I am new to LF too. May I ask a few question in regards to buy equipment?
1. where can i get old/cheap 4x5 film holders? How much is it per unit?
2. what kind of lenses should I prepare? i shoot urban scene, portrait mostly.
I am new to LF too. May I ask a few question in regards to buy equipment?
1. where can i get old/cheap 4x5 film holders? How much is it per unit?
2. what kind of lenses should I prepare? i shoot urban scene, portrait mostly.
Originally Posted by tigger_six
Hummph, my wife is responsible for my getting back into photography - she really loves art and when we were dating and she found out I had been into photography and darkroom work got excited and encouraged me to take it up again. She recently told me that at one of her lady's nights when her friends asked how things were going with me she said the only complaint she had was that I didn't spend enough time in the darkroom and on my art.
No help there at all, but I feel very lucky.
One point about changing bags and tents - if you have to in order to travel, well you have to. But you will have far less trouble with dust if you load your holders, whenever possible, in your darkroom assuming you have one, or any other room you can black out and that you can keep scrupulously clean.
Those who have only shot smaller formats, where film is loaded factory clean and in the case of 35mm passes through a felt light trap that wipes it, may not think of this but dust on LF film is a much bigger problem than in smaller formats. The smallest speck on your film at exposure will result in an unexposed white area on the negative. Such white spots print as black and are a lot harder to deal with in printing than dust on negatives that print as white, plus there is no option to simply make another print. Those working hybrid mode with scanning will have a lot less trouble with this. Fixing such spots on the computer is usually trivially easy but even then if there are many of them or they are large they can be aggravating. Those of us who print optically will go to great lengths to avoid dust in the first place. I don't own a changing bag and don't want to. I load my holders in my darkroom, holding them in the air stream blowing out of a HEPA room air cleaner to blow any dust off and not allow any other to settle on while I close the slide. I have 11 holders and keep them all loaded. 22 shots plus a rollfilm back has been more than enough for any trip I've taken so far.
You didn't mention this brand, so I'll throw it out as an option. I've been very happy with my Zone VI.
Mike
Thanks for the dust warning. I have had dust on my 120 negatives and as you say, it's much worse than dust while enlarging. My current plan is to do all of the loading in the bathroom, after I use the shower to add a little humidity to the air. I learned the trick while putting finish on a guitar. I'll see how it goes.Hummph, my wife is responsible for my getting back into photography - she really loves art and when we were dating and she found out I had been into photography and darkroom work got excited and encouraged me to take it up again. She recently told me that at one of her lady's nights when her friends asked how things were going with me she said the only complaint she had was that I didn't spend enough time in the darkroom and on my art.
No help there at all, but I feel very lucky.
One point about changing bags and tents - if you have to in order to travel, well you have to. But you will have far less trouble with dust if you load your holders, whenever possible, in your darkroom assuming you have one, or any other room you can black out and that you can keep scrupulously clean.
Those who have only shot smaller formats, where film is loaded factory clean and in the case of 35mm passes through a felt light trap that wipes it, may not think of this but dust on LF film is a much bigger problem than in smaller formats. The smallest speck on your film at exposure will result in an unexposed white area on the negative. Such white spots print as black and are a lot harder to deal with in printing than dust on negatives that print as white, plus there is no option to simply make another print. Those working hybrid mode with scanning will have a lot less trouble with this. Fixing such spots on the computer is usually trivially easy but even then if there are many of them or they are large they can be aggravating. Those of us who print optically will go to great lengths to avoid dust in the first place. I don't own a changing bag and don't want to. I load my holders in my darkroom, holding them in the air stream blowing out of a HEPA room air cleaner to blow any dust off and not allow any other to settle on while I close the slide. I have 11 holders and keep them all loaded. 22 shots plus a rollfilm back has been more than enough for any trip I've taken so far.
Thanks, but I already bought the Chamonix- I set Hugo money last Thursday and the camera arrived this Thursday. Quite amazing, considering it was shipped from China.
So, first experiments were a success. I got a 150/4.5 Xenar off ebay, it looks nice enough.
I managed to develop 2 negatives in the mod54 tank. I was way too rigorous with the
inversions, doing it like I would for 120 film, so the negatives went loose on one end and
emulsion got scratched. Better now than for real photos. I managed to scan them in two
passes just putting them down on V600 glass. No Newton rings surprisingly.
One can see the 1200dpi scan here (click for full res):
I also got another lens in the mail, a ilex paragon 8.5"/4.5. It looks like this:
It seems to run fine, the only issue is my cable release seems too short. It moves the
release almost to the end but not quite. Is this something I can fix if I disassemble
the shutter? Should I get a different cable release? Of the few I owned this one seems to have the most decent throw. 2 cm or so...
Tigger,
You may need a long throw cable release to push the shutter release far enough to fire.
Jim Cole
Flagstaff, AZ
where did you buy the used lenses? would you mind sharing the recourses?
thanks
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