john_d._haughton

Thankyou all for your wise advice, both positive and negative. I actually e-mailed your responses to my friend and he and the bride to be still want me to do the pictures! They insist that for them what is important is to enjoy a day with their friends and family, they do not want the normal photographer dominated production. So it could be OK.

But I have to admit that your advise has caused me to change my approach considerably ... an auto everything 35mm SLR as the main camera, a 35 mm manual SLR as back up and only if the occasion permits will I indulge myself with one or two B&W shots on the 5x4. I also realise my choice of colour film technology was a little bit wide of the mark, high contrast low latitude transparency film would not have been a good idea.

Cheers

The inevitable has happened and a friend has asked me to do the

photographs for his wedding. As an amatuer who's main photographic

activity is B&W landscape and architecture with a 5x4 field camera,

this does seem like a bit of a misjudgement on my friends part. The

plan is to do the formal shots with the 5x4 camera (58mm, 90mm and

150mm lenses)using 5x4" B&W negs and 6x7cm colour transparency film

in a roll-film back and then use a couple of 35mm manual focus SLRs

for backup and candid shots.

Is this a really stupid idea or has anybody else done this and got

away with it? Any advice?

Leigh,

(a) The tripod socket thread is "standard" i.e. I assume this is 3/8" the same as all the other cameras I have every used.

(b) The base plate is 57mm wide (parallel to film plane) by 55mm long (lens axis). The tripod socket is centred width wise and is 28 mm from the front of the plate and 27 mm from the rear. The measurements worked out as exact mm so I expect that it was designed in mm.

I hope that helps. Enjoy the camera its quite a good one!

I processed some 5x4's in a Jobo CPE2 (rotary processor) with a 3-bath + stab. E6 kit. But for the final stabilistaion bath decided not to put the dev tank back on the CPE2 because the instructions said the stabilsation bath should be less than 25 deg C. (CPE2 water bath was at 38 deg C) Unfortunately my reasoning ran out at this point and I didn't roll the dev tank on its side but just left it upright. Consequently the top third of my transparancies have not been stabilised and are lighter than the bottom two thirds with a distinct line between the two regions.

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Will re-running the stabilsation bath correct the fault or am I in danger of damaging the trannies?

Mr Cad in Croyden (www.mrcad.co.uk) have the cheapest B&W sheet film

(Maco UP100) that I have found so far. Maybe not the best film on the

market, but the low price makes learning from my mistakes not too

painful.

In short, works well and is easy to use.

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Fits in the hand, with a nice rubber grip. The buttons and control

wheel can all be operated with just one thumb. (May not be quite so

easy for left handers)

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Having one meter that does everything (everything that I need) is

really quite pleasing. I like the freedom to choose how I meter,

incident or reflected depending on the subject and situation, without

the hassle and expense of carrying two meters. I know other meters

have a zoom spot, but I have not felt the need to zoom when spot

metering, selecting the 1 deg or the 5 deg spot is fine by me. Like

most digital devices it has more functions than is strictly

necessary, but most of this extra functionality, Zone mode, physical

unit measurements etc. has to be selected using DIP switches in the

battery compartment, which means that the basic photographic

functions are not cluttered up with these special options.

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Negative points ...

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(1) Wheel control on side is not 100%, misses a click every now and

then, not quite bad enough to send back and seems to be improving

with use, but I would recommend you check this before you buy one.

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(2) Stupid plastic cap for the flash sync socket. Once removed

requires extreme skill and perseverance to reinsert. I suspect it

will not be long before I cut it off.

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(3) Lens cap on view finder pops off too easily. I think I lost mine

within a month.

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Minor points maybe, but a shame when the rest of it has been put

together so well.

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Would have been nice ...

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A meter display in the view finder. The head rotates which makes this

less of a problem. But it would have been nice not to have to move

the light meter to my eye and then away again between each spot

reading.

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But to be honest, it does the job and I don't expect I shall be

upgrading to another light meter for some time to come.