Well, that sucked. I am not sure what I did wrong but the transparencies came back clear. No hint of image at all. Well, try try again.
Well, that sucked. I am not sure what I did wrong but the transparencies came back clear. No hint of image at all. Well, try try again.
Edward,
Make sure that you close the shutter before you remove the darkslide. This may not be the problem, but it can be very easy to forget.
Also, you may find it helpful to use Tuan's "Step-by-step guide to operating the view camera" ( http://www.cs.berkeley.edu/~qtluong/photography/lf/how-to- operate.html ), just to make sure that you don't forget anything.
When you do get a perfect transparency you'll be thrilled!
Correction:
That should be:
http://www.cs.berkeley.edu/~qtluong/photography/lf/how-to-operate.html .
It sounds like you didn't expose the film at all. The most likely culprits are that you either didn't remove the darkslide or forgot to cock the little shutter lever thingy before taking the photo (one of my personal favorites). Had you forgotten to close the shutter after composing and before pulling the dark slide (my OTHER personal favorite) then you would have massively overexposed, leading to a very dark or black negative.
I did close the shutter before putting in the film holder. I took out the dark slide and then triggered the shutter (1/4s at f/32 in shade). I then put the dark slide back in. I had to struggle a bit to have it seated well enough for the clasp to turn to keep the slide in place. I would expect different results if I had loaded the film backwards. The film was loaded in my dark bathroom at night (no lights on in the apartment).
Also
When you say "clear" do you mean clear black, or clear white? With Xparency film I'm assuming clear black. That would indicate no light ever got to the film. If that's the case, take the back off that camera and put your eye where that film used to be and trip the shutter a few times. It may be clicking away and no light is getting through. If you've got a black frame and the center is clear, the shutter may have "hung" in the open position and eventually burned everything out. Usually you'd still have some faint trace in a deep shadow somewhere.
If the slides came back clear (not black) they were grossly overexposed. It's possible that after focusing you forgot to reset or close the shutter and it was still in the full open position. Make a little step-by-step cheat sheet and use it until everything becomes automatic for you.
I figured out what went wrong and boy do I feel stupid. I put the holder in the wrong direction so the ridge was not seated in to the groove. This created a small gap that was letting light in while I was putzing about. You live and learn.
I went out again this weekend and this time I got it right. I proofed a couple of shots with polaroids to see the difference that movements make. I took 4 shots with transparency film as well. I'll get those back after work today.
I did it. I got back my 4 transparencies and in 3 out of 4 there were no camera errors. In one thre was a band of what looked like flare or fogging along one side. About a 3mm band. The rest of that transparency looked good.
I was amazed at how much movement I was able to use with my 127 Ysaron. In one of the shots I used a little bit of tilt, a little bit of rise and a little bit of swing and I still had no drop off at the edges at f/16 (focussed at about 4 ft - I also shot at infinity with modest movements (rise and tilt)).
Thanks alot for all of the help and advice.
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