david_grandy5

I have a older Toyo Field and it uses the old Graflex lens boards so yes the 90 (at least the f8) will fit fine on your camera. There are lots of Graflex boards out there so getting one drilled to fit you lens shouldn't be all that difficult. If you have that awful 135 that came with the Graflex then you can easily have that board re-sized.

 

You should know that the 90 is a very moderate wide angle - it's more or less a 28 mm in 35 mm format - so you aren't going to get tons of wide angle effect from it.

 

So I would recommend either the 65 or 72/75 mm lens focal lengths. Now the 65 is VERY wide and possibly more than you'd like. And in spite of an earlier post the 65 f8 has almost NO movements in the 4x5 format. But then again you won't get much movement from your Graflex either so the point is kind of moot.

 

You are also going to get significant fall off with a lens like the 65 and this can either be cherished as a built in edge burning machine or fixed with an expensive centre grad filter. Me, I like it so I do nothing. THis would also get rid of a lot of the ceilings you might be worried about!

 

As for focusing it is going to be very dark with these wide angles, and especially if you use that centre grad filter. Although I've never tried it, using a laser pointer to give you a highlight to focus on, might be a good idea.

 

By the way although f8 is f8, the wider the lens the darker it's going to look, and the more difficult it will be to focus.

 

I have a 65 f8 SA, a 90 f8 SA and a 300 F9. I was very concerned abou the 300 before I got it. "Geez, this f9 stuff, will I be able to see through it?" When it arrived I stuck it on a lens board and ran outside during a dark drizzly March day. I shot a couple of frames and hightailed back into the house. After I was sitting down for a while I realized that I hadn't noticed how dark the viewfinder was. And if I didn't notice, then it obviously wans't a problem!

I have a similar - but not soft - hood that came with my Toyo Field camera. It folds up and is basically a larger version of what you'd get on an old twin lens reflex.

 

Anyway I never use it for shooting. THere's no way that I can get a loupe onto the groundglass and I've never found that the groundglass is shaded and therefore dark enough.

 

I do use the Toyo shade as a groundglass protector when I'm transporting the camera and for that it works fine.

 

So as neat and as inexpensive as this hood is, I just don't think that it'll do the job.

Let me put it to you this way: My bellows gets in the way well before I lose image circle with my 300 f9 M, and that has to be about three to four inches of rise.

 

My inability to give you anything more specific is due to the 300's use on an old B&J wood field camera, where the fine tuning of rise or swing is very similar to the opening or closing of a screen door! You grab it, you haul on it and you manuever it this way while checking the groundglass. So whatever precision you get is a happy accident! It doesn't hurt the pictures but it does leave image circle accuracy something for someone else.

I have and use one of the older metal Toyo Field cameras. It was originally designed to be a 5x7 but most were factory configured to be 4x5's as is mine. The camera has about 16" of bellows draw and I use mine with a regular flat lens board and a Nikkor 300 f9 M lens for the odd portrait.

 

It's a very nice camera and although it was never officially imported into North America there are more than a few out there in eBay land.

Yup me too.

 

I carry a Toyo 5x7 Field Camera (the older one) configured to be a 4x5. I carry about ten 4x5 film holders, a Polaroid 405 film back (and an extra pack of Polaroid film), a Cabin 4x loupe, a 65 SA f8, a 90 SA f8, a 150 Xenar, a 210 Symmar convertible, and a 300 f9 M Nikkor. The lenses are small and my back thanks me!

 

As well I have a Minolta IVf meter, a BTZS darkcloth, various filters, a couple of cable releases plus cloth cleaning rags, bellows calculator, a note book. Plus there's a lens changing wrench, a bubble level, and a multitool.

 

If I think that I will need more film than I've loaded I bring that, a changing bag and some empty film boxes. Generally though I like to leave that stuff at the base camp.

 

My Photo Trekker AW is a little bit older than the current model and I can't use the LowePro tripod hanger. It's designed for the Photo Trekker, just not mine; which LowePro has gone out of its way NOT to talk about. So I try to lash the tripod (a wood Beurleback with a Manfroto ball head) to the back in some fashion, although I carry it by hand if it's a short trip.

 

Since I just find it so much more comfortable to be able to sit down to compose, rather than kneeling on a pebble, I do bring a small tripod camping chair that I attach to the outside of the bag.

I have one of the older Toyo Field cameras and each day I think how lucky I was to get it. When I lay awake at night dreaming about new toys the only camera that I can think that would surpass all of the Toyo's features would be a Tech V or better.

 

These cameras are really 5x7 cameras, but most will have been factory configured to be 4x5's. They are metal and were made in the early 70's or so. I don't think that they were ever officialy marketed in North America but were probably brought in as sort of grey market imports. I have an an an ad from Olden (I think) Camera from the back of a '71 Popular Photography that is the only bit of North American advertising I've ever seen.

 

In any event the Field Camera is well made. It has about 16" of bellows due I suspect to it being a 5x7. This length is longer than reported in a review elsewhere on this site. Perhaps that review didn't take into account the two back "pistons" that can be released to expand the bellows by at least two inches.

 

It has a rotating back and takes the old Graflex lens boards. Mine came with a Toyo sliding medium format back which looks just like the current models although I couldn't say for sure that the new ones would fit.

 

It has front tilt and swing and good rise and fall, but no front shift. It has no back movements except for back tilt which is really a function of how the camera opens. Because I use this camera only for field work (duh) I've never found the lack of back movements to be be a problem.

 

I use lenses from a 65 mm f8 SA to a 300 mm Nikkor M and all on conventional lens boards. I will admit that the bellows is pretty squished with the 65 aboard but the lack of image circle with that lens has made movements moot anyway. I can release the front bed to make it drop so it getout of the way when I'm using the 65.

 

With the 300 I've been able to do portraits and not have any bellows concerns at all. The Graflex lens board isn't very big, and while I haven't had any problems with mounting lenses, mine are all relatively small. If you had a really big lens like a 300 f5.6 it might not mount.

 

All in all this is a great camera. Everytime a manufacturer reduces the number of movements I think it makes a more rigid camera.

 

If you are thinking about gettting a metal field camera and can live without the missing movements then there is none better than this one, and they turn up regularly on eBay.

I think that I'd just stay with the scanner if I was you.

 

I have an Omega Chromega D enlarger with wonderful lenses and wonderful everything else. But it's huge and it takes up a whole room in my house.

 

I mean the enlarger is only part of it. I put in running water and a ventilation system in order to make it work and to keep me alive. I have the Omega bolted down directly to a custom made enlarging table that must weigh 75 kg all by itself. I have large large shelves to keep large (duh) paper, and this takes up space too.

 

Anyway my point is that a digital approach will save you tons of room and won't cost you any more. And frankly I'm disapointed now by what I CAN'T do in the darkroom that I can in Photoshop.

 

I also wonder how long the darkroom stuff will be commonly available. Every time a photo paper is discontinued an inkjet paper seems to be introduced.

You might want to wait a little bit and have a look at the Epson 3200 which is going to replace the 2450 and be the same price.

 

There haven't been any third person reviews yet so it could turn out to be not as good as my drooling wants it to be be, but the better specs make me want to give it a chance

"A truly experienced photographer should know his/her tools well enough to make proper exposures, therefore bracketing is a crutch to those not in command of the process. For those new to photography, such as you, it can help in the learning process as long as they keep notes to track what is going on exposurewise. By the way, from reading your various responses to others here you seem rather immature. Why do you give others grief and piss people off just because they may not agree with you or make an joking comment about something you may say? If you can't be positive don't say anything, please."

 

- And you are referring to which message?

I would assume then, that Sinar will offer a refund equal to the cost of the whole shoot if you follow their advice and it doesn't work out. Hmm, I wonder why not?

 

Look, anyone who shoots transpaprency film without bracketing in a non repeatable situation (like a copy job) is a moron. This advice is right up there with the 35 mm shooter who knows that HE can hand hold his camera down to 1/15 of second. There are NO contests for how slow you can handhold your camera or how little film it takes you to get a good exposure. Only good images count.

 

My concern about E6 is so finicky that it may well be the PROCESS as much as the exposure that causes variation in the results. In any case it seems to me that the film is the cheapest part of this whole game.

Gee my APX 100 likes red filters just fine.

 

Don't think that this very nice film has ANYTHING to do with Agfa's APX400, which may well be the world's worst film.

Although this isn't exactly on point I have a story to tell.

 

When I was a university a fellow photographer bought a used enlarger. He already had a set of EL-Nikkors and he looked at the "comes-with-the-enlarger" EL-Cheapo lens with some disgust. So for a lark (and probably after a beer or two) he took a hammer and smashed the front element of this $10 lens. After he had done that, it occured to us that this might produce some interesting results in the darkroom. So we grabbed it and a neg, an off we went to try a print.

 

When we made an exposure though this lens we were all amazed to see that it had no obvious effect! Was it sharp? It seemed to be. Was it contrasty? No worse than usual. And the ding that he put in the lens looked like what would happen when a rock hits a car window.

 

I'm sure that optical quaility WAS reduced. But after seeing how much damage was done to the lens and how little it affected the test print, I've decided that owing a pristine lens just makes me feel better and that a small ding on a lens wouldn't be the end of the world.

I use a 135 Schneider Componon-S on my D6/Super Chromega with a three lens turret and it look as thought there's plenty of extra bellows draw to allow for a 150.

 

If I have a problem with mine it's that I have to push a 50 mm up as far as I can and this makes me uncomfortable with the stress that I'm putting on the squished bellows.

Although this isn't exactly on point I recently went to an amateur astronomy presentation where the speaker was showing us breathtaking images where he combined different exposures. His favorite technique was to use Photoshop's LAB colour.

 

Not to get too far into this he showed us colour shots and how relativley poor they were. Then he showed us some shots that he had taken with 4x5 Kodak Tech Pan cut down to about 6X9, which were much sharper and more detailed, although only B&W.

 

If you look at what makes up LAB colour one of the three "layers" is B&W so he removed the colour's B&W LAB layer and replaced with his Tech Pan layer while retaining the two colour layers. And once again breathtaking is the best word to describe the results.

 

As for alignment this guy had also developed a software program for specifically aligning star images. "Well this one I took and that one came from Mexico ..." he said as he described where parts of each final shot came from.

 

It's almost magic to watch as this program twists and turns the second and third (or more) images to make it match up with the first, as literally thousands of stars are read and taken into account.

 

Here's the URL for that software site, which also has the images I'm talking about: http://www.aurigaimaging.com/ Please Note: I have no financial relations with this guy at all.

I used to work for a daily newspaper and we were using Tri-X and developed it in D76 with replenishement. A typical day would involve two to three development runs.

 

After I had been there for a couple of weeks I began to notice a problem with the skin on the two middle fingers on my right hand. They'd get red and after the third run the skin would crack. I'm pretty sure that had I done a fourth run then they'd bleed. My index and baby finger were fine but the two middle ones were horrible!

 

I was using a metal tank and reel system with the plastic/rubber tops and these tanks would leak a little when I inverted the tank during processing, and that of course was the problem. I brought in a pair of dish washing rubber gloves to use and the problem went away.

 

The funny thing was that in 1988 the rubber gloves were a source of amusement to the other shooters. By 1994 when I left not only was everyone else using gloves, but the paper was supplying them.

 

I use Patterson tanks for roll film now and a Unicolor tank for LF so I don't "hand invert" the tanks at all so I don't need to use the gloves. Perhaps this is one more reason to NOT tray process or dip and dunk process LF film, unless you enjoy wearing gloves up to your shoulders.

I'm using a Unicolor roller and motor base and had exactly the same problem you've described until I increased the volume of developer solution.

 

That one change solved fixed my problem completely. With an 8x10 sheet of film you have 80 square inches of film and that's pretty much the same as a roll of 120 or 35 mm film (think contact sheets) so it should come to no surprise that a sheet of 8x10 should take the same 250-300 ml of solution as those other formats.

As someone else suggested try a camping equipment store. The usually describe these type of chairs as camp stools. I prefer the tripod style so I can fold it up and lash it to my camera backpack without it taking up much room or causing much trouble.

 

I've been using one for LF photography for years and I can't say how important it is to me. When I get to where I'm going I can sit down and have a good look through the groundglass without kneeling on a pebble.

 

I also find that this type of chair just underwhelmes other LF photographers who I speak to so it's nice to see that someone else thinks that it's a good idea too!

I own and use a Nikkor 300 M and just don't see all of the softness everyone else is

talking about. I've only made contact prints with the 300 and I expect that's all I'll ever

do unless I get a scanner with an 8x10 transparency capability.

 

As for sharpness, I've got 8x10 transparencies that I've examined with a loupe and they

are wonderfully sharp. I've been more than satisfied with the 300 both in 4x5 and 8x10

and I'd gladly recommend one to anyone.

 

I originally got the 300 M as a portrait lens for my 4x5, since it was small, cheap and

multicoated. Later I had an opportunity to pick up a B&J 8x10 filed camera for a very

low price and owning the 300 made this a do-able proposition. Before I used the M on

8x10 I just assumed that it would be like a Schneider Xenar and by that I mean that it

would just barely cover the format. I was surprised to find that the bellow would get in

the way well before I ran out of image circle.

 

Although this isn't all that important another reason that the 300 M has been a delight is

that it - as all good Nikkor lenses should be - takes 52 mm filters and that has been more

than useful.

Actually any pro colour neg film - the modern Fuji's, Portra's and the Agfa Optima's will have that forth emulsion that is very friendly with flourescent light.

 

As for your shutterspeed question with transparency film, it would depend on how bright the ambient light was. I mean if you were getting an exposure of 1/1 @ f8 then 1/125 @ f8 would kill the green dead. But if the ambient light was within two or three stops of your strobe exposure then there could be trouble.

Before you go to far, perhaps you should dummy up a piece of very thin (wood model making thin) plywood to test drill a few holes to see how much of centre you can get away with. It would far too easy to get greedy and then have those bellows vignetting problems you mentioned. The amount of rise probably isn't going to be as much as you'd like but even a little is better than none.

 

By the way this off centre lens with the "free" rise would also give you "free" fall or shift depending on whether you mounted the lensboard upside down or sideways. All in all a useful and pretty cheap endevour.

I think that I'd start by saying that they don't call field cameras, field cameras by accident. The monorail's much larger bellows - whose design is remarkably like a box kite, is just a big vibration inducing sail.

 

Hey I have nothing against monorails, but this isn't what they were designed for. That design, with the smallish rail (compared to a flatbed), is to allow much more extensive and free front and back movements. And this design does have a fair bit of stability as long as wind isn't introduced into the equation.

 

So the cure: Try using a field camera in the field and a monorail in the studio.

I use one of the older 5x7 Toyo Field cameras that was factory configured to be a 4x5, and I routinely use a 65 mm f8 Super Angulon on it.

 

That lens lacks much image circle and the bellows is bound up pretty good when it's in the shooting position, but it does work. If you were to get a 75 and perhaps a recessed lens board you would get more coverage and a freer bellows, although with a longer lens.

 

The other trick that I've considered for the 65 is to get an extra lens board and have it drilled with the lens mount off centre. The hole would be a few mm higher than normal. Then when I mount the lens I'd get a little bit of "free" rise, without binding the bellows any more than when it was in the neutral position. If I inverted the lens I'd reverse this effect and get "free" fall. With the lens mounted side ways I'd get shift, and so on.

 

Anyway this camera is cheap, well made and can use WA's. Since it is "really" a 5x7 Toyo made it with a long (for its time) 16" bellows so lenses like a 300 mm can be used easily, on the chance that you want to do some closer shots.

Although this might violate an Antiques Roadshow rule, I just went to a local shoe repair shop and had the guy make me a strap for my wood 8x10 B&J, after the original had literally rotted off.

 

He made it with maroon horsehide and brass rivets and I think that I paid about $10 Cdn for it. In fact I like it so much that I had him make another for my Toyo Metal Field camera.

 

I did hang on to the old plastic strap on the off chance that I hear "Well the camera is worth X but if it had the original plastic strap ..."

I had some older Kodak Darkroom Dataguides from the 60's, 70's and 80's and in almost each one there was a different development number for Tri-X. Since D-76 hasn't changed then one could only presume that Kodak has tweaked Tri-X - and really all of its films - from the beginning. So "New Tri-X" is only one of many, many, new Tri-X's over the years, all of which perform very well.

I think that retrofocus wide angles were developed to fix the problem of rear elements getting in the way of 35 mm SLR mirrors. But the retrofocus design is a compromise. The Hassleblad Super Wide (or whatever they're calling it this week) has a non retrofocus design and I doubt that they're doing it by accident.

 

Would a retrofocus lens have a different bellows extension factor? How big would the image circle be? I wonder. So although retrofocus might cure one problem it wouldn't be a better optical lens or soleve many other problems.