john_hicks___

Some 67mm screw filters will fit, some won't; the thread pitch for the series adaptor ring / shade is a little different than the usual filter thread pitch, so don't force anything. If you're going to buy new filters best to just buy series-size filters.

 

Two groundglass adaptors were made; one just has a plain groundglass (cheaper) while the newest is a frame to hold an Acute-Matte screen. I haven't used the newer type; the older type is workable but the corners are so dark as to be just about invisible. A chimney finder works pretty well. This thing is, though, really a great camera for handheld use.

 

If you want to shoot 645 rectangles with an A-16 back you might be able to dig up the metal snap-on rectangular viewfinder mask.

The Epson will be fine for simply generating contact sheets, and you can get decent-quality scans for printing 8x10 or so from 120, but you'll do significantly better with a film scanner.

 

More to the point, though, is that each scan will take quite a bit of work covering dust spots, zapping the motherships etc...seriously, for good quality, figure _at least_ an hour or two per scanned image.

 

So...unless you want to do nothing else between now and 2008, I'd suggest you start shopping to contract with someone competent to scan the archive, assuming of course you want to preserve it to CD etc.

Sure looks like darkslide-slot light leaks to me. For a quick but cumbersome fix, cover the darkslide slot with black tape and only uncover it when changing film.

Guys, it's long been just about impossible to to project, or project in an enlarger, a full-frame-focused image of a slide in an ordinary glassless slide mount. For this reason projection lenses have often been designed to have a curved field of focus and it's been considered necessary to remove a transparency from its mount when duping or enlarging.

Welcome back from the darkside Jim. <g>

 

jbh

> They told me that all they had was t-max developer.

 

T-Max dev should give pretty decent results since it's of the general type of developer that D3200 "likes." Otoh, in the hands of a commercial lab, who knows what might happen.

 

> I shot the film at 3200 and I wanted it pushed a half stop because of the very low light conditions I was working in. When they gave me back the film it looked much too contrasty with very little shadow detail.

 

OK, let's be _really_ clear here. The "real" speed of D3200 depends to some extent on what you develop it in (same for TMZ); it ranges from about EI 800 in a metol-hydroquinone developer such as D-76 to about EI 1250 in a Phenidone-hydroquinone developer such as Microphen. This is based on shadow density, using the traditional .10 DU above fb&f at Zone I as the speedpoint. In no case is EI 3200 the "real" speed. It may, however, be (and is intended to be) and effective speed obtained by pushing, which is defined as simply underexposure and overdevelopment.

 

An underexposed and overdeveloped neg, "pushed," is exactly as you describe, showing thin shadow density and increased contrast. The only consideration (of that type) for a pushed neg is how bad it is compared to a "normal" neg, not the fact that it doesn't look like a "normal" neg. It couldn't.

 

Your best bet is to shoot a couple of test rolls and work with the lab (or another lab) to come up with development specs that give you usable negs.

Note that different developers give slightly different base density and fog with the same film.

 

Shadow detail level indicates how much exposure you've given; for the same shadow detail density then highlight density indicates relative levels of development.

> First of all, I'm speaking primarily about 35mm. Are you?

 

35mm through 8x10.

 

> The perforations of 35mm film cause streaking if agitation is too vigourous. Keep it on the gentle side.

 

If your agitation is replacing all the developer at the emulsion/liquid interface during each agitation cycle, _which is the intent of agitation_, then it's impossible to have more replacement caused by sprocket holes. If the sprocket holes are causing streaks of higher density then obviously the agitation over the entire surface of the film isn't enough.

 

Anyway...enough about this; back to the original question.

 

The only to test evenness is to photograph an even tone..a grey card, clear sky etc...develop the film and, preferably, read areas of the entire neg with a densitometer, or at least make a print, giving the paper continuous agitation to try to avoid introducing artifacts there.

 

If your agitation method is giving sufficient evenness then don't change a thing. If it isn't, then most likely you need to increase the vigor or amount by which the film is moved through the developer. If that change makes things worse then agitate less vigorously; if that change makes things better than keep on doing it. Only _YOU_ can decide if your agitation method is giving sufficient evenness, and only you can decide whether some much-touted method is better or worse than what you're doing.

First of all, I found that if sufficient agitation is given for very good evenness there's no difference in curve shape between that and continuous agitation. None! See http://unblinkingeye.com/Articles/Rotary/rotary.html for info.

 

Second, to the best of my ability to see, I don't see any significant difference in acutance or edge/adjacency effects between intermittent agitation and continuous agitation. This echos Henry's findings. Now, I don't doubt that there's a difference between very-minimal agitation and continuous agitation, but since very-minimal agitation results in poor evenness, it doesn't matter. I find a _far_ greater difference in acutance between using two different types of developers, say, Rodinal and D-76.

 

For intermittent agitation, I recommend a half-full tank; that is, use a double-size tank, put a loaded reel on the bottom and an empty reel on top, and use only enough developer to cover the bottom, loaded reel. Give 30 seconds initial inversion agitation and five seconds inversion agitation every 30 seconds. INVERT THE TANK VIGOROUSLY! You certainly aren't going to hurt anything or make the film blurry. Doing a magical gentle pattern while murmuring sweet nothing is BS and only gives bad evenness.

 

Others have mentioned having a big air space in the tank; it's essentially the same idea. I used to do up to three rolls in a four-reel tank, seven rolls in an eight-reel tank etc. The idea is to _force_ the developer to move over the film surface. Conversely, a stuffed tank prevents liquid movement. Think of baffles in a big, flat water or fuel tank in a boat, that prevent the liquid from sloshing back and forth.

> Without our photographic superstitions we'd be mere heathens instead of pagans and alchemists.

 

Now _that_ is an astute observation! <G>

> let's say that the problem is the long period of time between 'swizzles'

 

Stop doing that swizzle stuff and give vigorous inversion agitation. Your problem is insufficient agitation, I think in both time and motion.

 

> how do i control the highlights not blocking up

 

You can't. This is Tech Pan, which has a _very_ short range no matter what it's developed in. When developed for a "pictorial" CI the shoulder is extremely abrupt and low on the curve.

If the emulsion swelled that much it would detach itself from the base and shred. Besides, decreasing pH tend to shrink emulsion.

 

IMHO Formulary is trying way too hard to sell this product. If you want a non-stinky, non-indicating stop just use about a teaspoon citric acid in a quart of water.

If you need to, you can solve foam problems by adding a drop or two of Edwal LFN to the developer. But that should be a last resort.

 

I don't think the 2509 reels would work very well with any other than constant rotary agitation.

HP5+ in D-76 (or Rodinal, for that matter) has a fairly straight-line curve shape for _at least_ 14 stops. So it's certainly not going to block up.

 

These are big negs; graininess shouldn't be a concern.

 

Two stops extra exposure will give lots of shadow density, effectively _lowering_ contrast, so imho the last thing to do is further lower contrast by reducing development.

 

So I suggest develop normally in the developer of your choice. Since they're important films be sure to test first.

> sharp zone

 

It's simply out of adjustment. If you intend to install a new focusing screen now's the time to do it too.

The b&f density of 35mm HP5+ is far higher than the 120. It's normal.

It's been a long time, but I routinely used Acufine 1+1 without any difficulty to deal with 75F+ temps. I'd suggest 1.5x your normal time as a starting point.

Guys, the _Beseler_ brand paper drum has no ridges and the film will stick to the sides. The only solution is to remove it, rinse etc.

 

The _Unicolor_ brand paper drum has small ridges all around the inside surface. Film won't stick to the sides and the back coating is decolorized normally etc.

Both my Horseman 6x7 backs stop the lever at each frame; the numbers are just for reference. Winding takes about one and a half strokes per frame.

The focusing screen may be upside-down; that's easy to do.

 

If it's not the original screen, then someone failed to check/adjust focus

You can probably still get an instruction book for the C330 from Mamiya, or try John S. Craig, who sells new and photocopied books for many cameras. The C33 is very similar to the later C330.

 

Anyway...it's been a few years since I've even touched one of these cameras...but on one side there's a knob that has a notch or pointer that can be rotated to markings of "80..105..135..180" etc. Set that knob so it's indicating the lens you have, in this case, the 105. Once that's set, when you focus closely you'll see a dark bar come down into the top of the viewfinder screen; if I recall correctly, the bar comes down into the upper left corner of the screen, and is behind the screen so it's not really sharp and clear. This bar indicates the _top_ of what's going to be in the photo. Notice that if focused at a distance the bar doesn't appear; this is because parallax would be insignificant. But closer than around three feet you'd be getting into the range in which you'd crop off the top of subjects' heads so the parallax-indicator bar appears.

 

Compose your shot, then be sure what you want in the top area of the photo is _below_ parallax indicator. If you're using the camera on a tripod and must have precision, there's a gizmo called a Paramender that'll precisely compensate for the distance between the lenses.

 

The parallax-indicator also points at numbers engraved on the focus screen; these numbers give the exposure-increase factor for that focused distance.

 

You were actually giving an exposure increase at close range with your Nikkormat if you metered each shot; you didn't have to think about it because you were using the through-the-lens meter. But if you'd metered and set the exposure for, say, 50 feet, then focused and shot at one foot without giving an exposure increase the shot would've been underexposed.

 

At any rate, these things will come into play only closer than about three feet, so unless you're working that close a lot don't worry about them.

A plastic 35mm film cannister of sodium sulfite is ~50g, fwiw.

I'd use Microphen, DD-X or even Acufine. The "normal" speed of HP5+ in those developers is about EI 640, or we could say at least a half stop faster than D-76/ID-11, so there will be some additional shadow detail to begin with. If this shot is important enough you really should recreate the situation, shoot and develop some test film.

> Vacuum easel; Ya that's the ticket.

 

Yep, we all need one. I spent so much time hearing the fan on the stat camera my ears are still ringing.

 

BTW..perhaps I should clarify...the Beseler fan is in a metal box about 10 inches square or so, with a non-collapsible hose running from it to the head. The thing's so loud ideally it should be in another room.

The fan sucks air through the head and out. It's a rather powerful fan, noisy, far stronger than the usual muffin fan, about the same as a fan used for a vacuum easel in the graphic-arts industry.