howiepete

For short distance toting where quick set-up is important I use a satchel with a top zipper with a plastic bin with cutouts to fit the rail placed in the middle. The camera with rail attached is suspended inverted in the bin and the end sections used for all the other stuff. With a quick mount plate still attached to the camera I can have the camera on the tripod and ready to go in less than 10 seconds (I have timed it!!).

 

Howie

Hey Jo,

Your link is fine if you read German.

The problem with cameras like the Gaoersi, Littman, etc. is that they have NO MOVEMENTS--and that is the overwhelming advantage of the large format camera. If you want panoramic landscape photos with foreground detail you really need movements. Maybe panoramic and movements are mutually exclusive, I am not experienced with wide angle beyond-4x5-aspect-ratio photography. Maybe someone else can clarify.

I dry my negatives in the Combi racks, placing the rack above a hair dryer pointed up and set on low heat. Takes about 10 minutes max and I have never had a problem with dust or negatives sticking. For developing I use three Combi tanks and the "dip and dunk" method, never having to empty a tank. A lid is needed on the developing tank only if you want the lights on. Of course I cut the lights on transferring to the stop and fixer tanks. Can set up a sequential arrangement and develop 3 racks (18 sheets) in three different development periods, using N-1, N or N+1 times if needed. Works so great I wonder why everyone doesn't use this method?

Thanks to all the smarter photographers here I figured out how to set the film ISO on my Minolta Spotmeter F. Now I have another question. How can I use it with my new White Lightning strobe flash? Setting the Time at different values gives different f numbers using the meter with the strobe, while I am sure that with electronic flash exposure should be independent of shutter speed as long as the shutter is fully open at the time of the flash. Does this mean that this meter can be used only with continuous lighting?

Hey guys! How about answering my original question? Doesn't a flash meter need to have the film speed input before it can give a sensible reading? My Minolta Spotmeter F manual has no provision for entering a film ASA in describing the use for flash.

Just acquired a White Lightning strobe and want to use it for tabletop

photos. Have a Minolta Spotmeter F which claims flash reading

capability, but it says to set the shutter speed in the meter (within

the camera's X-sync range), plug the sync cord into the meter, aim the

spot at the area to meter and fire the flash. The readout then gives

the f- stop required for the selected shutter speed. QUESTION: CAN

THIS WORK, since there is no way to input the film speed? How does the

Spotmeter know whether you have B&W ASA 400 or Kodachrome 25 in the

camera? Is a puzzlement!!

You are going to need time exposures, even with 400 speed B&W, since you will also have to stop down to get enough DOF. Even gets trickier if you work in daylight and there are stained glass windows in which you want to preserve some detail. I photographed a church organ with windows on each side by working at dusk to get exposure of the windows and waiting until dark to time expose the rest of the sheet with church lighting on. I also found that I could "paint" the organ with a high-power flashlight during an exposure of several minutes at f22 with good results. Needed several tries to get the reciprocity failure accounted for, and I wouldn't dare to try to do this in color!

Sorry, should have included this in my previous comment. Front tilt and rear tilt do NOT give equivalent results. Front tilt does not change the perspective in the same way that rear tilt does. Front tilt moves the circle of illumination, while rear tilt changes perspective. Of course either or both can be used to place the plane of sharp focus by the Scheimpflug principle. In my opinion, you need both.

Mark, "looming" is the exaggerated perspective produced when the back is tilted backward, emphasizing foreground objects. For a great example look at Adam's "Mount Williamson, Sierra Nevada, from Manzanar 1944". This is one of my favorites. Look at those foreground rocks!

Without tilt on the rear standard you lose the ability to cause the foreground to "loom", which produces some of the dramatic effects Ansel Adams often used in his landscapes. I would not want to be without it!

You are probably using too much bellows extension and switching the usual object/image positions! A 90mm lens needs to be nearly 90mm (3.6 inches) from the ground glass to focus objects at a great distance. Try the shortest bellows extension you can use and rack out from there while viewing the glass for landscape objects. If that does not work you may need a recessed lensboard, but most cameras should not need it with a 90mm.

Well, they don't call them "gelatin" for nothing. Think thin, hardened Jell-O!

Great advice Dave, but you forgot to mention the BELLOWS, which connects the lensboard with the back and prevents light from striking the film without going through the lens!

Peter, I can't comment on coverage of lenses for your Crown, but I have found that it is not necessary to reverse the front standard to get forward tilt capability. I puzzled for some time as to why the front lensboard on my gift Crown would only tilt backward until I discovered that by dropping the bed the lensboard is now tilted forward, and with a little rise it can be centered. Back tilting the lensboard to its limit renders the board parallel to the rear standard. Now you have a wide range of forward tilt available--all you would ever need. And no, tilt and other movements are not overrated. Without them a large format camera would be little more than a big box camera.

Thanks, everyone, for these excellent suggestions. It is so great to be able to tap into all this expertise.

 

Howie

OK, I can take the flack! I failed to properly label some containers

of developer and fixer and need to identify. Have tried by smell and

color (but not taste!) with no success. Is there an easy way without

committing some film? What about litmus paper? Don't have any but

could get. I know--next time don't mark with grease pencil on plastic

bottles. It rubs off when wet! Thanks for suggestions!

 

Howie

Edward, wondering why the designers provided only a backward lensboard tilt, (not very useful for landscapes) I reversed the tilt mechanism on my Crown Graphic. But changed it back when I found that by dropping the bed and raising the lens you have an automatic 15 degree forward tilt. You can then tilt the lensboard all the way back to achieve zero tilt, or any value between 15 degrees and zero. The designers were not so dumb after all!

Obviously Joe wants to end this thread. OK by me! But first I need to eat a little crow and then salvage what is left of my reputation. I assumed until I saw Wieslaw's photo of the mask that it was located flush with the center filter. Things change if it is some distance in front. And the little experiment involving covering half of a lens and observing the entire image dimmed by half works only for a single (simple) lens with the card on the lens. (Try it!) Things are different with a complex lens system, as Matthew points out. The real world is so much harder to deal with than the ideal one!

Joe,

My comment was a general one, not taking into account the center filter. Any lens performs a two-dimensionnal Fourier transform on the light incident on it, which can be stated in simple terms as: "EVERY point on the lens contributes to EVERY point in the image". So cutting out some of the lens edge by a mask removes those contributions and dims the image. There is no one-to-one correspondence between the shape of a mask on the lens and the shape of the image. Ask someone not aware of this what happens to the image if you cover half of the lens and they will respond "You cut off half of the image", or they may, thinking they are very clever, (remembering the image inversion), state: "You cut off the opposite half of the image". (My students were suckers for this!) Then you cover half of the lens with a card and see the image dim by half, but IT IS ALL THERE!

Well, Wieslaw, suddenly my legs are feeling longer! You are forgetting that your mask will reduce the light transmission of the lens and will not shield against light entering the lens at large angles with the axis, outside the field of view of the lens. These rays are the ones that cause image degradation and a proper hood blocks them. There, my legs feel better already!

 

Howie

In physics optics classes I taught, one of the eyeopening concepts students appreciated was that: "Every part of the lens contributes to every part of the image". You can cover half of a lens and still see all of the image, although the intensity is cut in half. A scratch or other imperfection anywhere on the lens will scatter some light over ALL of the image, decreasing contrast. However stopping down restricts some of the marginal rays, so a defect away from the optical center has a smaller effect than one near the center. Aberrations due to marginal rays which are (harder to correct) are also reduced at smaller apertures. Hence one reason for stopping down. To answer more directly to your question: a scratch at the edge of the lens will not produce a defect at the edge of the film, rather, it may reduce contrast over the entire image plane.

Just wait until you see a 16X20! You will wonder why you bothered with 11X14! Now I am going for 20X24 when I can find some large trays that don't cost an arm and a leg. Where does it all end???

 

Howie

John, I bought a 138S which was shipped from NJ to MO last fall by truck freight. It was in 2 wood crates with the head and top of column in one and the feet and lower column with the baseboard in the other. Total shipping weight was near 400 lb but about half of that was the heavy particle board crating. It was well packaged, strapped inside and padded and arrived in perfect shape. It was shipped by the CEO of a chemical company as "detergent" for less than $200. Doubt the average shipper would be able to package that well and ship for so little.

 

Howiepete

Just bought an old APO Ronar f9 240mm lens and it has a little notched

lever that moves but does not do anything visible. What is it for?

There is also a red letter marking on the diaphragm ring:

2--5--10--20mm that is an additional mystery. Anybody have any ideas?

Thanks. (I do know that is will have to find a shutter to mount it

into, or use my hat!)

I accidentally developed a T-max 100 4x5 negative in Dektol, and was

surprised that the result looks very good, maybe a little contrasty.

Have not printed it yet, but I intend to do so. Has anyone else made

this observation?

 

4x5 Newbie