Half-Plate Elitist User Group

[Rob_5419]

Just kidding.


There's only a handful on this forum who show interest in half-plates anyway.


I've been working this sunny Saturday on finishing off restoring my half-plate camera to working order.

Here it is:

http://img109.imageshack.us/my.php?image=gandolfife9.jpg

Doesn't sit steady due to the knurl knob tilting it over.


Camera: Thanks for all the help I've had since posting (esp. Ole). I guess it is a Gandolfi then Ole. I couldn't tell the difference if someone had stuck a "Leica" label on it though. Guess I just like the solid wood sturdiness it provides.

Lens plates: I haven't sorted out the plates but did some handiwork on my own lensboard to fit the lens. Have emailed the Gandolfi firm to ask.

Lens: I have an 8 1/2" Tessar type f4.5 mounted onto the lens panel which is amazingly bright! on the ground glass. The view is rather telephoto. I guess I need a 6" or shorter.

Ground glass: The view of the ground glass has an elegant proportion. I haven't been excited about rectangular photographs like this in a long time. The ground glass is in great shape - for plain acid-etched, I'm surprised it's so bring (no darkcloth).

Plate holders: Cutting some 2mm glass (thanks Dave for the recommendation) and dusting off those bookform half-plate holders. Have yet to coat these black (how do you do it Ash?) or coat the glass plates in liquid emulsion - seem so hard to cut with a glass cutter.

Film: Well, it's Efke 25 which we're all raving about. Why Efke 25? The uncoated lens I have is low contrast. Perhaps the higher contrast of the film will make up for it.

It's raining now and the night's coming. Guess that's why I'm posting on the forum dum de dum. Looks like tomorrow before a shoot.

Thanks guys.

[C. D. Keth]

Raining in England?:confused:

That lens sounds like it will make a wonderful portrait lens for you. Have fun.

The efke 25 you mention is slow enough that you could easily give it a stop push to amke up for the contrast lost in your lens.

[Ole Tjugen]

Lens: I have an 8 1/2" Tessar type f4.5 mounted onto the lens panel which is amazingly bright! on the ground glass. The view is rather telephoto. I guess I need a 6" or shorter.

The "normal" focal length for half-plate should be 204mm, or just about 8".

With Tessar-type lenses you shouldn't go much below this or it won't cover the format. Plasmats (like Symmar) cover a lot more, and I believe a 150mm would just cover without movements. I know the corners go just a little bit soft on 5x7" with a 150mm Symmar.


There's no need to blacken the glass plates if you're just using them to stick the film to - the anti-halation backing of the film is more than dark enough to eliminate all reflections.

[Ash]

Rob, pm me your address and I may have a barrel lens or two you can borrow if you like.

One's a Wray 4.5" enlarger lens, and I'll see if I have a 6" or something. I prefer my 10"-ish lenses, and just bought myself a bag-full of condenser lenses to play with!

[Rafael Garcia]

http://i67.photobucket.com/albums/h285/ragc01/AsanumaK101.jpg

My 4x5/5x7 Japanese Half-Plate conversion. It began it's life in the late 1930's/early 1940's (wartime baby) as as Asanuma King, Model 1. I have the original Half-Plate back but have no bookform holders.

[Rob_5419]

Raining in England?


I was hoping to get out to shoot - that's all. Guess you're right. I shouldn't be so surprised....it's an English Ross lens. I like the idea of an English Ross lens and an English Gandolfi camera (even if I thought it was an Italian import camera to start off with!)

Thanks Ash - I still have to get around to sending you some money for the bookform holder. No need to send me the Wray - I have a Wray 2", 4" and 6". They're great enlarging lenses but not very much use in regular shooting. Not sure if a 6" covers half-plate - in any case the biggest challenge is mounting the lenses onto a lensboard!

I have a few 6" lenses and some copy lenses, including a spooky ex-radioactive Cooke Apotal 14", Taylor Hobson 14 1/2" duplicating lens and various Ross incarnations. None of these are going to be easy to mount on such a baby lensboard and the rear elements won't fit easily to the Gandolfi so some lateral thinking required.

Cheers Ole - I didn't want to steep any lower than 8". Strange how a half-plate camera makes an apartment feel smaller. The signature of the plasmats haven't appealed to me. Have you any experience with LF triplets? (apart from being so fuzzy, that even fungus and decementing doesn't affect it).


Rafael - your half-plate looks so neat! Definitely a baby half-plate. Fujifilm are great that way - they respect all those older folk with half-plate cameras and still produce film for the older folk whereas Kodak seems to kill off anything that's considered old. I guess half-plate has only been available for a 100 years.... no reason to stop now :)

[Ash]

Ross lenses are great, and Cooke.. I think I only own English lenses for LF :)

[Struan Gray]

A 6" Homocentric supposedly covers half plate at 'medium stops'.

Otherwise you're looking to German things like plain Angulons, or Celors.

[Rob_5419]

Thanks for the recommendations Straun.

I've just trawled my dark darkroom lenses - a few enlarger and process lenses aside and found....a Taylor Hobson Series III 7.7 inch lens. It's a perfect 39mm lens flange so goes straight onto a Copal 1 size hole. Almost forgot about this - it's a very sharp lens when stopped down. Lightweight and very pretty in brass.

And it's marked 6 1/2 x 4 3/4.

Yesssssss!

[Paul Ewins]

I'm not a half-plate user, but I do have everything I need to be one. A few years back I bought an old Lancaster Instantograph. I built some adapters so that I could use regular 4x5 holders with it. Then when I bought my 8x10 Kodak 1A it came with a dozen half plate film-holders. They need a bit of cleaning and probably retaping, but look like they will be OK. I've even got an ancient cobbled together half-plate enlarger, although that will probably be rebuilt into an 8x10 enlarger.

The one thing I don't have is film...

[Ole Tjugen]

I'm not a half-plate user, but I do have everything I need to be one.

That's about the situation for me too, although I've tried to avoid adding another format to the mix.

I already shoot 6.5x9cm, 9x12cm, 13x18cm, 18x24cm, 24x30cm and 30x40cm, as well as 4x5" and 5x7". And there's a 4.5x6cm plate camera and a 8x10" Gandolfi under restoration...

The 13x18cm would be the German metric equivalent of half-plate, one of my old photo books calls it "the smallest usable plate size for serious photography" :)
Mine is a classic "Reisekamera" or "travel camera" - rear focusing, rigid front with shift&rise on the lens board. It takes bookform plate holders.

My 18x24cm is a (probably) German made camera of what that same book calls the "Englische Type" - the kind that folds up with the lensboard inside and the ground glass exposed. The "Reisekamera" has the lens exposed and the ground glass inside, covered by the folded-up bed.

As to lenses I have - most of them. Ranging from simple meniscus through Petzval and Rapid Rectilinear trough Periskop and Doppel-Protars to modern Tessars and Plasmats, including some very nice old "thingies" like Heliars and an Amatar...

[Ash]

Ole, one day a relative will have to inherit all of that. I just hope you have some deserving grand-children by that point!! :D

[Martin Courtenay-Blake]

Hi Rob

I've been working on restoring an old RAF Kodak half plate which I bought years ago from a farm in the Borders (plenty of these still around) but I had considered converting to 5x7. As I have just bought a new 5x4 I think I'll keep the old Kodak at it's original format. My only worry is availability of film.

I recently obtained from Ebay (of course) a beautiful 9.1/2inch Wray Apo Lustrar process lens which I hope will do a reasonable job...glass is pristine but uncoated. I have also just bought a 240mm f9.0 Apo Nikkor which I think is the Tessar type. I am now looking for whatever TTH/Cooke and Ross lenses that may suit. Also have a collection of Repromaster/Ultragons from 105mm to 210mm but they just don'thave the feel of the English lenses.

On the subject of plate holders I thought of using 2mm glass to fill them out but what do you feel about 2mm aluminium plate, matt black anodised as an alternative. Would obviously be less fragile and non reflective as well.

Next project is an enlarger for the larger film sizes. I have 2 De Veres. one for roll film and the other up to 5x4, but no chance of using either for half plate or bigger. I have a design in mind to cover up to 12x10 using readily available Osram high output compact fluorescents which have a colour temp of around 6000K. Need to do the camera first though.

Nice to see there is still interest in these older formats still.

Cheers

Martin

[Rob_5419]

Hi Paul,


I'm not a half-plate user, but I do have everything I need to be one. A few years back I bought an old Lancaster Instantograph.

Ahhh...the Lancaster....I do know this one:

http://www.antiquewoodcameras.com/lanc-ref.htm


I built some adapters so that I could use regular 4x5 holders with it. Then when I bought my 8x10 Kodak 1A it came with a dozen half plate film-holders. They need a bit of cleaning and probably retaping, but look like they will be OK.

Yes - it's amazing how easy it is to repair these. Black vinyl tape works well to protect the hinged cloth tape which has eroded. I guess after 100 years, it makes sense to treat these well - the wood ages beautifully and polishes up gloriously too. It's such a difference experience than using plastic Fidelity DDS's....


I've even got an ancient cobbled together half-plate enlarger, although that will probably be rebuilt into an 8x10 enlarger.


I'm impressed. When I started hunting for a plate camera (and ended up with a half-plate to see if I could cope), I decided to forego enlargement an do contact printing with plates instead. Guess that's why the older vintage triplets to Tessar-types appeal to me.



The one thing I don't have is film...

www.unicircuits.com/shop

Or if you're stuck for half-plate film in Australia [Fuji Acros half-plate], you can get it from England from www.mrcad.co.uk [Efke 25 half-plate] or www.retrophotographic.com [Fomapan NP22 & NP27]. Prices look good too.


Best regards.

[Rob_5419]

Hi Martin,

These British ex-military cameras seem to be everywhere. The Kodak half-plates are big cameras too - very sturdy.

Glad to hear you decided to keep the Kodak half-plate as a half-plate. I tend to think of modifying a half-plate camera with a 5x7" back a bit like adding red lipstick or bellows to a rusted vintage camera. Maybe that's my reaction to age or the digitising phenomenon.




I recently obtained from Ebay (of course) a beautiful 9.1/2inch Wray Apo Lustrar process lens which I hope will do a reasonable job...glass is pristine but uncoated. I have also just bought a 240mm f9.0 Apo Nikkor which I think is the Tessar type. I am now looking for whatever TTH/Cooke and Ross lenses that may suit. Also have a collection of Repromaster/Ultragons from 105mm to 210mm but they just don'thave the feel of the English lenses.

That's quite some. Ross 7 1/2 inch Portrait lens - or any others from this chart - take a pick :)

http://www.allenrumme.com/lensdb/Portrait.html

There are some Darlot types which seem fascinating. The TTH ones really are quite tricky for a newcomer. I think I've got a series Vb which is a duplicating lens - not much use for shooting beyond a few metres.


On the subject of plate holders I thought of using 2mm glass to fill them out but what do you feel about 2mm aluminium plate, matt black anodised as an alternative. Would obviously be less fragile and non reflective as well.

I have some aluminium plates in 8.5 x 6.5 cm format with a lip groove around three sides of the plate to hold the film perfectly. They look very old and the aluminium has warped from the rear pressure plate buckle pressing into it. Also, the anodised black has flaked off leaving flecks on the film surface which gets in the way of development from time to time. I guess these anodised aluminium plates were used when ortho film was all the rage (clear base with no anti-halation layer either). It would be very slick though - much easier to handle than glass.


Next project is an enlarger for the larger film sizes. I have 2 De Veres. one for roll film and the other up to 5x4, but no chance of using either for half plate or bigger. I have a design in mind to cover up to 12x10 using readily available Osram high output compact fluorescents which have a colour temp of around 6000K. Need to do the camera first though.

That's quite a project Martin. Whereas my darkroom might handle another enlarger, I decided just to use half-plates (hopefully full plate in the future) without enlargement and do direct contacts. I like the idea of using a half-plate camera for half-plate projects, just to keep alive the consciousness of the half-plate era - it makes a perfect print publishing format and I guess 6x4" also fits very well in book format. I can only go up to 5x4" at the moment for enlarging - can't see anyway to change the head of my 5x4" enlarger to a 7x5" enlarger without a headache....

Would love to hear more about your work and progress with those lenses too.

Best wishes.