Kodak Ektar lenses: Tessar Vs. Double Gauss with respect to their rendering of images

[Tim V]

I'm sitting with a copy of the new edition of Cape Light now. It's certainly a look of its time; a bit of an overly romantic romp in parts, but great none the less. The notes say he shot everything at f90, which I find very odd considering he's talked about printing big from the negatives. I would have thought diffraction would kill the detail a that aperture. Beside the obvious in terms of increased depth of field, why shoot at that aperture? The hazy look? The contemporary pigment prints from drum scans are sized approximately 20x24", and from what I understand they were originally printed as dye transfers and later optical C-Type prints, maybe a little bit bigger. Anyone seen the exhibition prints in the flesh?

I ask because I like have seen a friend working with the same Wide Field Ektar and he spoke of the look of the lens, and it is striking in his prints and resembles Meyerowitz's look, only he's shooting at the 'conventional' f45.

http://www.beetlesandhuxley.com/exhi...ape-light.html

[Mark Sampson]

I doubt that Mr. Meyerowitz shot that entire book at F/90. Probably more a figure of speech emphasizing the slow nature of view-camera work. (My copy is packed away, so can't analyze the quote). But I have used the WF Ektars for a long time, in different focal lengths. When I used the 10'/6.3 most of my exposures were at f/32-45. But the pictures shot stopped down all the way don't look much different from the others. I've only contact-printed those images, but they all would stand up to enlargement.
I'm sure Meyerowitz's first 'originals' were contact prints on Ektacolor paper. The Phillips Collection, where I work, has some of these and a few of them were on exhibit last year. Part of the way those prints looked is due to the nature of the available process then; the only color neg film that would work was Vericolor Type L 4108. There were only two Ektacolor papers for the EP-2 process, and they weren't much different from each other. So he used the limited characteristics of his materials to shape his color vision, and did so very effectively. Of course the images may have been printed many ways over time; I have never seen any larger prints from that series, so can't comment about those.

[Bernice Loui]

Kodak Wide Field Ektar does not stop down past f45.


Bernice

[Drew Wiley]

It's not about sharpness. Some portrait photographers will still spend big bucks for large aperture tessars due to the gentle rendering of background blur. Commercial Ektars might be sharper, but were so-so in this particular characteristic, including WF versions.

[Drew Wiley]

I've seen both the early 8X10 Meyerowitz contacts and up to 30X40 enlargements. Have the book too, where he did claim routine f/90 stops. Maybe he slid it smaller than the official markings, but it was allegedly an attempt to exaggerate diffraction and not just depth of field.

[Tim V]

That's what I was wondering, if the extra diffraction – which at the claimed aperture I'd assume quite a lot – led to a slightly different rendering. More depth of field, yes, but a more dreamy glow?

The pictures I've seen of the Wide Field Ektars all go max f45 aperture, but Meyerowitz does claim to have used f90 for most exposures. Either way, I'm interested in what Mark has written about materials and processes used to lead to a particular result. In the generally digitally homogenous world we now exist in, people often forget about materials. Or at least they often forget where particular 'looks' and particular visual languages come from and why. Good information, thanks.

[Mark Sampson]

Well, I admit being influenced by 'Cape Light'. I first saw the book in 1981, when I had just been hired by a custom lab (remember those?) as a b/w printer. That led to learning to print color on the job, and then for myself. I bought a 4x5 camera at the same time and began to play around. One of my colleagues (who taught me to print color) was doing the same thing. Since we were in Rochester, Kodak film was the only brand we thought of. Vericolor Type L 4108 was the only sheet color neg film that would tolerate long exposures- although meant for tungsten light. So we exposed it in daylight @ EI50 with an 85B filter. (Meyerowitz did not, and corrected the color, as far as possible, in the printing process.) I contact-printed or enlarged onto Kodak Ektacolor type 74 paper, N (semi-matte) surface, processed in a roller-transport machine using EP-2 chemistry. Standard practice at the time. Shooting E-6 (as most of the lab's professional customers did) yielded beautiful chromes on the light table, but were difficult to print. Internegatives were a PITA and our lab didn't offer Cibachrome. The RIT professor who taught dye transfer was a customer, but that process was pure rocket science- not for mere mortals like me. So I used the materials to hand and learned as I went. I haven't done any serious color work since ITT shut down the color lab I ran in 2009, but I hope to go back to it someday; it's an appealing, quite different world now.
...I should add that the only other sheet color neg film in those days was Vericolor II Type S, 4107, which was the film for studio portraiture. It was lower-contrast, balanced for skin tones and meant for flash exposure. It would only work for exposures shorter than 1/10 second, so impractical for outdoor view camera work. (I'd exposed miles of that film in 70mm in my previous job as a portrait shooter, but that's another story.)

[Drew Wiley]

I like Meyerowitz, but never emulate that style. Like certain others, he contact printed because he couldn't afford to enlarge. Later, as he gained recognition, he had a NYC lab do enlargements. In another book he complained about the less than ideal background blur of the WF Ektar with portrait subjects; but he seems to be a one lens purist.