beasleyglb

<p>The older emulsions sound like they are not hardened like a lot of newer emulsions are. Be sure you are using a hardening type fixer and not that used for C-41 which is more a neutral ph. I've seen some soft emulsions take on a pebbly texture prior to washing completely off the base. Some processes require hardening as a first step, if you find a pre hardener you will likely need to adjust the processing times to compensate for the different rate of developer penetration.</p>

<p>Take the diffuser out and store it securely, take out the lens and store it as well. Remove the dome and feed the wire through the lens hole and set the dome on top upside down. Store the bulb somewhere safe if it is a special purpose enlarger bulb and replace with a lower wattage bulb. Run the head to the top of the post and turn it on to bounce light off the ceiling.</p>

<p>It would help to post a picture of this texture if you can. It could be grain or reticulation, I haven't seen much else cause that reaction.</p>

<p>Argh! No way to delete a multple post?</p>

<p>Sorry about the multiple posts, the editing function is a bit awkward.</p>

<p>The only thing I would add is if you use a water rinse as a stop and also use an alkaline fix, leave the lid on till the fix has worked the required time accoring to specs, then check it.<br>

Ever heard of monobath developers? These work with fixer and developer going at the same time, the fixer dilute enough the developer gets done before the fix does. With an alkali fix and film dropped in with developer still in the emulsion this is pretty much what you have going on.</p>

<p>The only thing I would add is if you use a water rinse as a stop and also use an alkaline fix, leave the lid on till the fix has worked the required time accoring to specs, then check it.<br>

Ever heard of monobath developers? These work with fixer and developer going at the same time, the fixer dilute enough the developer gets done before the fix does. With an alkali fix and film dropped in with developer still in the emulsion this is pretty much what you have going on.</p>

<p>I would also make a point of packing a small towel or two in a separate pack so you will have someting to clean your hand with before getting the camera gear out. The mud and dirt you encounter in caves will get on and in everything, count on it. And take the advice about more light, most caves suck the light out of a flash. I've found with the electronic flashes I've packed underground I have to derate one or two stops to get anywhere near an adequate exposure. The obvious exception would be the snowy gypsum type formations like found in Lechuguilla Cave. That was almost like snow blindness!<br>

A good test is to try some shots outdoors at night with no reflecting walls or lights anywhere near and see where the exposure falls.</p>

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<p>I would also make a point of packing a small towel or two in a separate pack so you will have someting to clean your hand with before getting the camera gear out. The mud and dirt you encounter in caves will get on and in everything, count on it. And take the advice about more light, most caves suck the light out of a flash. I've found with the electronic flashes I've packed underground I have to derate one or two stops to get anywhere near an adequate exposure. The obvious exception would be the snowy gypsum type formations like found in Lechuguilla Cave. That was almost like snow blindness!<br />A good test is to try some shots outdoors at night with no reflecting walls or lights anywhere near and see where the exposure falls.</p>

Thanks for the tip! I'll see what I can do with it.

Good move, I just wish you could drag and drop from one folder to the next. As it stands if a picture needs to be moved to another folder you have to upload it again. Then you lose all the comments and ratings that went with it.

I like to check into the gallerry on occasion to see what new has been

uploaded. Unfortunately there is no option to search by chronological upload

date to see what is new. You think this would be a good addition to the options?

If it is from the drying you may be getting mineral deposits from the water. A good way to get past this is to do a final rinse in distilled water for several minutes to displace and dilute the mineralized water. The advice on the drying techniques is very good. You might be able to clean up the spots on the film with a weak stop bath solution with a little salt added to make some HCl to dissolve the minerals. Handle the film carefully doing this to avoid damage to the emulsion. I'd try it on a test clip first before committing to anything worth keeping.

I hope you can resolve this soon.

Sounds like an artifact of unsharp masking. I would turn that off in the scanner preferences and only sharpen in photoshop. Then when you sharpen you set the radius to larger than the grain size so the sharpening is enhancing only the image and not the grain. You will have to experiment some to determine the right radius for your setup. Try a radius of about 18 to start.

I've had the same problem. It cropped up after I had to replace a hard drive and the OS reloaded. It installed all but the twain driver. Not only that the twain driver for my Epson scanner refuses to load and just recently it decided the driver for my 870 printer was no good too. Also the card reader refuses to work. I still haven't figured out what is going on and find the situation close to infuriating as Microsoft refuses to answer any questions on this and the other software vendors are clueless.

The meter shuts down because it was designed for wide open metering. It's a logical step to turn of the metering as this would result in metering errors if adjusted while stopped down.

Personally I don't like a fresnel. I have Satin Snow GG on some of my cameras and its quite bright and very sharp.

If you've used Rodinal and like it you should get more. Stuff lasts forever!

I use one shot for occasional developing, a mixed jug of D76 would expire way too soon and would not give uniform results. Rodinal or Pyrocat HD in glycol are very long lived. Kodak rapid fix without the hardener is also great for one shot too. That leaves very few bottles to store and worry about keeping fresh.

How does the image look on film? If your GG has a fresnel that may be messing with the image from the 135 as it is a bit wide, and wide angles often get a blackout effect from the mismatch in focal lengths.

I would definitely inspect the lens for hazing or fungus. If the film images is just as mushy a trip to the lens doctor may be in order.

Looking at the Craiglist items I see the seller did not include a lens that covers the 4x5. It would usually be around 150mm focal length. Be sure the 4x5 neg carrier is included. Also check to be sure the heads cover 4x5 without vignetting, not being familiar with those products I can't tell you anything about them. Everything else seems good to go.

You might later find you want to get a tank for the 4x5, the ones listed seem to be roll film tanks.

If you've made a name for yourself in that field a price increase is not unreasonable and sometimes expected. I've heard of occasions where a judicious price increase can raise the percieved value of the work and actually sell more. Check other works that are similar and selling well and take note of what they sell for and who buys them.

Sounds like you are trying to launch full fledged in one try. Get your camera first if you don't have one. Learn to use it well. Read up and educate yourself on the processes before you buy the first item of supplies. Then try your hand at developing your film one sheet at a time in trays. This will get you accustomed to handling film and chemicals. At this point it would be best to just make contact prints of your film using a sheet of glass to hold the neg on the print paper and a dim light to expose it. Develop in the same trays. There were many quite famous photographers who used little else to produce thier work, albeit in larger formats.

As you learn more you will get to the point of being ready to graduate to enlarging the negs and will know much more what to expect of the process. Read the old postings in forums here and at other sites like the Large Format Forum and APUG.org, you will quickly find where to buy and what to do.

You would need to construct a light source for it that will cover the film back. A glass plate could be installed to place the negative on and the vacuum back removed. The print paper would be placed on the copy board. Alternately some copy cameras have a lighted copy bed which can be uncovered by taking the target grid and it's foam back up. This was for shooting copies of chromes and would be the least amount of modifying to use the camera for an enlarger. Simply put the print paper where the film would normally go in the camera. Any burning or dodging would have to be done in front of the negative instead of over the print paper.

Come to think of it if you don't have the lighted copy bed you may be able to replace it with one or build one to fit and have an easier time of it.