andrea_milano

Ries are a beauty but they come to a price and that is a fact of life,

in Europe since East met West 10 years ago in Germany, we can still

enjoy the beauty of Berlebach tripods at a price which isn't very much

more than they use to be when east-German. They come in all sizes and

colours all made of nice wood and aluminum. Dont' have an address right

now but look around, Hama was marketing them too under their own label,

at the Fotokina they were all over the place with different brandnames.

As already said, 655 film pack requires sodium sulfite too, best use

the "bucket" Polaroid PN 10,

where you can plunge the polaroid negatives safely without them

touching anything and getting scratches.

Make sure that you carefully remove the black plastic back coating(it

comes off after a minute or so).If shooting outdoors, don't linger on

admiring your positive, the negative will be otherwise partly solarized

(but if you do it on purpose it gives a great effect).

You can leave the negatives in sulfite for up to 72 hours but I

wouldn't do it, few minutes or few hours is plenty!

Enjoy!

Hi Q-Tuan!

I've very much the same problem with a device which I myself put

together for pinhole photography.

I mountes a metal plate in which there was a pinhole on a self made

lens board and all my negatiwes had Two! bads on two sides (one on each

side) couldn't find any explaination and only now I understand from all

these comments that my self styled lens board must have been allowing

for leakage, I guess that yours does the same and I will mount the lens

on another board believing that the problem is solved!

Take care and thanks for your work on this site.

I seem to recall the camera having only a horizontal back and don't

think that the construction would have allowed for a turning back( the

canera appears pretty "rectangular" as opposed to "square"), however

this is really a tiny camera, so apart from having to order a set of

oriental hands to help you with setting the camera, turning the camera

to vertical would be easy for any self-respecting tripod.

Armin,

I played with it in several occasions but decided that it didn't do

anything for me, I 'd rather buy a 4x5 and add a rollfilm holder having

movements and versatility of two formats.

A camera is like your partner, what is good for one might not work for

another. Only advice is play a lot with it and if possible take the

camera for a walk, fiddle around with it..... if after a rollfilm it

still turns you on.....then it is your mate, much like with people,

isn't it?

Good Luck!

Armin,

you see a lot of those, it is a looker and will be a nice conversation

piece on your mantlepiece...... if you wan to use it, then you will

find it fiddly and it is a lot better to buy a medium format like a

Makina 6x7 or Makina 6x9., movements limited to such a little quantity

that they are hardly worth it.

..........On the other hand the fall off in landscape tends to help sky

color saturation and if movements are kept within a 1>2 cm displacement

should be acceptable. By the way fall off happens in all lenses, the

thing is that we rarely see it due to not taking pictures of evenly

coloured subjects.

Generally the lenses look alike but the use of the f8 is complicated

not only indoors but also if your camera uses the most common types of

ground glass, in the end you'll end up guessing the focus rather than

choosing it relying more on the aperture than anything else, if

possible go spend the extra buck for it!BTW the 72mmXL is a better

option (more movements)

Good Luck!

Damon,

I've seen the zone VI only once and know the wista very well, in my

humble view, they don't even remotely look alike!

Sorry but I cannot corroborate with more imformations than this!

Good Luck!

I have used a variety of cameras , it takes time to work out what you

need best for which job, so infact, I would discourage the use of the

150mm tout court (a different thing the XL) if that's the only lens you

have on 4"x5", unless, you want to get familiar with a this format and

expand later on.I would recccomend it if part of a set. Studio requires

different lenses for sure, if you have to pick one because of budget

limitation and the need of doing different things with it, I would then

choose the 180mm. Very good in portraits, product and so on.If you have

a field and the studio camera I'd reccomend a field with any Linhof or

clone and a Linhof or a camera with a linhof adapter (practically every

brand has that!). I use a Cambowide 58mmXl, a Shen Hao 4"x5" with 75mm.

150mm, 210mmm. A Tachihara 8"x10" with a 240mm, 365mmm.

Another thought.

Most of the things we do in large format can be done very well

otherwise, but it is love and this is by definition blind so all the

rational things play very little role in the choice of the format you

use but rather the way it feels, for you, to handle the equipment.

If I might help my pinch of salt, most of the contributors forgot that

there is a modern version of the hand held camera which simply didn't

exist before and these are the widecameras or the panoramas, when you

are in focus from 1m to infinite at aperture 16, you just need a sunny

day to enjoy yourself let alone if you add a flash and go into the

crouds and shoot 4x5" or 6x12cm superwide, it must be a lot of fun!

Almost point and shoot! Lifting a technika with 240mm and make a

portrait without tripod on a cloudy day with no flash might be

impossible, but why would you want to create an impossible situation?

Work with the things you have and not agaist them. Use the modern

version of the Weegee Look, very trendy indeed!

Regards

Yes , indeed, I thought that I could use te finder for the 15mm

heliar,

any advice on that?

Thanks

Thanks! I do not see the difference between a handheld Cmbowide and a

handheld Linhof 6x18 in use, you don't necessarely need a tripod for

both of them, I am still iterested in comments concerning The Cambo or

Silvestri viewfinder or any other alternative.

Dear friends and contributors,

I've just bought myself another nice toy! A cambowide with a 58mmXL (great camera, believe me!), the lens came with a centerfilter and I wonder , since I've never used a centerfilter on my 75mm before, how much do you actually have to conpensate for the filter, I thought it was 1 and 1/2 stop but a few polaroids proved that I actually could get the perfect exposure with 1/2 stop compensation. It might very well be that my meter went nuts but can anyone clarify this. oh! Just another little thought, any advice on the optical viewfinder? I mean should I buy a Cambo or can I save a little money doing otherwise (adaptations and alternative welcome!)

Thanks.

Dear Contibutors,

I have the pleasure to own a GX Edition (60 years), I'd like to ask

wether I can use an old prism for the F series on my GX and if there

is anyone who ever had a Bosscreen made for a GX and How does it

compare to standard ground glass, I am not totally happy about the

clarity of the ground glass and look for alternatives, I'd like the

opinion of all contributors but I'd most apreciate a comment by the

Omnipresent Bob Solomon.

Nice to read all trhe pro's and con's of all the systems. Now that we

started talking about this, how about the tubes, a few threads ago

someone mentioned developing 8"x10" in , jobo or unirollers, However

then the problem arose of the anti-halation staying behind because of

lack of contact of the back of the film with the developer, stop,

fixer. Hoe is the problem solved in tubes beats me, I've never used

them and maybe would like to, can anyone elaborate on this, Thanks.

I don't mean to argue with the previous contributor but in my

experience and in everybodyelse's I've talked about, the Yankee tank

proved to be a real pain in the neck, not only getting consistent

result is almost impossible, irregular developing is rather the norm

than the exeption. It is a messy business as well the tank isn't water

tight and therefore the chance you'll end up sloshing chemicals about

is very high, the tank which I use now after lots un unfotunate

episodes with the Yankee is the Combiplan, very reliable, works like a

normal 35mm tank without the Jobo loading aggravations, Jobo id very

good as well but I found loading less than easy, infact jobo reccomends

a kind of leader machine to do the job for you but I found it clumsy.

By the way, loading 12 films in the yankee and getting it right is

difficult too. I am sorry to disagree. Combi-plan works the samer way

as 35mm , same agitation too!

Air drying is very good but space consuming, a FB dryer a press is a

good solution surely better than your Iron but you need a good machine

(Buscher for example) , terribly expensive new , sometimes very cheap

second hand, mine was $50! buy with a thermostatic control.

greetings.

There is another entry just at the bottom of all the list of recent

entries which is about processing 8x10 into a jobo processor, read it

and follow the Links indicated by Sean Yeats.Greetings.

Actually many photographers mantain that it is the front that you have

to remove, somewhere on old threads in this forum you can read several

entries concerning this.

It is a notorios thing, Half int the Whole thing so what do you

actually espect, unless you have a lens which conbines different

elements arranging it into a new lens like the Plasmat all you are

going to have is less than half a good lens!

I went for a "social" dinner with a number of photographers and

dealers, and a dealer was telling me that they had never sold as much

fiber based black and white paper as they do now.

I have been teaching large format photography and in particular

portrait for 7 years and as surprising as it might sound the interest

is growing rather than going down.

All this happens in Holland, but I know that in England things are

similar if not better, so guys and gals what are we talking about?