marv

Check everything twice. I left my tripod mount bushing at home. It could have been a disaster but we ended up making one that worked for two weeks and over 75 exposures out of a carriage bolt. Not elegant but fully functional.

My first thought was they must have missed April 1st with this announcement.....

In my experience the 4X5 bag doesn't work for 8X10. It doesn't allow enough room to effectively remove the dark slide and insert the film, it just isn't wide enough. I tried one and returned it for the 8X10, it works very well, is easy to set up and barring carrying it for miles on end isn't "too" heavy.

Maybe its time to take the gloves off.

 

I shoot traditonal large format. Most of the folks that used to inhabit this forum did also. Most weren't pros looking to go d. but wanting to discuss LF. It was a refuge from the flames of other forums.

 

All that changed. Now we are treated to a daily flood of people telling us our format is dead and dying and wanting to give us 100 reasons why. But I guess we are a slow lot. We think you really have a concern for LF issues. In the end though the response is always the same: I shoot a lot, I do the things you advise, You all don't understand my question. We understand. You just don't like our opinion.

 

Here is my advise. GO SOME WHERE ELSE!!! Give us back our forum.

Are we talking medium format or large format? Unless your camera is 6 X 17 INCHES, it's medium format to me. With that rant finally out of the way.........

 

LF and digital are two different disciplines. Rum isn't whiskey, a beer isn't a soda, a BMW isn't a Neon. For this LF photographer it is the medium that I want. I want to take the time to set up the camera and establish a composition. I want to soup the film to my specs. I want to craft the print in my style.

 

I like wood and brass. I like the feel of a holder as I slide it in the back, the reassuring thunk of a Ilex #5. You know that shutter fired when you push the button. I am proud of the fact I can tell the difference between 1/25 and 1/5 of a second by the SOUND of the shutter. I just looked outside and know without un-holstering the Pentax that the exposure is f64 @ 1/2 second. Do you get the point?

 

I have a lot of brothers and sisters in the world of LF. I don't think we will be lost in some digital shuffle. If we are, shame on us.

Excellent point. The whole idea behind the Zone SYSTEM is that it is just that.....a SYSTEM. A way of learning to establish the values or intensities of light, the Zones.

 

By learning about light and how it changes from morning to evening, summer to winter, under cloudy skies and clear you can develop a SYSTEM of making your light judgements and subsequent exposures.

 

If you have an opportunity to view Fred Pickers old newsletters, find number 24 from April 1980. It covers this subject in a very straight forward manner and helps make some sense of a complex, to learn, but easy to utilize subject.

Thanks for the heads up. I couldn't make the Chicago exhibit, just plain ran out of time. Cedar Rapid (CR to us eastern Iowans) is only a hour and a half away instead of 2 and a half to Chicago.

 

I have a few favorite spots along the way so I can flex the bellows and see the show all in one fell swoop.

 

I'll let everyone know when I am going in, just in case I am so dis-heartened by Ansel's images that I decide to deposit the 8X10 in a dumpster outback!

 

I don't think that letting us know of events of interest is quite deserving of the pan that Mr. Norman gives it. It is after all our choice as to who we look to for inspiration and hold in high regard. My thanks to Mr. Norman for acknowledging that fact.

 

Ansel Adams introduced a lot of us to photography and although the brass on his reputation may have tarnished over the years, quite a few of us still appreciate his contributions to the photographic field. Through him both directly and indirectly we discovered many other, equally, and yes, more talented photographers.

I know when I take a reading in the deep woods and It comes out at f64 @ 2 minutes, I really need f64 at 8 minutes. If it is close to sunset, make it 12 minutes. If I am out in the field, literally, and an exposure is f64 @ 1/10 and nothing changes between one set up to the next it is redundant to keep taking the same meter reading.

 

The point is; you need to work intuitively even as you approach the subject methodically.

How you agitate is less important than consistency. If you want repeatble results (who doesn't) then developing a patern to your procedures and doing it every time will give you consistent results. If the results are not what you want then change one of your procedures to see what the new result will be.

 

If you rotate the stack and then let them sit for a period of time you will get a different result than if you keep shuffling the deck the entire time. What will the difference be? I don't know, but if you try it both ways you will see what the difference is. Then you can decide which system is the one that matches your ultimate vision and print style best.

 

Good luck! The testing is part of the fun of large format and once you nail down your personal procedures there is a lot less work to do.

Yes these speed ratings are normal to older shutters. Utilizing the equalvalent speed ie. 50 for 60 has never created a problem for me. Unless you have had a shutter calibrated you don't really know what you are actually shooting for speed anyway. As a practical test I once shot my 210 Apo Symmar against in Copal against a 8 1/4 Goerz Gold Dot in synchro compur. To the eye (the only rating I need for comparison because I make prints not charts) they were identical in exposure and contrast. I can't speak to shooting chromes but testing will answer any questions and allow you to adjust to a particular lens and its peculiarities.

Here is an example of what Brian described. With a 15" (375mm)lens if you wanted to shoot a 16X20 area on a table with the camera at eye level you would need about 25 innches of bellows and the rear standard would be 60 inches away from the subject. With a 8" lens (210mm)you need 8 inches of bellows and the rear standard is 36 inches from the subject. These are rough figures and were done with the front and rear standards tilted for dof.

 

That bring up another point, tilts. The longer the lens the more tilt needed.

 

Lastly, a 210-240 mm lens need not cover 8X10 at infinity to be useable at closer distances so if you have a lens in this range, or a friend has one you can borrow, you can at least get your feet wet and decide what you ultimately want in a lens.

I have a Zone VI and am quite happy with it, no real "gotchas". I have a 4X5 Zone VI also so I got the insert for the front to utilize the smaller 4X5 boards, that is kind of handy. If you want real flexibility the Deardorff maybe the way to go. You see a lot of used accesories available ie. 4X5 and 5X7 backs, lens boards etc. on ebay.

My initial response to Mr. Hird's post was certainly not meant to diminish the work he has done. On the contrary I find it very in teresting as an exercise and thank him for taking the time to share it with us. I mearly wished to interject an alternative to the scientific approach. Photography has always been about images to me. My feeling is we need to "master" the craft, retain what we have learned and then utilize it to make images, hopefully images that over time become better, more pleasing to us.

 

My issue is with presenting "newbies" with complicated formulas; the need for equipment that even the most successful photographers may have never used(densitometers comes to mind); circles of confusion; Tessar vs. Protar lens formulas, etc.

 

People new to the art of large format photography should be encouraged to take pictures, make prints, and learn a complicated system of camera and darkroom controls. Endless days agonizing over the production of graphs and charts, the ultimate fstop and is HC-110 better than PYRO really doesn't relate to the end product, the print.

 

Granted they all are a part of the process, but in the end taking pictures and trying different films, chemicals and papers will be a better use of a begineers time. In my mind "just doing it" will be more beneficial everytime.

Amen David.

 

Better yet, take some pictures.

 

If you want real world experience you don't push around pieces of paper on a graph and PSF your curvy wedge. You go out and do a test.

 

Set up to take the kind of picture you normally take; do a lot of scenics then use a scenic as your test subject. And for goodness sakes, take notes!

 

Take four pictures changing nothing but the focus on the camera.

 

Focus on infinity, stop down to f32 and take a picture. #1.

 

Focus on something up close stop down to f32 and take a picture. #2

 

Focus on something in between stop down to f32 and take a picture. #3

 

Use back tilt or front tilt to focus on the far and tilt until the near is in focus stop down to f32 and take a picture. #4

 

Take notes, mark film holders and when you have the negatives processed, make prints in what ever the normal size you print is. If it is a contact make contacts, if you do 11X14's do those.

 

Now compare the prints. What do you see. Which "look" are you after.

 

Now look at your notes. Do that the next time you want that look.

 

Shoot in the morning, process at noon and print that night. One days work and a lifetimes worth of information.

I presume they are onthe backing, that is where I have them occour. They are areas that have contacte the drum and the antihalation (sp)backing is not totally removed. I have had some success reducing the stain by putting the negatives back in developer AFTER fixing and before washing. You will see the stain diminish, but not necesarily be removed entirely. Normally the stain is light enough so as to not be a problem in the the sky areas of the image.

 

The cure? Let me know if you find one that works. I have encountered the stain with both Beseler and Unicolor drums. It also doesn't occour on every sheet nor on all of the sheets in the drum. I find the biggest culprit seems to be a damp drum, one that is just barely moist after cleaning from the previous batch of film. But even that seems an elusive cause.

If your hands are clean and DRY meaning DRY, you should have little concern about damaging the undeveloped emulsion (sp). Sometimes the darn film just won't cooperate and I have had to do just what you have. I have never suffered any damage I can attribute to touching the film surface. Easy does it, not to much pressure and you should be ok. Did I mention that your hands need to be DRY?

Ok folks, you all want to know why us regulars are staying away.........?

I'm 48....my exposures average 30 seconds.

 

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Started with 6X6 in '68, moved to 4X5 in '79, swerved into 6X7 in 85,

and 8X10 in '97.

 

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Bounce around all of those and do a little digital from time to time.

Beyond taking into account drydown effects you may need to do an

actual dry down test. This will graphically demonstrate the amount of

dry down you are getting. Knowing the actual effects of dry down for

a given paper, determining you final viewing illumination intensity

and matching the illumination intensity in your dark room are

critical, yet un-sung, elements to producing prints with consistent

tones.

 

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You may find that your images never look "right" wet under a normal

light, but after drying look very different, much as you describe in

your post. If I am going to print images to be hung in a gallery I

determine the illumnation there and print to fit that light. That

print might look weak when wet but look very strong under the

gallerys dim lighting. If they are to be handed around a table at a

picnic it would require a very different print to be as effective.

That print would actually look to dark wet but have vibrant tones in

the bright outside light. I know these are two extremes, but each

light and room has a different feel that can have an effect on

the "look" of the print.

Always opinionated and oft times controversial, his dedication to

large format photography was a light at the end of the tunnel for me.

I still read a couple of well worn issues of his Zone VI news letter,

#24 Arpil 1980 sits at my elbow even now, just to keep the juices

flowing.

 

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Here's a toast to Key Day exposure's and the perfect proof.

 

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"....rage, rage against the dying of the light." Dylan Thomas

Just got back off of holiday to the southwest. Met the photo ID and

magnetic wand police at every turn in the airport.....now I have to

look out for the tripod Police too?