Oops...not enough coffee yet on this Sunday morning.....Neal not Neil!!!
Oops...not enough coffee yet on this Sunday morning.....Neal not Neil!!!
TriX would certainly fit the theme of the project better, and sense I am going to have to buy a box of film anyway to get to 400, that may make more sense.
The meeting room is at a old hotel converted to a retirement community, at I-30 and Henderson Street near downtown in Ft. Worth.
Normal times the room is the restrauant for the facility so getting in there early and stringing a bunch of wire around on the floor might be a bit much to ask.
The master plan is to get there early the night of the event and shoot a couple of type 55 Polaroids of focusing targets and then go for broke. I thought I had the world's visiable supply of flashbulbs horded but at 6 per shot it is going to eat into my supply pretty quickly.
The camera is a Deardorff V8 and the lens is in a modern (for me and the age of the lens) Ilex shutter.
Love the shot of the Deardorff and Leica it does a very good job of making them human. What did the Leica do to deserve the chiding...shoot color film?
J.P. I guess spelling must not be important to me as logic tells me that I must have spelled "sense" wrong at least once in my post.
"What did the Leica do to deserve the chiding...shoot color film?"
Nah. That's the black body, dedicated to B&W. It's the chrome body that shoots, well . . . chromes. ;-)
The 8x10 is a "modern" Tachihara double-extension. But, it has been trained to use more vintage lenses, too.
pumping <strike>iron</strike> 16 ½" Red Dot?
"Pumping Iron"... there was a time that I got the same reaction as that by looking at pictures of nakid women.
How do people say: "they're just tools".
I think it was Claustwitz that said something to the effect that: no general ever lost a battle by having too many troups or being overly prepaired.
I am concerned that I am quite capiable of taking a perfect 4x5 test shot of the test targets and then screwing up the transition back to 8x10. (Change the camera back, change the focus, change the ASA, change the lens....)
Furthar, I would rathar look like a big fool and get the shot than a little fool and show up at the January meeting with nothing to show.
Therefore the plan as it stands this morning:
TriX in the 8x10 single element Protar yellow gel filter, Xsinc, 1/30sec,wide open F11.
Type 55 Polaroid in a seperate 4x5 camera with a 360mm Tele-xenar, wide open 5.6 (I think).
Fire the flash bulbs off the X sinc on the Ilex shutter on the 8x10 AND fire a solenoid off the same circuit to trigger the shutter on the 4x5.
Are dark room chemicals leaching through my skin and getting to the brain?
I forgot you can get Tri X Pro in 8x10...that would be a good choice...hopefully Kodak won't discontinue it between now and Christmas!!! Just kidding.
The only concern I might have with the dual-camera plan, Neal, would be whether there is any time delay with the solenoid. (Would a dual cable-release work better?) The thought of using a "forgiving" film like Tri-X is a good idea. You might think about using Tri-X in the 4x5, as well, for the same reason. Separately, will the angle of view of the 360mm T-X cover the scene? (You were talking about a shorter tele previously.)
OK, I'm going to continue to be a nuisance. If you're using an Ilex shutter why would you use X sync. The m sync has a built in microseconds delay that allows the flash bulbs to reach peak before the shutter opens. On X sync you will get some flash but not full pop. What am I missing here.
Jim, you are not a nuisance. If I didn't want help, I wouldn't have asked. It is just that I don't have an M sinc on my Ilex shutter. The lens is so old that the shutter was probably replaced in the 60s or 70s and it only has one set of flash contacts, no selector switch and a huge X stamped next to the flash contacts. I have used it with electronic flash and it works so I know it is x.
According to my books, at 1/30th of a second I miss very little of the bulb's power by using X sinc. I.E. the shutter is open long enough to let the bulb get up to full brightness before it closes. However at faster than 1/30 the guide number goes down fast.
Ralph:
I decided to go back to the 270 for 4x5 at lunch so we are on the same page on that. The dual sinc is a good thought. I had planed on cranking the delay on the solenoid down to nothing (there is a little adjustment on the body).
I am hopeing that with shutter speeds down in the 1/30 th range, the solenoid will be vertually instantious. However, my wife shared your concerns at lunch and almost mandated that I do some test shots between now and then. I have till Dec 2 to work all this out.
I figured that beyond being a backup to assure I haven't forget something important (like takeing the lens cap off) the Polaroid will give the audience more of a sense of partisipating.
In the past I have also had very good luck with Type 55 negatives. The big down side I have seen is that they are so thin but I have a Besler Negaflat which stretches them drum tight in the enlarger.
If I remember correctly however, most people recomend an ASA of 50 for type 55 negatives so even compensating for the yellow filter on the 8x10 I may not be able to get equivalent exposure on the 4x5 as the 400 8x10 tri X.
Neal,
Whenever the word “Banquet” appears on this forum, I feel compelled to jump in. In the early 70’s I earned a substantial part of my income by doing exactly the sort of thing you propose. I used 12x20 and 8x20 cameras and a lot of flashbulbs. Later on, I discovered a trick that made my life a lot easier. In short: Tri X and Acufine. Another part of the trick is the fact that you are not particularly interested in vertical correction. Which means that no matter how limited the coverage of your lens, you can pull the whole room-full of heads into focus by tilting the back. Which means that you don’t have to stop down all that much. And this means that, along with a film speed of 1200 that Tri X and Acufine provides, you can , in most cases, shoot available light. And indeed, some of my best banquet shots were done in this manner. If memory serves, most of my exposures were in the ¼ sec / F16 range. You have the person at the microphone direct the crowd to turn their chairs to face the camera. Then, when you get their attention, you give them a little spiel about holding still, and when it looks good, you shoot. Some of my fondest memories of this period were of people looking at the proofs in the lobby and marveling at how clear all the faces looked. At the time, it wasn’t a bad gig. I knew a Husband and Wife team who traveled the world doing this very thing at really big conventions. They would soup the neg. in the hotel bathtub, make proofs using a sheet of glass (purchased on location) and a light bulb. And, yes, process them in the bathtub.
……the good old days.
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