from the bottle) at 72 deg. F. I don't know what N is to you but my time for the luminance range of an average sunlit scene is 12 minutes, tray processed with a brief pre-soak.

Certain plastics when stressed exhibit an optical property called bi-refringence. Color bands appear along the lines of stress. One means to detect the stress is to illuminate the plastic from behind with polarized light and view the plastic through a second polarizing filter (the analyzer). Some plastic products produce the effect by themselves by polarizing the light slightly. Sunglasses may also have a polarizing layer laminated to the lens. Light passing through the lens is polarized to some degree and can be reflected from the background back through the lens. This is not the optimum configuration for seeing bi-refringence but it is enough to be annoying. If the lens was thermoformed from a flat sheet (stressed), you have all the necessary ingredients.

Pietro, There is also the problem of cocking and firing the shutter. An adaptor that would allow you to do this conveniently would be expensive. Andy

Shane, The matrix meter is a wonderful device but may not get you where you want to go. The matrix meter combined with the camera's computer compares the pattern of readings from the matrix to a table of readings in memory. When it finds a good match, it returns the shutter speed and aperture settings. The meter is set up for color transparency films so it is likely to deliver good results if you use a similar film in the lf camera.

 

However, there are some limitations. The meter cannot tell you why it chose the exposure settings. You will never build the kind of personal experience that using a hand-held meter will give. Also, it is not useful for exposure/development control systems like the Zone System or VIDEC. These require that you make readings of selected areas in the scene and judge what print tonality you want in the final print. Often you will encounter scenes with great scene brightness range that can be captured easily on black and white film but would be imposible on color transparency film. If the matrix meter will allow you to use it in a "spot" mode, you could use it but I suspect it will be cumbersome.

Andy

One caution about black flocked paper. Some brands reflect infra-red light very well. If your application involves a detector that is sensitive to infra-red (infra-red film and most solid-state photo cells), you will need to test the material. A few years ago I made a test target using flocked paper and discovered that light meters like the old Luna Pros would give false high readings. The meter was reading the IR but the film did not detect it, rendering my careful test useless.

Wayne, I had a similar situation. The press worked just fine in that it had adjustable pressure, even pressure and was large enough. I had difficulty with the thermostat. It seems it was designed for the higher temperatures needed for fabric transfers and did not accurately hold the temp at the low end of the scale (where fiber prints are mounted.) I caused a few prints to blister from the heat. If your press can reliably hold the temps used for print mounting, then there is no reason you can't use it. Good luck!

Andrew,

Selenium is a metal and does not decompose to a safe form. Leaving it out is dangerous to any animal or child who might drink or handle it. Bottle the stuff up and contact your local disposal sites for instructions on how to dispose of it legally and, most important, safely. My locale has periodic amnesty days during which the disposal facility will accept "household" waste. They ask what category it belongs to and take it from there. They handle leaded paints, car batteries, solvents and other nasty stuff. In short, keep it bottled, keep it in your control and learn how to dispose of it correctly.

Andy

Good day! I've got a 1952 edition of "The Theory of the Photographic Process" by Mees and it has a section on factors affecting grain. They note the two main contibutors are sudden temperature change and extreem pH change. Stop bath has two main purposes, to arrest developer action and preserve the fixer solution from developer carry-over. If you desire very precise development time control, a stop bath will assure it. It is my practice to use a stop bath with tight temperature control. I've had very good results from this approach. I like lots of fresh air exchange too!

One book I came across is titled "Elements of Architectural Form" by Rudolph Arnheim. Aimed at students of architecture, Arnheim describes how shapes, complexity, arrangement, et al stimulate our minds. It is an easy step from architecture to photographic composition. Too bad I lost my copy. Andy

Jeff, With regard to the film Penn used not that there were two Tri-X emulsions available in 120 size back then. One was the same as the 135 size. The other was called Tri-X Professional(also available in sheets). The characteristic curve had a long toe and the base had a "tooth" for retouching with pencils. It was intended for portraiture and worked well under tungsten lights. It had a nominal rating of 360. I suspect this was the film Penn used since it lent itself to nice skin tones and had a long exposure scale. Hope this is helpful. Andy

51. My dad set me up with his 2x3 Busch Pressman at age nine. I got

serious about LF in 1973.

John, I canibalized an old Polaroid MP-4 camera head for the bellows

and focusing rack. The head is designed for 4x5 but it could easily

be restricted to just the range you need to focus and still cover the

8x10 image. There are some variants of the MP-4 that accomodate 8x10

film. I got mine on Ebay for about $30. It was in pretty ratty shape

but it did the job.

David, A few years back I bought a 360mm f/4.5 Tessar (Zeiss Jena)

from Brooklyn Camera Exchange. It is a modern design, covers 8x10" at

infinity and is very sharp wide open. They show up on Ebay from time

to time in either new or used condition. The diameter is huge (3.25")

so you need either a focal plane shutter, a Packard style shutter or

a lens cap and a fast hand. If you are shooting outdoors and wide

open, you will need the focal plane shutter to get the short shutter

speed necessary with any modern film.

Many moons ago, I modified a 37mm Mamiya fish-eye to fit a Linhof

Kardan 45S view camera. I bought a mounting flange from Mamiya (as a

repair part), put it on the lens board, made a retainer for the

shutter cocking lever from a paper clip, and made some fabulous, full

round images. We made several prints at 40" final diameter and they

held up beautifully. I had a machine shop mill off the integral lens

shade (protector) tabs, otherwise they would show in a full circle

image. The lens had to be cocked from the back side of the lens board

ut on a camera like the Kardan, that was easy. Good luck!