michael_p6

I started LF with a Crown just a couple of years ago. I wholeheartedly recommend it. Yes it doesn't have all the movements, but the raise, shift and tilt are quite enough to start with. Contrary to what was said, the default lens (In my case the Optar 135mm f4.7) is nothing short of excellent. The camera is extremely light and very quick to setup.

In December I received my 'real' serious 4x5 field camera (Chamonix 45N-1) and despite all the new features I do miss the crown a little, especialy for the setup time and the fact that a crown can fold with most 'normal' lens still mounted. Saves a lot of time!

One thing I clearly missed with the crown is a rotating back. Yes you can rotate the camera, but you no longer have tilt is focussing is awkward. That's a serious minus point and it's probably that that pushed me over and made me order the Chamo.

Otherwise the Crown can take a whole range of lens, I have 90,100,135,150,168,180,203,210 and even a 360 Tele and they all work. The 90 is hard to use because it's 'in' the body, however the 100mm Wide Field Ektar is fantastic, has nice coverage and allows movements. I like it so much it's still my wide angle on the Chamo.

The one thing I didn't know I needed is back movements. No such thing on the crown. It's absolutely /fantastic/ to have complete control on the back for swing/tilt. I only use the front for raise and shift now. I don't think I really needed that to get started tho... I can appreciate it now, but s year ago it would have added a lot of confusion.

All in all, I think that if you really try a crown, it will be hard to replace. Mine is going back to handheld with a Grafmatic back, and HP5 @ 1600.

Check my Flikr, I have a bunch of images made with the crown; B&W and E6 : http://flickr.com/photos/buze/

It's all automagic after that. So, mount the film on the insert, put the insert into the back, turn the little dial on the side of the back until you see the arrows then close the back.

Then just turn the arming crank until it stops, and shoot... The film advance & arming is automatic.

I use a S2A all the time and I just love it !

$1500 to get into 4x5 ? What a joke.

Crown Graphic (about $200 in good shape) some film holders, a tripod. Some cheap film and there you go.

With the default Optar 135mm f4.7 you can already run out of coverage with the limited movements of the Crown, but it's still largely sufficient for plenty of use. This will tell you /everything/ you need to know about large format, and get you hooked (probably!) or not.

Then you can buy a few "oldies" lens, just forget about "APO" and all the other uppercase suffixes added to the name of modern lens. The old ones can /still/ give you sharp to very sharp results, and you can get them for $100-$200. Ektar 203mm, Angulon 90mm etc. There is a LOT to try, for cheap.

Don't buy stuff new to try when starting a new thing. Read, take your time, wait for the occasion and buy second hand when you know the subject and field you are buying into.

I started in (this) september. I now have a Crown, Optar 90 & 135, Ektar 100mm and 203mm, an Ilex 305mm even. 10 or so holders, a couple of Grafmatics, a rollfilm back, a tripod and plenty of film and plenty of other gizmos; and I'm still WAY short of $1000.

It's terrific fun. I know I will eventually get a wooden field camera to get move bellows etc (possibly a 5x7 or 8x10 even), more movements etc but thats in the future, there still is lots to get from the kit I have.

Buy cheap, upgrade later!

http://flickr.com/photos/buze/

By linking an optical sensor to a couple of resistor and an audio jack, you can get a tester that doesn't rely on sound but rely on the light passing thru the shutter instead. There are several models, some of them are even "stereo" ie they allow you to time the two curtains if you have a curtain shutter.

One such description is there: http://www.open.hr/~dpleic/photo/Shutter.html

Remember that the shutter takes time to open and close, so the efficiency at high speed needs to factor the time of the blades opening and closing.

I had a discussion with an elderly gentleman from Kodak a few days ago, and he was responsible to test film for X-Ray safety. He said having a lead lined bag will just make the machine operator push the X-ray power higher to see into it....

His advise on the X-Ray issue was just to pass it in the machine, and that even fast film wouldn't have much of a problem, even after 32 exposures... The grain structure changes but it doesn't affect the film speed.

This applies to "modern" machines for handheld bagages; some parts of the world might still use older, more powerful X-Rays.

Bad, because contrary to what people who don't know digital signal processing might think, images are not stored nor processed as floating points. So an integer conversion is /always lossy/ and can/will create artifacts, especialy if your processing "bus" is not considerably larger your source/destination.

Converting from/to spaces that are only a fraction larger create more artifacts /now/, you force the software to use aproximation and dithering to compensate the loss.

If you put the glass directly on the scanner plate, you might have a problem with the scanner calibration.

On the Epson scanner, the film holder have a small "window" right at the top of the "page" that is cleared so the scanner head can measure & calibrate the light from the back.

IF you cover this window, all kind of nasty things happend, including extraordinarily slow scan.

Maybe you should have a look at the film holders of the scanner and make sure you are not covering the calibratiom window (if any) by placing the plate directly on the glass...

On the Epson, the scanning worked perfectly after I moved the plate a couple cm "down" on the page... I ended up making myself a cardboard "head" with just the window so I could push a new plate in place without any hassle.

Conversion is bad, unless you convert from a space that holds about twice as much as the destination.

If your eventual final output is sRGB, you are better off staying in sRGB for shooting, processing, and converting in the end. That is the case for example if you use a third party and/or online printer service; they are most probably calibrated on a base of sRGB.

If you can configure and profile your own printer, and are using AdobeRGB as a default colorspace in PS, then in that case it's worth shooting in AdobeRGB in the camera.

I use dlab7 for E6, had excellent results so far; clean films in clean sleeves. Did some C41 too for the odd snaps and the dev + scan were fine too.

I plan to use Peak for my new forray into 4x5, they seems to have the best reputation, and are also the cheapest I found for 4x5 E6.

For B&W, do as mentioned earlier in the answers : your own development is very easy to do, even from scratch. It's also very rewarding and fun !

I found the same with OP; I skipped a few issues and got this month's to see what was happening, and yes the ads are now everywhere, including the multi-page-leaflets kinds.. I never understood mag ads with a photo of a /very/ common item with a "ﾣCALL" label....

And yes having a test of the latest DSLR thingy has absolutely no interest to me, I'd rather have interesting stuff about filters, reciprocity and that sort of experience form the photographers..

Oh well, they still publish the Black & White mag, and thats still readable (abeit lacking in technicalities too)

Delta 400 /maybe/ has a bit more grain at 1+9, but quite frankly I haven't noticed any differences, even a 4800dpi. Delta 400 is very smooth to start with from what I have seen.

The only difference I noticed is when I tried to agitate less (1:30 instead of 1:00) now /that/ pushes the grain considerably it seems, I came back to 1:00 immediately :D

Hi I'm flick/buze :D

I did quite a few films in DDX 1+9, I had seen somewhere that you had to add 70% time from 1+4, so I experimented with that and found it more or less spot on. Here are my current times; note that the 20C are noted, but I haven't used them (I dev at 24C).

The time for Delta 100 is new, and I shot only with one camera : the film was a bit too contrasty /but/ it's possibly the shutter on my Iskra that is a bit slow. I'll have to try with another camera to really confirm the time.

Film ISO 20c 24c

Delta 400 400 13:30 9:15

Tri-X 400 13:30 10:10

TMax 100 100 11:55 8:30

Delta 100 100 20:25 15:15

HP5 400 15:15 11:54

I find the "flatbeds are too soft" comments completely silly. With my 4990 I can /easily/ do 25 megapixels (5000x5000) images out of my 6x6 films (E6 & B&W) that have 1 pixel details. That beats the pants out of my DSLR's 8MP sensor.

And in fact I'm fairly sure I throw away some of the details by downsampling it down to that size, but for my own use, thats largely enough.

So what, you blew several grands on an expensive dedicated scanner and you feel a bit of remorse that you could get /almost/ as good with a $200 one ? Understood, but please don't badmouth the other products; these Epson flatbeds are /largely/ enough to make files that are /largely/ superior to what your DSLR will do.

I am also a "new" MF B&W shooter (did my first film in november, but I now "try" to do one a week -- 135 or 120) and if you are developing for scanning, I don't think you /can/ screw up the development enough to ruin a picture... just try to err on the side of underexposing and/or underdevelop and you can always recover it in photoshop, there will be a price to pay in grain/noise but it'll be fine in the end !

Of course getting the exposure and developing just right will give you a much better image, but at least you don't get the frustration of having "ruined" the film if you do experiment a little !

As a side note, I /really/ enjoy film (I do B&W and E6), and I did convert a few people into digging back their old cameras (or buying one !) just by being so enthusiastic about it :D

120 film doesn't trigger anything, 135 does. I tried it a couple of times by having 135 in one pocket, and 120 in the other ... "oops", forgot I had these in the pocket" and gave up the 135 first then went in the portal again : no beeps.

Only problem is of course if you have a camera already loaded...

I only shoot negative 400 film for B&W. I tried HP5+, Delta 400, TMax 400 and Tri-X 400, all developed in Ilfotec DDX.<br>

I've had no problems scanning any of these on the 4990; my favourite films are the Delta 400 and Tri-X; they have very good tones and very little grain. I tend to scan to get a lowish contrast, to push it later in photoshop. I shoot with or without yellow filter.<br>

Things I do :

<ul>

<li>I scan at 4800 all the time, then after levels/curves I reduce to my "target" resolution (usualy 2400dpi, still gives a 25 megapixel image!)

<li>Despite what Epson say, I scan with the emultion /underneath/; this trick has solved 100% of the problems I had with newton rings.

</ul>

Here is a Tri-X I scanned earlier; from a 6x6 done with my Russian Iskra folder:<br>

<img src="http://galleries.oomz.net/pub/s0605/S/iskra-trix400-03.jpg">

The moskva 5 can shoot 6x6, not 645, given the proper mask. And no you can't manufacture one out of cardboard, unless you want to forcibly drag the emultion side of the film on a piece of cardboard.

Also I don't see the point of shooting a 6x9 with a reduced frame. More frames per film ? who care ? I could also get 36 of them on 35mm film, but I think one shoots 6x9 to get... 6x9 frames :D

Moskva surviving guide, short :

+ Remove the back and bend back the springs that push on the film spools. These springs are usualy too slack, and they contribute a LOT to the film flatness by keeping some tension between the spools

+ Always unfold the camera /slowly/ otherwise the air intake in the bellow will suck the film into the body, ruining the film flatness

+ Always wind /just before/ shooting to ensure the filn is nice, tidy and tense when you expose it a few seconds later

Of course you could have some camera frame issue with your model, but I reckon these small tips will always improve things anyway!

I have a Zorki 3 will irregular shutter speeds (trailing curtains,

sometime) and I'd love to give it a good cleanup. I did several Zorki

1s but the 3 has a different construction, especialy with it's front

slow-speed dial etc.

So, anyone knows how to get into the camera in a "safe" way ? Typicaly

how to remove the front of the body from the chassis would be very

helpful...

Milo, maybe there are people out there who actualy /enjoy/ using old gear, just for the fun of it ? Quirks and all ?

Doing photography with an old camera gives me more pleasure than pressing the button on top of my DSLR. There is something nice and tactile in turning that winding knob and hear the nice satisfying shutter curtains.

Of course there are more capable cameras. Who cares ? In fact I DO have more capable cameras just here on my desk, and that doesn't stop me a minute packing the old Barnack in the backpack more often than not.

I'm a lucky bugger I know. My wife translated the german of the eBay announce for my Leica IIIc, and encouraged me to get it.

Maybe she realizes that if it makes me happy, thats part of what she signed for ! Or maybe she likes my stupid grin when I take it out...

I think ﾣ600 is a great price, as stated before, if all the bits are in place on the camera, minor issues like curtains etc are fixeables. And a screwmount Summicron is rare and /very/ expensive usualy...