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Two23
8-Jul-2017, 07:25
My wife has decided that this year's summer vacation will be to go out and check on our 20 yr. old son in Redmond, WA. He got a job programming some game called "Minecraft" and I moved him out there a month ago. Anyway, the trip involves driving across SD, WY, MT, ID, WA, OR, UT, NE. An epic road trip! The only northwestern state we're missing is North Dakota. The fact we're driving and there's only two of us means I can bring a lot of crap along! So, I'm taking my Chamonix 045n, a bag full of holders loaded with FP4 & Efke 25, and a few lenses. I've been reading up on Stanley Morrow and FJ Haynes (bought several books about them,) and they are my heroes! They were Dakota photographers who, like me, just liked to roam around the Northern Plains taking photos. I really like their photos and have a nice collection of their original stereoviews. So, on this trip I'm going to shoot in some the same places--Custer Battlefield, Multnomah Falls, Missoula, etc. I'm trying to figure out what lenses they used. I think FJ Haynes used rapid rectilinears for most of his work, usually shooting on a 5x8 Scovill stereo set up. There is a museum in Montana that has his camera gear. I'd like to go see it but I can't figure out which museum it is. Have not found any reference to lenses used by Morrow, but I'm going to assume he mostly used RR lenses too. He took photos of the Custer Battlefield in 1879.

I only have one RR lens suitable for 4x5, a 90mm E&HT Anthony with wheel stop, mounted in Copal 1. I thought I'd also bring an 1851 CC Harrison Petzval 5 inch as it can be used on the 4x5 and also has a Nikon F mount for use on my Nikon D800E. I might also take my 1858 Derogy Petzval 6 inch. The Petzvals give a very nice rendering and can be converted to landscape doublets. I wish I had something a little closer to what Haynes & Morrow would have used, such as a rectilinear with a slot, but haven't yet got around to buying something like that. I also have a 10 stop ND so I can shoot the Petzvals without a shutter. Not sure if I'm going to get any good shots, but I think I'll have fun trying! My wife doesn't have a very positive attitude towards the 4x5, historic lenses, and b&w film. She just rolls her eyes while I'm trying to compose and focus, and keeps asking if I'm also going to take the shot with my "real" camera. I'm thinking that with some thought, I do have a chance to make some pretty compelling photos though!


Kent in SD

John Kasaian
8-Jul-2017, 08:18
Sounds like fun!

xkaes
8-Jul-2017, 09:27
I don't know if you were planning on traveling I-90 or I-94. For the former, there's lots in the Black Hills area, and for the latter, I'd recommend Teddy Roosevelt Pational Park. It is just north of I-94 and not crowded like other National Parks. It has a South and a North section with lots of Great Plains vistas and badlands. The big pits you'll see everywhere are from the bison rolling their backs on the grass to get the fleas and ticks off -- bring repellant unless you prefer to roll on the ground! As to the Custer site, when I went there it didn't look much like it did 100+ years ago. Normal and wide-angle lenses would probably be all you will need.

Phil_F_NM
8-Jul-2017, 09:57
If you have time, take a day to see Badlands National Park. It's amazing. Just south of it is another solemn and seldomly visited site at Wounded Knee.

Phil Forrest

Two23
8-Jul-2017, 11:07
I've actually been living in South Dakota for the past quarter century and know it well. (My hobby is "roaming.") Badlands NP is just a three hour drive from me. Have also extensively traveled North Dakota. I still come across things I haven't seen before. Now back to lenses. My E&HT Anthony is about 90mm/4 in. FL. It has rotary stop. I measured the largest hole and it's about 9mm, so it's about f10? Am I correct in assuming that each hole (aperture) lets in half the light as the next size larger? If so, the five holes represent f11, 16, 22, 32, 45--correct?



Kent in SD

Bill_1856
8-Jul-2017, 11:18
I'm with your wife.
Going to Wounded Knee would be wonderful, but the Park Service seems to have intentionally made it very inconvenient.

xkaes
8-Jul-2017, 11:39
My E&HT Anthony is about 90mm/4 in. FL. It has rotary stop. I measured the largest hole and it's about 9mm, so it's about f10? Am I correct in assuming that each hole (aperture) lets in half the light as the next size larger? If so, the five holes represent f11, 16, 22, 32, 45--correct?
Kent in SD

You are correct as to the largest Waterhouse stop (f10/11), and you are probably correct about the others. You could measure the third hole, and if it is half the diameter of the widest hole (4.5mm), it is f22, and confirms you suspicion.

Two23
8-Jul-2017, 11:52
You are correct as to the largest Waterhouse stop (f10/11), and you are probably correct about the others. You could measure the third hole, and if it is half the diameter of the widest hole (4.5mm), it is f22, and confirms you suspicion.


My calipers measure largest hole at 9.8mm, and the third largest at 4.8mm. Close enough, I think.


Kent in SD

Jim Jones
8-Jul-2017, 18:04
The Custer Battlefield will be more meaningful if you study up on it first. I have about 30 books on the battle, and they leave me with more questions than answers.

Phil_F_NM
9-Jul-2017, 19:36
I'm with your wife.
Going to Wounded Knee would be wonderful, but the Park Service seems to have intentionally made it very inconvenient.

The Park service didn't make getting to Wounded Knee difficult as much as it is a sacred site on the Oglalla Sioux reservation which is rather remote. I worked on the res back in November, 2012 and had the opportunity to visit the site a few times as well as talk with some of the locals. Being there and working with the Sioux was a very humbling experience. The evening light had a gorgeous pink hue which was different than most "magic hour" I've seen.

Phil Forrest

Two23
9-Jul-2017, 19:43
The Custer Battlefield will be more meaningful if you study up on it first. I have about 30 books on the battle, and they leave me with more questions than answers.


I took your advice! While I don't have time to read 30 books before I leave, I did watch the entire 1941 documentary, "They Died With Their Boots On," starring Errol Flynn and Olivia de Haviland. I think I'm in good shape now.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4m7RPjQxjmA

I took my lenses out today and did some measuring. The 1858 Derogy Petzval is 6 inch f4, and 10 inch f6.3 converted. The E&HT Anthony RR is 4 inch f10. I just rounded that off to f11 to make it easier. The five stops would then be f11, 16, 22, 32, 45.

The trip will just be my wife and I; kids are now off on their own. No more yelling at the to get up and get going in the morning! I have several places in mind that I'd like to photo with the old lenses between Montana and the West Coast. I've been inspired by my region's photographers of he 1870/80s! I had a thought that if I took two photos with my Chamonix 4x5--one shifted left & one shifted right, maybe I could use those to make my own stereographs from the two negatives? Any reason that wouldn't work? I've been toying with the idea of buying an 1880s Scovill 5x8 stereo and having Star Camera or someone make me a couple of holders for film that I could use. That might be a project for another year.



"Our hearts so stout have got us fame,
For soon 'tis known from whence we came.
Where 'ere we go they dread the name
Of Garryowen in glory."


Kent in SD

Steven Tribe
11-Jul-2017, 01:00
I would have thought that Wounded Knee was a bit off topic as it was long after Custer (1890?) and is universally called a Massacre, these days.

I think it is very likely that RR's were used originally.

Phil_F_NM
11-Jul-2017, 16:31
I would have thought that Wounded Knee was a bit off topic as it was long after Custer (1890?) and is universally called a Massacre, these days.

I think it is very likely that RR's were used originally.

I just put that in there because it is roughly along the route.

Phil Forrest

MikeL
11-Jul-2017, 21:46
While I don't have time to read 30 books before I leave,

I can't help with the lenses, but reading Nathaniel Philbrick's The Last Stand before really made the visit special. He covers interesting pre-battle context on both sides, and you get a sense of all the personalities involved. Enjoy the trip.

Greg
14-Jul-2017, 16:54
I have done a lot of photographic work for our town's museum. Have tried many times to accurately replicate images made in our town in the late 1800s with little success.

Have come to realize that the lenses available back then really greatly varied in many ways, even from the same manufacturer. Have access to a lens that a local town photographer used to make hundreds of images in our town. Wouldn't you know it, the lens is a generic brass lens with no writings on it. A museum piece so not able to take it apart.

In the end, replicated images made in our town over a hundred years ago using modern lenses with similar focal lengths.

Trying replicate one photograph of our town's bank has been a challenge for me to duplicate. Can't even duplicate the wide angle lens used to take that image with my 14mm (14-24mm) Nikkor on my FX Nikon. Would just love to know what ultra, ultra wide angle lens the photographer used back then.

Vaughn
14-Jul-2017, 16:56
Wear an Arrow shirt...

Two23
15-Jul-2017, 21:25
Trying replicate one photograph of our town's bank has been a challenge for me to duplicate. Can't even duplicate the wide angle lens used to take that image with my 14mm (14-24mm) Nikkor on my FX Nikon. Would just love to know what ultra, ultra wide angle lens the photographer used back then.


Might have been something like a circuit camera, a banquet camera, or something like my Kodak Panoram No.1.


Kent in SD

Kirk Gittings
16-Jul-2017, 09:11
Are you talking about the Little Bighorn Battlefield? I haven't heard it called Custer battlefield since I was a kid. https://www.nps.gov/libi/index.htm

xkaes
16-Jul-2017, 16:09
Are you talking about the Little Bighorn Battlefield? I haven't heard it called Custer battlefield since I was a kid. https://www.nps.gov/libi/index.htm

You are correct, but there are many "battlefields" across the West that have been renamed to what they really were, such as the site of the Sand Creek Massacre in Colorado. These were not battles in any way, shape, or form. They were pure and simple massacres of unarmed old men, women and children -- simply genocide. Fortunately, there were some photographers, such as Curtis, who worked to "expose" the life of the Natives -- instead of simply destroying them to grab gold, land, oil, buffalo hides, beaver pelts, etc. Today, many museums in the West have areas dedicated to early Native art, culture, archeology, etc. collections. The Denver Art Museum has an amazing collection, for example. However, they don't allow cameras! But that's good, in a way -- you actually get to think about what happened out here.

You might think that this is all "ancient history". It's not. When I moved to Denver, my grandfather was terrified. He was sure that I would be killed by those "CRAZY INJUNS". He was scared for my life -- because in his youth the "INDIAN WARS" (like THEY actually caused them) were still going on!!! I had to send him a postcard every month to convince him that I was still alive. No kidding.

Eric Biggerstaff
16-Jul-2017, 18:54
The Little Bighorn battlefield is a very interesting place, I have been there many times over the years, the first being about 40 years ago and the most recent being yesterday. They do not mind tripods but be mindful of crowds and it can be a challenging place to set up and not have people in the image. The battlefield is actually spread out over a few miles and you can drive the loop road. There are spots to pull out. If you are lucky there will be nice clouds or even a thunderhead or two to include.

I tend to have the best luck in the fall and during a week day, a couple of years ago I went in November and had the entire place to myself. The crowds were pretty large this week which is to be expected. The best image I made was of a thunderstorm advancing across the Crow tribal lands, far from Custer's last stand.

In terms of lenses, just about anything will do, from wide to long. The fact is, the most interesting setups in my mind are facing the Little Bighorn river from the top of the hill, but then you get the highway in the shot along with some tourist shops. I guess this could be interesting but does not really interest me. There is also a trail that can be walked through the lower part of the battlefield, this gives you a great appreciation for what happened there.

I still have not made an image that speaks to me in a special way, but I always try. Best of luck and have fun!

Two23
24-Jul-2017, 19:45
All four of the images I took came out OK. I was astonished! Camera was a Chamonix 045n. Two lenses: 1858 Derogy Petzval 6 inch f4 (10 in. f6.3 landscape configuration,) and c.1880 E&HT Anthony 4 inch f11 rapid rectilinear. Ilford FP4+. I had a lot of fun using period correct lenses taking photos there.


Kent in SD

goamules
25-Jul-2017, 05:54
Nice job! I was just watching a documentary on some forensics they did there. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ftff86JmD4k

Chauncey Walden
25-Jul-2017, 09:30
To me, the most interesting book on the subject is Custer's Fall: The Native American Side of the Story by David Humphreys Miller. His research took 22 years (1935-1957) and was begun way back when there were still 72 eyewitnesses to interview. I can highly recommend it. Recent reprints are available on Amazon and they are inexpensive.

Vaughn
25-Jul-2017, 09:48
The youtube video was interesting, but sometimes hard to listen to. "For thousands of years the Indians rode the western plains". Well -- since the 1500s anyway, when the Spaniards brought the first modern horses to the Americas.

Kirk Gittings
25-Jul-2017, 12:52
The youtube video was interesting, but sometimes hard to listen to. "For thousands of years the Indians rode the western plains". Well -- since the 1500s anyway, when the Spaniards brought the first modern horses to the Americas.

Very true. Substitute roamed and its all good.

goamules
25-Jul-2017, 13:05
My ears picked up that "rode" prob too! In general, that archaeology after the range fire found some amazing things. Where soldiers stood, how many weapons the Indians had, the proverbial "stuck case" problem. Several books have been written that are better than the short documentary (come on, History Detectives is about as deep as a desert stream). I've read a few, and it's apparent the 7th Cavalry had no chance. They realized it quickly, and it became a running massacre for most of the companies.

Vaughn
25-Jul-2017, 14:40
Very true. Substitute roamed and its all good.

Almost good...I guess I am about done with white-produced documentaries geared towards a white audience. They just grate on my nerves now.

Steven Tribe
25-Jul-2017, 14:42
He does actually say "roamed" in the commentary, rather than "rode".

Vaughn
25-Jul-2017, 14:45
He does actually say "roamed" in the commentary, rather than "rode".

You are correct. My hearing was over-ridden by the image of a native american riding a horse (at 3:36).