george_huczek

I just bought one of these for medium format from that auction site.

Large 7x7cm image area. The interchangeable base with the

transparent hood doesn't fit snugly on the loupe. Am I missing

something here? Does anyone who has used this loupe know how to

interchange the hood so it doesn't fall off?

Beware of Wisner Manufacturing Co. for ordering ULF cameras.

I am still waiting for three 14x17 film holders that I ordered in

October, 2000. I've waiting 2 1/2 years and I still have not

received the equipment.

Ron Wisner is not to be trusted at his word. If he says he will

phone you back about your order he wont. If he says that the

equipment has already been shipped, it hasn't. He is a liar! Don't

buy from him. Don't attend his workshops. Don't patronize his

business in any way. It is not worth the hassles. You will pay up

front for equipment and wait forever to receive it. His business

practices are unethical.

Go with the Arca Swiss. It has more precision and better movements. Don't even think of buying directly from the Wisner factory, unless you are prepared to wait forever for your equipment.

Don't buy a Wisner 12x20. If you buy anything other than standard formats from the Wisner factory, you will experience unusually long delivery times, of two years or longer. Don't ask how I know this! It happened to me, and I am still waiting for equipment I ordered in October, 2000.

Well, here's another alternative view. I ordered a 16x20 camera from Ron Wisner in October, 2000. I am still waiting for delivery of three film holders, a replacement for a scratched ground glass (which was knowingly sent from the factory in defective condition), a replacement for a light trap (two 16x20 holders both had serious light leaks), and a refund for items ordered which I either returned or cancelled. Over two years! What I found to be the most annoying is that he is dishonest. He told me that my equipment had been shipped, when it had not! He is a liar and a sheister. Do not deal directly through his factory. If you want to order a Wisner camera, do so from a reputable dealer that has the merchandise in stock. If you order directly from the factory, particularly for any special order item, or equipment larger that 8x10", you will be sorry! He told me that my equipment would be ready in about three months after I placed the order. Two years and two months later, I am still waiting to receive equipment I ordered. Bob's experiences dealing with the Wisner factory may be for standard equipment which is manufactured in large quantity. I have no doubt that for such an item, the service he received was excellent. Beware though, that if you order special items for which he in not properly tooled up, you will be waiting a very long time.

Well, I'd like to give my experiences ordering from the Wisner company. Dan is not the only one who has had trouble dealing directly from the factory. I ordered a 16x20 camera in October of 2000, and, as of this writing, I am still waiting for Ron Wisner to finish the order. He is not an honest and trustworthy person to deal with. I have phoned him many times to find out about the progress of my order, only to be put off by his stall tactics. I am waiting for a replacement light trap for a film holder which is leaking. I also need a replacement ground glass, which was sent out from the factory defective. I have three film holders that I ordered over two years ago and paid for and have not yet received them.

Ron will say one thing and do another. He is a very dishonest person to deal with. He will tell you that your items have already been shipped, but he will not give you any proof of it by providing you with shipping tracking numbers. So, you wait about two to three weeks, and when the items you have ordered have not yet arrived, he will tell you that they are on their way. It is simply not true. He told me that my camera equipment qould be ready about three months after I placed the order. It has been over two years and I am still waiting! Do not give him anything more than a 10% deposit on anything, and NEVER give him your credit card number. He will take full payment from you, and then you will end up waiting and waiting. I am not exaggerating. I have waited over two years and I still have not receieved everything I have ordered. If you really must buy a Wisner camera, buy one from a dealer who has it in stock. Do not buy directly from the factory. You will get burned like me and so many other people who have dealt with Ron Wisner. I hope that people realize that there are many large format camera manufacturers out there, and that many are as good or better than Wisners, in many respects. The service you will get from the Wisner company will be very poor. Ron is a sheister, who needs to be exposed for his unethical business practices. He does not deliver! You can never take the man at his word. He lies to his customers and he behaves like a scoundrel. Don't do business with him. If Ron looses even one sale as a result of this post, I will have some confort in the anxiety he has coused me over the past two years waiting for my camera equipment. I have lost a lot of money on potential sales, due to equipment which was not delivered as promised. Buyer beware!

There is another drawback to using 8x10 lenses on 4x5 cameras. You get too much flare from light reflecting from the inside surfaces of the bellows onto the film. This can be a real problem.

My suggestion is that you avoid trying this! I had to repair an M6 that was used this way. The gears stripped. The friction point on the shutter release was also damaged, requiring excessive pressure to release the shutter. The repairs were not cheap, and not covered by warranty. If you must use multiple exposures, use a different camera.

You need a bay 50 to 55 adapter, and then it will take screw-in 55mm filters for the 80mm C planar. If you can find a bay 50 to 57 adapter, your proxar will work directly, or use a 55 to 57 step-up ring, but you may get corner vignetting with the adapter/step-up combo in front of the Proxar.

I prefer the chrome body during the summer, black for winter, titanium

for spring, and platinum for fall. You might as well get one for

each season. Mix and match. What the hell. Too bad they don't come

in colours as well, like Hasselblads.

Chris: Been there, done that.

Besides the usual ... Waterproof jacket with lots of pockets, a good

pair of running/biking shoes, UV sunglasses, penlight, insect

repellant, sunscreen, a pocket knife, wallet, ID, passport if crossing

borders, waterproof lighter, simple first aid kit, emergency solar

blanket, wide brim hat, compass, handheld GPS, a mirror, topographic

maps, bike repair kit, and lots of granola bars.

 

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... 1 camera body, custom tripod head clamped on handlebars, 2 lenses

(one wide, one medium tele,), a few filters (one size only, with an

adapter ring if needed), film and mailers, 1 really good spare

point&shoot. You will need at least these for mountain biking on any

major long distance trip.

Check out

http://www.camer aquest.com/mlenses.htm#Fogging

 

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So much for the whale oil blubber explanation! Thanks for the link.

Older Leitz lenses used organic lubricants made from animal oils,

believe it or not, and after time these oils can deposit on the inner

surfaces of the lens. Not only does the lens get fogged, but the

lubricants for the aperture and focusing mechanisms dry up. Get the

lens cleaned and relubricated properly.

I think it is fair to say that MF can come close to matching 4x5

quality, but when you compare it to 8x10, the difference becomes more

apparent.

Even with lens hoods, with strong backlighting you will notice a difference with coated and uncoated lenses. For B&W you can compensate for uncoated lenses _to some extent only_ by developing longer and using a higher paper grade, but it will not help to return what was degraded due to flare -- just to bring up the contrast a bit.

 

For colour work, there will be higher contrast in strongly backlit scenes with multicoated lenses.

 

In many situations you probably will not be able to tell weather or not the lens used to take the picture was multicoated.

The dark slide works just as well

Adorama sells them in packages of 10. These are just what you are

looking for. I have some and they are just like the smaller PrintVue

negative holders, only made of thicker plastic.

There are a few good ways to scan MF negs/slides if you want to go digital. Keep using film, scan what you need, and don't rush to buy a digital back yet. Film still gives you the best options -- using both traditional wet darkroom techniques and digital imaging. Film is far from being obsolete! It is still your best option. The cost of digital backs will continue to drop, and today's state-of-the-art digital equipment will be obsolete in a decade.

TriX is available in 16x20.

 

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catalog number 1685858, roughly $115 per box of 10 sheets

Metal lens caps are not such a bad idea. They do not fall off lenses,

unlike other clip-on caps.

 

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I also use them as end-caps when screwing together filters and keeping

them stacked to save space.

 

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I haven't bought anything from the vendor you refer to, so I can not

offer any coments about them, other than that their prices are a bit

high compared to what you can find if you shop around.

The inner frame on the finder gives an approximate super-slide format. Use it for rough framing. If you need critical framing use the gridded ground glass back on the SWC. Otherwise, due to things like parallax error, framing with the finder gives only a rough approximation at best. For better framing, after composing in the finder, raise the camera up so that the centre of the lens is in roughly the same position that the finder was in during composing the image, especially when you have close-up foreground in the image.

Some solvent developers will do this due to the alkalai used. What

developer are you using? Some might need different stop baths and

fixers.

If they begin to fade very quickly, you are not keeping them in the

fixer long enough, or the fixer you are using isn't good anymore. Use

fresh fixer and fix longer. Wash well afterwards.

I just started working with Azo a few months ago. It took a while to

get used to using it. I am still learning how to work with it. I was

having trouble getting prints to come out _exactly_ the same, for a

combination print I was putting together. An extra 5 seconds of

exposure, or an extra few seconds in a 1 minute Amidol developer and

there were enough differences in tonality that prints would not butt

together properly for a larger mural. Also, when flipping the

negative to do reverse prints for my mural, I had to change exposure

and development times to get prints exactly the same. Contact

printing emulsion-side up requires additonal exposure and development-

- not much, but more nevertheless as I have discovered. I am not

sure why this happens -- perhaps it is due to how much reflection

each surface of the film provides.

 

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Compared with Ilford Multigrade contact prints in Bromophen and

Ilford Multigrade developers, I can see the difference with Azo in

amidol. Azo gives a greater impression of depth to the image. It's

startling and not that subtle when prints are examined side-by-side.

I still have to learn how to adjust contrast grade with Azo. I have

yet to be able to get a decent half-grade contrast adjustment with a

water bath. Creasing and "pinching" have also been a problem, but I

like the way the single-weight paper drymounts. Colour tinting due

to rapid fixing, and learning how to adjust tones subtly with

selenium toner are adding to the learning curve with this paper, but

it is interesting material to work with.

Well, I'll second the remarks about D76 1:1 and HC110(dil B). Also

worth considering is the pyro developer PMK, for scenes where the

separation of highlight detail is important.