david_grandy1

I use the Lowe Pro Photo Trekker AW. I carry (typically) a Toyo

filed camera (the older

and larger 5x7/4x5 model), 65, 90,150, 210 and 300 mm lenses; all on

lens boards. I

bring about a dozen 4x5 film holders, a Polaroid 405 back, a Minolta

Autometer IVf

meter, and a BTZS focusing hood.

 

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There's also a smattering of the usual supply of bits, like filters,

a Cabin loupe, cable

release and so forth. I hang a small tripod chair to the outside of

the bag since I find that

sitting and being comfortable means that I get to look through the

viewfinder for longer

periods of time and that means better pictures.

 

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I like the bag a lot. If I strap it on properly I find that I can

walk for kilometers without

being aware that it's there, and that has to be the highest

compliment for a bag like this.

I've also traveled by air with this bag and it complies with the

airlines stow it "under the

seat" rule.

 

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If there's one think that I don't like about the bag it's that I

can't put a tripod sling/mount

on it, so I have to hand carry my tripod. Lowe Pro does sell such a

mount for this bag,

but it turns out that there were two (or more) Photo Trekkers and it

will only fit on one

newer than mine; something Lowe Pro doesn't mention at all in their

literature. The

newest bags may well come with the tripod sling built in, but that

doesn't help me much.

Wait until you see an 8x10 enlarger!

I think that it's in the original "Best of Life" book as well.

If the solution is still clear then it should be OK. If its brown

then throw it away.

 

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Having said that I wouldn't use D-76 and replenisher for LF (or any)

film processing. I want the developer solution to be a constant not

a variable and using a one shot developer insures that. So I use D-

76 in a 1:1 ratio and then throw it away. That way I don't have any

doubts at all about the strength of the developer. And if it's been

4-6 months since you've used the D-76, the increased cost of one

shot developing isn't going to break you! ;-)

I think that my choices of lenses in the past is perhaps

less "artistic" and more common place than many artists will

acknowlege. It goes like this: If I'm the general manager of a

football team I will draft a player based either on need as in "I

need a quarterback" or the "best available athelete" so you take the

great linebacker even if you don't really need one at that moment.

 

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For camera gear that I use in my business I mostly draft (buy) for

need. But for large format equipment which remains my toy; I buy

what presents itself, since that's usually a much better value.

 

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I used to look at photo magazines where a photographer would be

profiled and the details of each image recorded (Nikkor 300 f9 M,

f45 @ 1/4 second with 4x5 Portra 100 NC) and I'd alwasy think that

this published photographer was rich and had every lens they

wanted. Well when I'd look at the six or seven shots in the piece

I'd realize that this smuck was just like me. He owned two or three

lenses and he used them.

 

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So you use what you have and make the image fit the glass until more

glass shows up.

I use a 300 f9 M Nikkor with my Toyo. It's multi-coated, cheap, small

and razor sharp. It also has an image circle the size of a soccer

ball.

 

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I'm not sure if you'd get away with a non telephoto lens of a much

longer focal length with your relatively limited bellows extension.

The Nikkor 360 tele is a much bigger lens, much more expensive and has

a much smaller image circle than my M so I'm not sure that's a

solution for you. As for the "f9" part of my 300, it'll look about

three stops brighter than your 65 f8 SA (assuming you get the 65 to

work)when you look through the ground glass. I assume that it has

something to do with ALL of the light being directed into your eye

rather than having the light spread around as it will with a wide

angle.

 

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To do close up work with this lens you'll need another camera, since

it'll take 600 mm of bellows extension to focus at infinity. A 150 or

a 210 should work fine for that.

Hi I have a 65 f8 SA and I use it on one of the older Toyo Field

cameras. You say ".I roll the front standard ALL THE WAY BACK to the

rear standard as far as it will go....the lens does not touch the

GG.....I roll the front standard ALL THE WAY BACK to the rear standard

as far as it will go....the lens does not touch the GG....the

lensboard is about 8cm from the film plane." Well I'm not sure of

where to measure from but you need to get the lens to 6.5 cm to focus

at infinity. If you can see light through the groundglass and can

bring the lens from say 6 through 8 cm of bellows extension then you

should either be able to focus or the lens is broken somehow.

 

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So are you seeing light through the lens?

A friend of mine has a Busch Pressman and he (and I) like it a lot.

They were well made and a competitor to Graflex.

 

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If there's a downside to the Pressman it's the size of the throat of

the bellows. It and the lens board are so small that the rear element

groups of modern lenses may not fit. I have a 210 Symmar (the older

convertable) and it will fit on the Pressman but a 210 Nikkor won't.

The Pressman doesn't have the longest bellows either so you may be

restricted as to how long a lens you can choose.

 

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One of the strengths of LF photography is that the body only matters

so much. You can get a cheap body and put great glass on it. Then

when (or if) you decide to get a better camera your lenses can go with

it. The Pressman may limit your lens selection. In any event try a

lens on your camera before you buy it.

A friend has a Busch Pressman and he likes it a lot. If there is any

one downside it's the small size of the front bellows opening. You'll

have to check to see if a lens that you want to buy will fit on this

camera. I have an older Symmar 210 and it will fit, but a Nikon 210

won't. This isn't all that big a deal, but measure twice and buy

once, so to speak!

There are a number of reasons that I would choose strobes over

lights but the single biggest reason is how little power there is

with tungsten lights. Those brilliant tungsten lights are

surprisingly dim when you measure their output. And a lot of other

problems flow from that.

 

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You are going to need very long exposure times, just to begin with.

Then you are going to add colour correction filters, reciprocity

departure correction times and bellows extension factors.

 

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Then in spite of what you said about not minding the heat, you ARE

going to mind the heat for your two hour exposures! And forget about

taking pictures of people or objects that could burst into flame!

Seriously, with these kinds of lights you are risking a fire. I don't

care how careful you are you will find something else to do during

these types of exposures.

 

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We had these kinds of lights while I was at university and we used

them mostly for keeping Pizza hot, for which they were excellent. For

just about everything else I'd choose strobes.

I got into in order to use the big negative. I thought about the

camera movements, and even talked about those movement possibilities;

but the whole LF process was intimidating at best and I was certain

that like a VCR I'd use about 10% of the camera's capabilities, and

be happy with it. (Hinge rule? Sheesh!) And that big neg is nothing

to sneer about - 35mm to medium format to LF - and that alone will

improve the image.

 

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But after I had the thing for awhile I started to play, and that front

tilt got used. It affected sharpness as much as a good tripod. To

tilt the front and get the same effective depth of field as a small

aperture meant a faster shutterspeed instead of f32. I "swung" the

front to create the same "sharpening" affect on a building. And

sometimes I'd do both. Rise straightened not only buildings, but trees

and I started using that.

 

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My point is that after you have whatever camera you buy, you will use

it in ways you haven't even thought about. So when you look at lenses,

and cameras, try to buy MORE than you need right now, just so you

don't get frustrated by small image circles (yielding limited

movements) or short bellows, or cameras with lack of movements. You

can always choose not to use them.

Hi, I have a medium sized Gitzo ball head and I'm thinking about replacing it with a Giotto MH 2000 Dual Ball Head. I haven't heard much about this ball head but the price is right ($150US from B&H) and it looks like it'll hold my 8x10 B&H as well as my heavier medium format camera. Anyway I'm wondering if anyone has any horror stories or reservations about this head.

"Last night one pop gave me f11, 2 was f16, 3 was f22, 4 was f32. I

had remembered an old post of Ellis' stating that you basically double

the number of pops to open up a stop, so this didn't make sense to me

(hence the experiment last night)."

 

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If one pop is f11, two pops should be f16, but it'll take FOUR pops to

get to f22, 8 pops to f32, 16 pops to f45.

Why I think that the Minolta Autometer IIIf is the worlds worst

flashmeter - and not to be confused with the Minolta Flashmeter 3,

which was a very nice meter.:

 

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1) I've bought one IIIf new and had it for a decade. A friend bought

one at about the same time. I finally sold my first one and my

friend he GAVE me his. Neither of them would consistantly give a

flash reading. You'd pop the flash and the meter would ignore it.

Maybe one in four pops would give a reading. And this error was for

BOTH of these meters. Eventually they both gave up giving any flash

reading at all. As an ambient meter they're fine, sort of.

2) When they did work as flash meters there was still no way to plug a

synch cord into one. Thus you had to either fire the flash yourself

or have someone else fire it.

3) The battery. First it's a very expensive one, and if you leave it

in the meter it'll die within a couple of days. There is no on/off

switch so you must remove the battery or be prepared to carry a lot of

spare batteries with you. Once the battery is reinserted you must then

reset the film ISO.

 

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So this meter is unreliable and difficult and expensive to use. The

IVf has an on/off switch, a PC terminal and takes a AA batery so it IS

robust, dependable, inexpensive to use; and if I may say, the industry

standard; but that IIIf is crap.

You'll be pushing it(so to speak)to get enough power if you try to

bounce the Vivitars into an umbrella. If you can get to around f8 or

f11, then that'd be great.

 

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You might want to think about using a Stofen "dome" ($20US) on a

Vivitar. This gives the effect of a bare bulb without a lot of the

harshness and you'd maintain at least some power. You could put a

piece of white foamcore (cheap) behind the Stofen to reflect more of

the light into the subject. Place this to one side of the subject, say

at 45 degrees.

 

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Take that same lighting package (if you can) and set up another

Vivitar/Stofen/reflector within 20 degrees of your camera position.

Have this one almost one stop less than the other. This will give you

a 3:1 lighting ratio (trust me) which is a basic portrait lighting

ratio. If you can't duplicate the Vivitar/Stofen/reflector try a

piece of white foamcore placed on the other side of the subject as a

fill.

 

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Slave one of the other Vivitars to be used as a background light. Have

it low and pointed at the background so the intensity drops off as it

gets higher. With another Vivitar you could make a snoot to use as a

hair light. At university we used a Styrofoam coffee cup, painted it

black and cut the bottom out. This would be placed high and just

aimed at the back of the subject's head. The backlight and the

hairlight will separated the subject from the background.

 

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Now that's kind of using what you have. What you don't have are

modeling lights so you can't "see" the effect of the flashes. So you

better have some Polaroid capability or you're gonna waste some film.

 

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You also have the world's worst flashmeter. I can say that because I

own one, purchased new I might add, and it's garbage. Everything that

was wrong with the Autometer IIIf, Minolta fixed witht he IVf, and

you'll need a flashmeter that you can depend on for this kind of

lighting. But for now I'll assume it works.

 

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Measure each light separately so you know what's going on. If I'm

using the above (with monolights bounced into umbrellas) and shooting

black and white or colour negative film, I set up the main at say f8,

the fill at f5.6 and a touch. Then I usually shoot at f5.6 & a half.

But for Polaroid and especially transparency film I shoot at the

COMBINATION of the fill and the main which in this example is going to

be around f8 and a half. The tranny and Polaroid film will just not

have the latitude to do it any other way.

 

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As I've said, the background light should fade in intensity as it gets

higher. I'd want it fairly bright behind the subject's shoulders but

then fading to no exposure at all at the top of the frame. The

hairlight should be grossly overexposing the hair. Two stops or four

stops, it doesn't matter since you won't be able to tell.

 

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At some point you will want to get "real" strobes, with modeling

lights and much more power. But for now you can have a lot of fun

with what you have - although that Minolta IIIf isn't my idea of fun

... ;-)

If you are using an incident meter you are pointing the meter back at

your camera so the distance between you and the subject is meaningless

- assuming of course you are in the same light.

 

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I've found that when I've been in the mountains it's very common to be

standing in the shadow of one while photographing another. Since the

other mountain is is in bright daylight, I use the 1/ISO @ f16 rule

and that works as well as a meter and I have the chromes to prove it!

Now I don't think that I've ever been in sunlight and WANTED to shoot

into the shadow so the reverse siuation has never come up.

 

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The other thing you could do is to use a very cheap spot meter that

you already have. That spot meter is the meter inside your 35 mm

camera. Yeah it might not be 1 degree but it'll get you close.

I've used a number of Domke F1-X bags for years for 35 mm stuff, and

like them a lot. The canvas one will wear out after a couple of years

if you use them on a daily basis. The nylon Domke's are much sturdier

but they make outer part of the bag - the area that would rub against

your side - out of the canvas rather than nylon. This is a

purposely done in order to wear out the bag rather than wear out your

clothes! But now I have a Domke that looks new everywhere but the

side, sigh...

 

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But in spite of that, I keep going back to Domke when I need a new bag

for 35 mm or medium format. The layout is perfect for what I do and I

don't have to "re-learn" a bag.

 

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But for LF I've chosen a Lowepro Trekker AW. I load it down with a

Toyo field camera and up to five lenses, plus all the assorted stuff

we drag with us. Everthing seems to fit fine and it's very

comfortable for hikes into a site.

 

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Last summer I took this bag onto a number of commercial airflights

(Canadian admittedly) and had absolutely no trouble fitting it through

their little measuring frame.

There is a wonderful available light calculator in the Kodak

Professional Photo Guide (at least in the older one that I have) and

it gives examples of many different kinds of difficult to meter

scenes. This will work better than any meter I can think of and be a

lot cheaper.

I have the 8x10 BTZS focus cloth and I like it a lot. But it IS kind of big on my B&J field camera.

 

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Recently I decided that I want one for my older 4x5 Toyo Field Camera. That camera is really a 5x7 and has an outside back size of 9" x 9 1/2". SO I'm wondering whether I should get the 4x5 or 5x7 BTZS cloth for that camera. Darkroom Inovations thinks that the 5x7 would be fine. I just don't want to get one that has such a sloppy fit.

 

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Can anyone comment on this?

Right now when you do macro stuff your depth of field is on the same

plane as your film back. If your subject has a depth to it you use

your aperture to increase the depth of field. The closer you are to

the subjet the less depth you'll get with a given aperture. As you

probably know f22 doesn't go too far when the subject is inches away

from the lens.

 

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Now with LF cameras you can make that depth of field plane "lay down"

if you want, by tilting the front standard. Or you can swing the

front standard so the depth of field is on an angle. This all by

itself will give you more apparent depth of field even with the lens

wide open. Front rise lets you peek over the subject a bit, or

correct converging parallels.

 

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The focal lengths of LF lenses are much longer (for the same view)

than 35 mm lenses yet a 150 mm lens has the same depth of field no

matter whether it is a normal lens for 4x5 or a telephoto for 35 mm.

Without movements and especially tilt many LF shots would be

impossible.

 

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I know that when I started thinking about LF I too thought that it was

all about the big ne, and that sure doesn't hurt. But now I realize

that it's about control, and how little you have with a non LF camera.

All I could add to Christpher's message is that you would and even

larger image on the baseboard, if you used a 135 mm enlarging lens,

instead of a 150.

I wonder if one of the old Graflex press lenses would do the trick.

You'd have lots of image circle for 6X9 and you wouldn't lose any

sleep if she trashed it. A more expensive solution might be 150

Schneider Xenar. An old one wouldn't cost that much either.

I'd say the camera you're looking for is a new Linhof Tech 2000.

It'll have pretty much everything you are looking for.

 

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But if you don't want to break the bank and can find one of these

camera's I'd like suggest something else. It should be noted

that this camera doesn't have a couple of the feature's you're

looking for, having neither any front or rear shift or a "geared"

front rise. But it has everything else you're looking for. The camera

is the original Toyo Field Camera and if you can find one you will

have a jewel.

 

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Mine has a rotating back, geared focusing, significant non-geared

front rise, and front swing. It's extremely rigid and I use a 90 SA

with lots of bellows movement and a 65 with almost none. A 75 or 72

will give you additional bellows extension and would work fine and

give you more than a bit of movements. This camera is actually a 5X7

(although factory configured to be a 4X5 in most cases) and has a 16

inch bellows.

I process 4 X 5 and 8 X 10 film in a Unicolor drum but I wash and dry

the negs in metal negative racks, the kind designed for dip and dunk

processing. I find that they keep the film nicely separated during

wash and are quite secure for drying film. After drying, the neg may

stick a bit where it touched the metal frame but that hasn't been a

printing problem at all.

It seems like a very good deal, depending of course on what kind of

head is on it and what quality the lenses are.

 

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The D3 is the autofocus "D2" and adds some convenience to the

darkroom. I'm assuming that this enlarger has the condenser head. Is

it the variable condenser type? This would add to the value of the

enlarger as well as making format changes much easier.

 

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At some point you might want to get a colour head or a cold head.

That will reduce your print spotting and should offer a more even

light. If you do get the colour head it will also replace

polycontrast filters, which never hurts.

 

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As for printing 35 mm and larger negatives: I used a D2-V at

university for 35 mm printing with a 50 mm lens and had no problems

with it at all. My current enlarger is a D-6 with a colour head and a

three lens turret. I've found it next to impossible to use a 50 mm

lens wit this setup. The bellows has to be compressed as far as it

will go and I can't think that that can be good for the bellows.

Subsequently I use an 80 mm lens for printing 35 mm negs. The images

are sharp, I have more reasonable exposure times (the colour head is

VERY bright) and I have more room for my hands in order to burn and

dodge. The seller can tell you if they have had any problems with

this.

 

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One of the great things about the Omega d series enlargers is that

they are as common as dirt. For every other 4X5 enlarger you'll find

10 Omegas. So you'll find lots of used accessories out there. Things

like negative carriers and cold heads for example. And if some third

party is making an accessory for a 4X5 enlarger, making it compatibile

with an Omega D is where they'll start.