john_cremati

Hi , I shoot a lot of flat glass artwork .......All of the suggestions so far are excellent and exactley what you need to do..... The black cloth, (4)45 degree lights, if possible polarized the light and use a polarizer on the lens, are all exactley what you want to be doing to minimise glare........ Anouther curve ball to watch for is that the camera and your image will appear in the photograph as a reflection unless you take measures to prevent this..... The shooting thru a hole in a black cloth will remedy this.......

John Cremati

Always remember that there is not a woman alive that wants her portrait taken with a normal lens...... Think soft focus......jc

A Old masters trick is to use a longer focal lenght lens for perspective control and not having to climb up a models nose to get a good shot..... It puts the subject at ease being a little farther away.............. You can also shoot shadowless backgrounds as the background will appear much closer than it is...... In many cases you will need a long bellows..........John ....

I am jelous I did not think of it..........jc

I do not know why anyone would object to placing a 360mm on a Toyo 4x5......The front standard will certainly hold it and the lensboard is big enough.......... As long as the bellows will accomodate the lens your shooting , there should be no problems............ If you are a Portrait Photographer a trick of the masters is to use longer focal length lenses to eliminate subject shadow on the backdrops.... ( the backdrop will appear much closer than it really is) .... It also help in portraiture as it offers better perspective ..... You will also be at a farther distance from the subject so they are more comfortable.......... I would send the lens to SK Grimes or Lens Services in Wisconsin for a good CLA.....It will cost about $50 to $100 and the lens is certainly worth it......

I do not know what I was thinking but I made a Huge mistake..... I originally used the 3005 for 4x5 using 5x7 quantities of chemistry.... I then purchased a pair of 3006 drums for the 4x5 to cut down on chemical waste..... John C.

I use a 3005 to process 4x5 all of the time.... Your chemistry volume is determined by the number of sheets you develope and the size of the sheet..... I process E-6 on a ATL 3 processor ( Unicolors 3 part chemistry ) with very pleasing results.... You can also do 5x7 and up to 8x10 in this drum...... Only way to go as the Pro drums use minimal chemistry......jc

Does anyone know if this lens has a fish eye effect if the shot was taken wide open aperature?

You can lead a horse to water but can not make him drink. Every one has their own way of doing things, if the grindingstone works for you with available materials , more power to ya. A piece of sandpaper will work as well.......You may want to take your research a little further though ...... ..... I can tell you this much , historically that is not the way it is done professionally and in most cases it is not how it is done by most ametures as well....... The abrasive between two peices of glass will give a much finer uniform surface........Obtaining small amount of grits in various sizes is availabe at any lapidary shop or sandblast supply ...... Glass Acid etching solution is available at most stained glass shops, as well as window Glazing supply houses ...

I have a both a Toyo 4x5 and 8x10 G ....... I am happy with both..... You regularly see lensboards, and accessories on the used market on FeePay ......... The market is just loaded with the Omega Toyo series view cameras so this is probably the reason you can buy accessories so easily and cheaply.......... $400 is the price most Toyo G's have been selling for on FeePay for the last year......Parts are also easily available.....The system can interchange from 4x5 to 8x10........Hopefully you will get some accessories with your camera......... Beware that Toyo bellows are nortorious for pinholes....... If there is any wear in the corners , chances are you will have a leaker.......John Cremati..

FYI a interesting process lens that I have been playing with is the JML 165 mm process lens...... It has 6 air spaced elements and I believe it is just single coated......... It covers 8x10 just as it sits at F8. so it is a wonderful WA lens for 8x10.......... It is a APO designed lens used for Graphic arts in Nu Arc Process cameras.......I Noticed that the iris when full opened at F8 only covered about 1/2 of the diameter of the lens opening.......... I took the lens apart and and ground out and extended the apeture stop slot so the iris when full opened would be the full diameter of the lens......... I estimate that it is now about f4.......At this smaller wide open apetures you get wonderful fall off and glare in the highlights.........It has a mild fish eye effect at F4 which diminishes as you close down the apeture.......You can remove the front lens and you have a great rear softfocus lens at about 300 mm as it is a symetrical design...........It is hard to get a sharp image at that focal lenght...... You can stop down dramatically and get a fairly sharp image in the center............. You can then disassemble the lens and reverse one of the front rear elements and you get about a 2 inch clear center with everthing falling off and going into extreem ghosting , halos and fisheye effects....... It is just a very interesting lens at this point and it is Still wide angle........... I paid $25 for mine and they come up on ebay reguarly and cheap.............. I rigged mine with a front mount Packard shutter that will also fit on the front even when the front lens is removed...... There is nothing subtle about this lens except when used as a stock process lens........ Let me know if any of you try it......John Cremati

The New Cooke SF lens in its "dependible" ( and repairable if need be ) Copal#3 shutter to a good Portrait artist would be a money maker.......... There is not a woman alive that wants her picture taken with a normal lens........From what little I can see the soft effect is enough to hide blemishes and give the subject pleasing appearence.....If I had a strong portrait bussiness, it would be a no brainer..... To the fine art photographer it definatley has its place but I at times personally like the heavier flares and halos in the highlights ....... I personally would like to have both a Pinkham and the New Cooke as each lens has its useful characteristics......From what I can see they are two different animals.......If I could justify the cost I would seriously consider the new Cooke lens......

John Cremati , Cleveland, Ohio.

Hi,

 

I got the soft focus bug pretty bad..... I can share a few tips of what little I know .....I have studied it the best I can as not much is written on it in depth, and have purchased several lenses and modified a modern APO process lens to soft focus for a total of 4 ..............You are right in going for a lens as the traditional Soft focus effect can not be duplicated by the use of filters......... The problem you will have if you are going for a new portrait lens is that the new lenses have relativley short focal lenghts......If you study the masters of soft focus Portraits you will notice that they all have 8x10 cameras minimum.....They also will have thier bellows streched considerably.....They do not tell you this in the books but I believe that the reason many of thier images do not have the multiple lighting shadows is that they are using 14 to 22 inch long focal length lenses..... They are getting a telephoto effect where the background is much farther away than it appears......They are also many times filling the entire frame with a head shot and the features are not distorted .... Again this would indicate a long lens..............You will find in researching SF lenses is that they all have very different qualities...... Ansle Adams began playing around with SF lenses and found that the Soft images can not stand much enlargement before they fall apart.....Again this is why you find the oldtimers using 8x10 or 11x14 cameras............ A great book to see what the old lenses do is called "Professional Portrait Lightings" by Charles Abel where they take over 100 photographers and they tell how they took the shot including which lens they use..... For a coated Soft Focus lens that is color corrected, the absolute cheapest way out is the Wollensak Veritar....It comes in 12 and 14 inch sizes in barrel or shutter..... Wollensak make this lens for color work and it is supposidly a "Verito" lens on Steriods...........As far as the new lenses go I would die to have the Cooke spin off of the Pinkham Smith Visual Series IV of which I own two , one in 14 inch and the other in 18 inch....... The new lens is coated and corrected for color so it can not possibly have the same effect as the old Pinkhams although they claim it is the same lens formula....The old Pinkhams used both Chromatic and Spherical aberations to achieve the effect they became famous for .....I would be very interested in seeing a side by side shot of the the two lenses with everyting being equal.....A huge advantage of the new lens is that they are in Copal Shutters but again that is at the sacrifce of both small formats and higher aperatures..........On old lenses another good book although very short is by Jay Allen " Historic Soft Focus Lenses" .... He lists the manufactures description of their lenses..... What is surpising is that some 18+ inch lenses were designed for 4x5 or 5x7 format....... Good luck, I will follow this post and jump in now and then....jc

I recently bought a Schnieder 300mm Symmarr S f 5.6 and also a 480 mm f 5.6 ... I have not used them yet but I can tell you what little I know..... You want to get the multicoated as they are the later models with the APO designation being the latest .... I paid $360 for the 300 mm and about $650 for the 480 mm on Ebay.. It seams they come up randomly but not as often as you would like if you are in the market for one.............. A big problem with them is that they are a huge piece of glass with Copal 3 shutters......The both take 105mm filters which are expensive but both lenses take the same size....The lenses new were supposedly over $3000 each!

Hi, I have not tried this but it is on my list of things that I must absolutley must try... I was given a "Van Load" of Ilfochrome by a local lab that went under and was told that you can do this shooting at a ASA of about 5....... Please keep me informed of your progress and let me know what size your shooting and all details..........I will do the same......John Cremati

I have done this several times........ It is a pain in the butt to do but probably as easy as it will get...... I used a black nylon taffetta coated with a silver urethane back ....... It is not 100 percent light tight but very close with a random pin hole now and then...... I have found that once recovered it is usually 100 percent light tight...... The advantage to this material is that it is extreemly thin at .005 to .006 inches.......I purchased it at http://www.owfinc.com/ They will send you a sample if you ask...... This is a surplus fabric store and they may be out of it, although they have gotten fresh shipments in several times......... A problem you would have with this material is that it will react with regular contact cement..... You need to get some Upholstery contact cement that is used for foam products..... I used Camie Fast Set Foam and Fabric Adhesive, #313B,Camie-Campbell, Inc. 9225 Watson Industrial Park, St. Louis , MO. 63126 this is absolutley fabulous stuff ......... It is like a contact adheasive but if you apply one coat to one surface, you can glue it up and the material can be pulled apart if need be......If you apply a coat to each surface it becomes permanent.....It will affect the urethane coating on the Taffetta but only slightly if a heavy application is applied. The viscosity is thin so it can be applied with a brush pretty evenly....... It is only about $20 a gallon. They may private lable under other names so you may want to contact them to see what is available in your area.......The problem with recovering a bellows is that the material has to be flat or you will get air pockets and bubbles.... What I have done is removed the bellows , split it and taped it to a piece of glass with very low tack double sided tape...... I then rolled the fabric out so that it would be very flat...... I then applied the new material and reglued the seam using a product called ? Seam Sealer ? that is use on back packs......It is tough stuff! The contact cement may be used in this case as well but I have not tried it...........Like I had said this job is a pain in the butt and by the time your thru, you may want to just buy a new bellows....... John Cremati

I recently did a search on "sold" Wollensak Lenses on Ebay and found that they really sell for very little money.......They would probably be great entry level lenses....... The Raptar 8 1/2 inch or 210mm lens I believe can be used as as wide angle on the 8x10 and is considered a normal taking lens for 4x5.....It will fit directley into a Alphax shutter with no machining nessisary if you buy it in barrel.... ......The problem you have is switching lens boards and it may in fact be good advice to get rid of one of the cameras...... You can probably find a 4x5 reducing back for the Cambo .....I personally would go with that...... John Cremati

I just lined a case for my 8x10 using Upolstrey contact cement . It will not disolve foam or synthetic fabric.....) I used Gortex fabric on the inside.......You only coat one side and apply the fabric dry to the case.....and it is sticky enough for the job....... If I were to do it over, I would just buy or retrofit a case.......I would not use neopreen or foam except for shipping and then I would cut sheets and place it into the case, but a fabric liner is nice..... Out gasing may be a problem and it may also attack the bellows of the camera........ I have a Case for a older Calumet that I would sell for $65....I could send dimensions if there is any intrest.....John Cremati

What effect does a electronic dimmer have on quartz lighting for

Black and White photography? I know for a fact that the color

temperature decreases dramatically when using a dimmer, but what does

that translate into when using B&W film?

I have several Rodenstock APO Ronar CL process lenses in various

focal lengths ..... Do these make good macro lenses?......

I have a large Bogen Ball head and recently changed it out to a used Majestic Gear head...... Although the ball head will handle 4x5 or even 8x10 I am " much much much" ,happier with the gear head for the large format work!....... For medium or 35 mm format the ball head would be fine.......The bigger cameras want to get away from you using the ball head............. The Majestic price was $50 used on Ebay...... I see them frequently listed...............jc

I think I absolutley agree with you about lining the hole with felt........I had a role around here somewhere and could not find it...... When I loose anything anymore I do not even bother looking for it........ It has been me against the pile and the pile has won......jc

It has probably been though of before but I came up with a nice

system for front mounting Packard Shutters....... It has a removable

9/16 thick snug fitting birch plywood plate that can be exchanged

for other boards with different size lens openings very easily using

4 small thumb screws. The thumb screws are made of a small

threaded bolt screwed tightly into a wing nut...... To drill the

holes I just used a adjustable hole cutter and a drill

press.............. The rear screw nuts are flat to the board and are

out of the way and stay permanently on the board. The flat nuts

have barbs on them and are nailed into the wood............... John

Cremati

HI,........

I recently found a old 8 x8 inch Packard Shutter in a basement.......

It was rusted with surface rust inside and out...... The Shutter

would barley move........ I dissassemled the shutter and sandblasted

all metal surfaces with fine aluminum oxide..... I then did not paint

the shutter but clear laquered it inside and out....... I then

cleaned the shutter and applied Armoral vinyl treatment ....... The

result was amazing .....The shutter works effortlessly........

 

Does anyone have any other tips to increase the speed on these

shutters.........jc

I have a 184 chasis ...... The lab that I had purchased it from gave me a group of carriers, all of which are home made of thin aluminum sheet and a couple of extras are even made mat of board...........A sharp Utilitiy knife scoring Thin aluminum sheet reapeatily will cut thru it........A local sheet metal shop can cut them to size for you.....