jan_de_ridder1

Earlier today I was speaking to an old photographer who told me to

never develop Tri-x in 20 degrees, but in 24, this would decrease the

grain, not in size but blendable tonality (freely translated from

German). I came home and tried it out, and for sure the negative looks

great, deeper, the grain is still their but indeed blends better ....

the difference is not merely minimal but sort of turns Tri-x into

another type of film .... does anybody know more about this ?

I wouldn't use Rodinal, it is good, cheap and very storable and keepable but definately not useable for fast speeds.

I would go for DD-X too ....

I use it together with my Hassleblad 503. I might be able to help you although I am far from an expert on anything photographic. I do have a german manual and maybe I can translate something for you and get you on your way

Regards,

Jan

Here you find it http://cesarigd.club.fr/photoe2b.htm

I have shot over 200 films with my 503, bumped it, scratched it, scraped it but never ever did it Jam. There is a sequence of events one should keep in mind in order to avoid jams ...

"tempramental and unreliable" ..... (you should meet my first wife) once you get it under control the Hassleblad will be the best thing ever happened to you, you will love it over time, don't let it get you down ....

:-)

Jan

Al, yes it's a Jobo, HP5plus film D-76 developer.

Marv, hmmm yes ...... that makes sense I had a bit trouble loading ... allways seems to get stuck halfway.

Maybe time to replace my Jobo with a better tank

At least I don't need to worry about light sealings etc.

Thanks all

Hi all,

anybody got an idea of what the half-halo is, and what caused it ?

(Top right-quarter)

It only appears on 2 photos on the roll

Thanks in advance

Why buy a Leica if you cannot afford/buy the Leica lens(es) with it ?

OK use voigtl�nder, pretty good lenses but quite a bit from the 35 or 50 summi or lux'es....

www.leicashop.at allways has (amongst others) a nice variety of R. TLR's at different prices. And their quality is good.

I currently have a Hasselblad 503cx, at the time of purchase I looked at a Rolleiflex (GX or F), I think I made the wrong descision buying the Hasselblad. I have been looking to trade but as mentioned here in the forum it is not easy....

I think it's a shame that there are so few analog black and white

photographs in the critique forum, or am I just looking in the wrong

place ?

Judging by this particular forum there must be quite a lot of

do-it-yourself black and whities. I would love to browse through and

see your results, question the technique and rate them (objectively)

Forget about a body and the lens(es( for a while and spend max. money on a tripod and lightmeter, get the best your money can buy. After having done this you can think about what to do with your leftove cash.

A good tripos and lightmeter(s) will pay off and will have a large impact on the quality of you pics.

A firm and stirdy Gitzo Carbon (heviest carbon you can get) with Arca Swiss head will cost about $900 and will serve you for life. A minolta or pentax spotmeter and a sekonic "normal" meter will set you back another $700 leaving roughly $2000 for the actual camera and lens

Personally I develop Acros in Rodinal 1:50 at 20degrees for 10:30 minutes, 10 seconds for filling and 15 seconds emptying, roughly adding up to 11:00 minutes.

The first minute of constant aggitation at roughly 3 times every 10 seconds, followed by 15 seconds every 2 minutes until end.

I get the most satisfying results this way ....

Daniel, I have tried scanning in various way but it doesn't come out the way it "went in" so to speak.

I will try it in the manner as sugested by the link Neal sent (Thank you Neal) set it up outside and try a couple of films and see how/if it comes out...

I don't feel comfortable will electronic media such as scanners, I do have one (4870) which is supposably quite good for mid-formats, but I'm the basic analog sort of guy, prefering the fumes of chemicals to the flashing of bits and bytes :-)

Anyway thanks for answers, this is very much appreciated.

I will post the results, if favorable, so other can make use of this too ...

thanks again,

Jan

Hi forumists,

I have recently got 2 very old photographs, I estimate they are from

around 1900. They are pictures of my family.

Is there a way to photograph these again and develop them in the

normal manner?

I don't have any studio light or anything similar. I will be using

either a 6x6 with 80mm lens, or a 135 with 28,35, 50 or 80mm lens.

Has anybody got an suggestions how I should go about this.

Many thanks in advance

Jan

Hi Theo,

it might be a lightleak caused by a certain angel and intensity of light through the slide holder. Seeing that it is only with 1 or 2 out of a whole role and taking the structure of the leak into account. The fact that one is indoor and the other is outdoor makes little sense though.

I also have Hassleblad and had similar problems. The guy at hassleblad said the slide holder causes lightleaks after a while....

I would say have it CLA'd....

HP5 shot ... which I like to.

Not that any of these will prove any point ...

When you develop you should try and do it correct with any film, Delta requires more precision than HP5+ ... granted, but only a well developed HP5 turns out well.

I started of my B&W adventure with Delta, 100, 400 and 3200 ...developed them in DD-X and the negatives were perfect, therefor the film must be near to perfect and the combination with DD-X is great ..... if you want over prefectionist B&W prints.

Now I started of B&W because I wanted to add "life" into my pictures, give it depth, give it some body, give it a reason for looking at longer than 5 seconds, give it something mystical. Personally I think grain adds to this experience and seeing that Delta hardly give any grain as we know it a somewhat grainy film does the trick. I think grain enhances, not to much, but Delta has this blurry sort of grain that one achieves with B&W-ing digital pictures. My wife B&W prints made with a Nikon D2H are hard to tell apart from Delta's, at least for me as a non-knowledgable B&W technique guy, whereas HP5 are more grainy but have the mysticism B&W pictures are known for.

I now use HP5 and TRI-X, I develop in either D-76 or ID-11 very much of the same stuff, but the results are fantastic, the please me at least.... and the whole lot is very much cheaper too, not that this is an issue for me personally, if it where more expensive I would prefer this to delta's ....<div></div>

@ DonMCKeith

"This is just my opinion,but I think it would save you some time to just pick up a Leica,and a pre war Contax."

I would like a pre-war Contax, but a technically top one is hard to find even if your willing to pay the price....

As for Leica, my first camera set, well when I seriously started to take pictures about 10 years ago, was a Leica M6 now called classic, with a 50mm summicron. I still own this camera as a mater of fact since it was a present from somebody pretty important to me at the time. However I never, or rather seldomly, use it... I#m not a "brand " photographer and find leica's well overrated, the handling, the prescision, I have to adjust constantly to meet the shutter speed "off-time" and as for loading a film in a steamy Jazz-Bar, forget it. I like the touch and feel but thats just about all.The silent "clack" of the shutter .. who needs it, when you push your camera into somebodies face they are definately going to see it before hearing it.

But all puns aside, I find Leicas overrated, and it's so called Bokeh... hmmm define Bokeh, and then define Bokeh according to my needs and wished towards Bokeh, like aggitation this is a very personal view.

Leica has the name and the reputation however, but from a time when there where none or few alternatives. You cannot tell me that HCB would still today take pics with a leica....

Leica is an instrument with a "tag" the "tag" has nothing to do with the image quality.

Hi Marv,

I guess very wise advice you gave me. I will (for now anyway) stick with one developer, one film, one paper and one paper developer and see what the range of capabilities are.

I always wanted to do this from the beginning onward but then reading through forums like this one, one can get kind of excited and rush of to shops to get a bottle of this, that or the other .... but I see now that a more structural approach will be wise and will also most definately lead to better results. I will stick with Tri-x and D76, as for paper I work with ilford multigrade IV and Multigrade developer with which I am pleased. I will however look into Baryt and it's possibilities ....

Thank you all for your part in this thread, again, I am most gratefull.

Jan

Hi Forum,

thanks for all your answers, they make sense ... In pursue of my quest I have actually never thought of "the hardware" my grandfather used, I know he used a Pre-war Contax and a Leica 0 series, he also used a variety of large formats judging by the negative sizes and it makes perfect sense to assume that lenses then were different from the lenses we work with today, this will also impact the final result.

My favorite lenses in terms of picture quality (not view angle) are my Nikon 50mm 1,4 and my Zeiss CF 80mm, both very standard I use them 80% of all pics I make, these two lenses are ofcourse very different from the "old" lenses.

Also having read through the replies I was wondering if "old" subjects have anything to do with trying to achieve "old" quality, browsing through the first ten years of magnum material, or 40 to 50 HCB the subjects add to the classical atmosphere. I came to this only this morning where I was trying to place the comments in this thread.

Looking at 1930 Ansel Adams "Yellowstone Park" stuff it represents mountain, streams, couple of trees, furhter nothing what so ever to link it to the 1930 ies, this I think also impacts my view of matters, anyway I'me in for a another Darkroom day today, and am sure that I will enjoy myself....

Thanks for the replies, I highly appreciate the broad knowledge base of this forum...

Greetings,

Jan