rjjackson

hi simon,

 

in short, the aperture and shutter speed adjustements are inversely proportional to each other. as one goes up, the other must go down to equal the same exposure value. so in manual mode, you must manually move both the f-stop one direction and the shutter speed in the other direction to achieve the same overall exposure. (your decision about which way to adjust them will be guided by your emphasis on motion or depth of field). alternatively, in shutter priority mode or aperture priority mode, these two adjustements are coupled; so when you adjust one, the other moves automatically to give you the same exposure.

 

good luck and have fun.

<div></div>

hi tim,

 

i'm in kiev and i see many examples from lubitel while i'm in the markets and shops. my friends here seem to like the 166 best -- good overall package and fun, light camera to play around with. you should have no trouble finding one in minty condition. it's on my list as well.... but there are so many cameras to explore here.

 

good luck and have fun. let me know if i can help

 

rj

ken and franklin, thanks for the comments.

 

franklin, wow, that thing is strange.

 

for the hole itself, i used a segment from a beer can. i first sanded it down to be as thin as possible without bending it. i then placed the metal down on some cardboard and tapped the pin through the tin until it just barely poked through, so i just barely could feel it. then i sanded off the bur, and finally under a loupe rounded the hole off again. this took me a few tries to get something both close to what i though to be the right size for my focal length (.223mm) and evenly round.

 

i think if you put a pinhole in front of the cinelarger, you will have a telephoto angle of view, maybe something like a 100 mm lens. good luck. there are lots of resources on the web for tips and such.

i thought i would share the results of a prototype pinhole using a medium format

back.

<br>

<br>my first objective was to make a lens-board/housing unit to mount on top of

the film back. then i decided to make a tripod mount using an old saliut body,

cut in half.

<br><br>

using the pinhole designer from pinhole.cz, i created a focal length of 26mm,

giving about 120 degree angle of view. i also added about 7mm of vertical

shift. on the inside of the lens board, i added a fixture for 37mm filters i

had lying around that dont' seem to fit any of my cameras.

<br><br>

i had some light leaks in my first roll, solved when i added the body housing.

next i'm working on a way to mount the lens board directly to the body, but

first i need to find an aluminum welder. the stares i get from this are quite

different from setting up my hasselblad. any tips welcome :)

<br><br>

here's a picture of the camera:

<br>

<img src="http://rjjackson.com/images/img/pinhole_2.jpg">

<br><br>

and some examples:

<br>

<br><img src="http://rjjackson.com/images/img/fi_00926.jpg">

<br><img src="http://rjjackson.com/images/img/fi_00933.jpg">

<br><img src="http://rjjackson.com/images/img/fi_00930.jpg">

<br><img src="http://rjjackson.com/images/img/fi_00932.jpg">

<br><img src="http://rjjackson.com/images/img/fi_00915.jpg">

hello,

 

light leaks are a persistent theme with the ukrainian cameras. you can address these problems yourself. the first thing i would suggest is to add some thin shims to the film back where the foot from the body clamps to the back. if you take the black frame off, you will see the existing shims there, and that they are not thick enough to take up the slack you mention (just be mindful of the orientation of the springs). in combination with or instead of the shims, you may also consider adding a thin material around the frame on the body where the back meets flush with it, such as some sticky-backed felt.

 

dunno what to say about frame spacing problems. it's never been an issue for me, but i have only used the older saliuts. how far off is it? are they over lapping? what film back do you have exactly?

 

good luck.

rit, don't get me wrong. a tlr IS a compromise, both in absolute image quality and relative working convenience. i agree with Q that it is better to compose through the lens for most applications, especially macro. but the "cheapest camera body option" requirement makes the TLR a serious contender. for the price of less than the body of a pentax you get a complete outfit ready for, what i consider, reasonably good macro work. (i mean close up pictures of flowers, eg, not precise and technical copy work. for sure, framing will be a slight inconvenience).

 

but the tlr option's strength may also be its weakness. for example, for one purchase you get a complete outfit ready for good, if slightly inconvenient, macro; you don't need to buy anything else to get started. however, your work while using the tlr will always be limited by the equipment you just acquired. with an SLR, however, you will have to buy lots of bits before you can get started, with room for nearly endless improvements, increasing the price in proportion to the image quality and convenience. exactly because SLRs tend to be modular, you can add better bits as you go along when you can afford them.

 

don't think i'm trying to sell a TLR or something -- just throwing ideas out there. for the record, i agree completely that for serious dedicated macro work, SLRs really are the way to go and you might simply be better off biting the bullet and investing in good equipment (and time learning to do it right) from the beginning if you are sure this is the direction you are heading.

 

just to put this comparison into financial perspective,though, one can look at the prices at keh needed for making the first picture:

 

mamiya c220 with 80mm 2.8 black BGN: $220

 

pentax 645 manual focus body BGN: $199

pentax 645 bellows: $275

petax 645 120 F4 SMC A MACRO (cheapest pentax macro lens on keh): $179

 

ok, for between 4-500 dollars more, as we all agree, slrs are a better setup. but the 200-some bucks on a mimiya is not money wasted. the question comes back to identifying your objectives.

if i were in your shoes -- new to MF, looking for good macro on very tight budget -- i would be seriously considering a mamiya tlr. it seems to meet many of your requirements. with even an 80mm lens, you get a pretty good macro set up on a very tight budget. the camera comes with bellows for extremely close macro work, with an exposure compensation chart mounted to the body, and, if you're on a tripod, it's easy to make some markings simulating a paramender so you don't have to worry about parallax. as an added bonus, you get a great field camera.

well,

 

i have both systems and have just now tried it out. an a12 back seems to fit on my saliut-s, but the latch on the top needs some nudging in order to close since the tolerances appear to be very slightly different. it winds through the fames like it's cracking walnuts, but seems to kick the counter over at the right spot. i doubt i will ever test a roll of film this way though. i will say, with some modification, a saliut or kiev back will work fine on a hassy w/out frame spacing problems.

 

perhaps the frame spacing is a problem with the body, not the back? sorry i didn't give you a very definitive or scientific answer. i bet there are very few, though, who use both a 500cm and a saliut-s.

hi rit,

 

i am not sure i understand your question. do you already have a MF macro lens (or, is your 50mm macro for a 35mm camera, and you want to know if this will work on a MF system)?

 

or, are you asking if a regular 50mm lens will be suitable for dedicated macro work?

 

the differences between macro and non-macro lenses is that the macro lens is optimized for focusing at close ranges, and should offer better control of distortion and sharpness at the corners. with either lens you will likely need bellows anyway.

 

so the question comes back to you. do you need the flattest image possible with the least amount of distortion? there is no good/bad, but rather various results. personally, i like the look of very wide angles with macro work exactly because of the strange distortion, but this approach is clearly unsuitable for copy work where you need a more faithful representation.

i said, "as frank mentions", but i meant, "as edward mentions" when referencing the above discussion on angles of view . forgive me, i was still drinking my lavazza :).

bayonet 50 if you have a contemporaneous C lens, bayonet 60 if you have a newer CF.

hi ron,

 

for me, the benefit of film of any format over digital is that one is exempted from the race of technological progress; for example, you will never feel upstaged by a guy with a bigger, newer digital camera by bringing out a classic medium or large format system. moreover, i find that the workflow of film is enhanced (over digital) by virtue of the fact that the cost and labor forces me to be very careful about craft and product (whether my images benefit from such workflow is an entirely different question :). i guess i would argue that it is trivial to compare absolute differences between film and digital because they simply feel different, from beginning to end, and one chooses a certain system because he enjoys the workflow that follows.

tiffany,

 

some clarification on edward's comments about angles of view on your lens requirments. indeed, 17mm on a full frame 35mm camera would be hard (or very expensive) to match in medium format, but your 20d has a crop factor of 1.6, so 17-40 is equal to nearly 27mm at the wide end on this camera. in fact the 50-60mm range on a medium format system, as frank mentions, would be about what you are used to with your 17-40mm zoom, even matching the relatively slow f-stop limitations. in my opinion, it is not important to find an exact equivalent in angle of view because the different aspect ratios will change your composition. on the wide end, i have a 45mm, 55mm, and 60mm for 6x6 systems, and i find that the 60mm most comfortably matches the not-extremely-wide angle of view offered by the 17-40 on a reduced frame DSLR. on a 645 or 6x7, you may likely prefer to go a little wider. the mamiya rangefinder line with 55mm and 80mm seems to be falling within your requirements, but adding the 55 lens will obviously require a significantly higher budget, and if you are thinking about spending so much, you must consider very carefully the cons of committing to a rangefinder if landscapes are your primary subject.

 

i think all the advice in this thread has been sound; you just have to decide what features are most important to you.

frank,

 

i guess it's funny to think of an opinion about a very subjective matter to be right or wrong. as the reasoning for for my thought on the matter indicated (composing through the lens and removable backs), an SLR more closely matches my idea of a landscape camera. anyway, i never challenged the "quality" of a rangefinder. in fact, i recall that i too recommended (if indirectly) the mamiya 7ii for handheld landscapes.

hi tiffany,

 

in my experience, while SLRs are handholdable, TLRs and rangefinders really excel in this area. however, i don't think the rangefinder systems are particularly well suited to landscapes, but then i'm almost always shooting on a tripod in low light. yet if quick access to a light system is more important than composing through the lens and removable backs, a good rangefinder won't dissapoint you. (i cannot speak for bronica or fugi's glass, i have only used a mamiya 6 and mamiya 7ii).

compare these three frames. it looks, to me, as if the mirror got stuck entirely for the blank frame, stuck partially for the other two. if you had light leaks, the film would be white. if you had development problems, the problem would spread beyond just two frames.<div></div>

have you checked that the mirror functions correctly? since a small part of the frames seems to be exposed, i would not suspect light leaks or damage during processing, but perhaps the mirror did not lock up fully during exposure -- or, did you use a flash? was your shutter speed set beyond the flash sync?

 

hard to say, though. is this your first roll through the camera?

out of curiosity, what camera let the back open so easily?

it looks more and more like the film isn't advanced fully.

 

you say that there are 8 frames. in fact i see 7 and 1/4. is the 1/4 of a frame the bit i have put in a black box in this crop of your picture or is this somehow a full frame?

 

also, do you remember exactly the order of exposures? is the frame nearest the ceiling exactly the 8th exposure you made? (so exposures 9 through 12 ar3e missing?) or is that the 12th exposure, so exposures 1 through 4 are missing? (and vice versa, is the first full frame on the film nearest the floor the 1st exposure you made or is it the 5th exposure?)

 

let's do a test. remove the back from the camera. remove and replace the insert so that the counter returns to zero. crank the advance lever clockwise until it stops, counting the number of revolutions. is it roughly 10? does it lock firmly whitj the counter showing "1" after 10 turns?

 

i was in a hurry once and started firing before having advanced the film fully. i lost exactly the first 4 and 3/4 frames as shown in your example, meaning that the 5th exposure was the first bit nearest the floor as in your example. but the difference was that i was able to keep shooting the rest of the film until the back finally reached 12 and locked.

 

if the top is your 12th exposure, i don't see any other possible explanation. if it were reversed, you should be looking at sticky shutter, dark slide, lens cap, etc...<div></div>

strange.

 

stephen, you still haven't answered ronald's questions. it makes a big difference if the first frames are missing or the last frames. you say in your example the film is upside down. so the frame nearest the floor is the 1st frame? and it appears to be clipped off, showing roughly 1/3 of the frame? this would suggest that the shutter was released before the film was fully advanced.

 

the frame spacing seems to be a bit of a problem as well, it looked to me as if it were an a24 back. are all the parts matching?or which is the back exactly, with the hole in the back for looking at the number of frames or w/out the hole in the back? the first type can be a bit tricky to load correctly...

 

how many rolls have come out like this?

does your camera have an a12 or a24 back?

edward,

 

thanks for the fast reply. i think i'll pick up a 10mm and 21mm... and look for the book as well.

 

ciao -- rj

i seem to need a bit of help picking out the right accessories.

 

will a b60 on b50 adapter ring fit inside a lens hood for 150mm sonnar (i would

like to avoid carrying two filter stacks, even though i see that the b50 filters

are fairly inexpensive)?

 

is the Y filter the same filtration as a hoya k2; G the same as x1; R the same

as 25 (i'm new to hasselblad filters)?

 

will the 16mm extension tube on a 150mm sonnar roughly give the same

magnification as a proxar f=1m (and what category are these tubes under at keh)?

 

rj

i have a second idea for loosening the nut and screw. if you peer underneath the plate, you'll see a spring providing the tension to th plate. the little screw causing your grief goes through this spring while the nut lies flush on top of it. i think if you press laterally against this spring it will push up against the screw and bind it firmly enough to loosen the nut. after it's loose, i think you can back the nut off by pulling against the plate. don't push too hard, though, of course.

 

at any rate, try a solvent like the lighter fluid and it will make working aorund the plate easier.