Super Speed Graphic...

[Carterofmars]

OK, so I had my first outing with my Super Speed graphic and I think my images came out rather sucky.

Equipment:

Super Speed Graphic
Original Optar 135mm lens
Film: Fuji Provia 100

Environment:

Very sunny day
Light clouds

http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6130/5959764882_8b622f9c87_b.jpg

http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6121/5959651670_8966c82e38_b.jpg

http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6133/5959593012_ca046e2cb7_b.jpg

These were originally shot in color but the look better in B&W. can anyone look at these and have a suggestion on how to improve? Maybe a better lens?

Thanks as always.... Joe.

[cyrus]

Well specifically why do you think they're sucky? Are you unhappy with composition, contrast, sharpness...?

[Carterofmars]

To begin with they're boring I think. I had to do a lot of dodging and burning to get the sky/clouds as you see them. I had to adjust the histogram in photoshop to correct the exposure; there was drop off on the light and dark ends. The original photos were color but were flat and very unattractive I thought. I converted to B&W and felt they're somewhat improved.

I'm just wondering how these images might look with better glass.

[Peter De Smidt]

The subject brightness range seems to have been a little extreme for your materials, with a loss of detail in the shadows and some blown out highlights. That isn't a fault of the lens. If you like BW you might try BW film. Not only will it have a much greater range of tones that it can capture, you can also change development according to the SBR of the image.

[cyrus]

By the time something color gets scanned in, converted to bw, futzed with in PS, uploaded to the computer and viewed on someone else's computer screen, there's no telling how different the image looks from the original. I see burnt out highlights and plugged up shadows - is that due to the scan? The BW conversion? Who knows!
The old lenses on press cameras had some vignetting but I would use bw film first, and perhaps a subject that doesn't have such a large contrast range first, before I plunked down more $$ for a lens. Like any other tool you have to get used to the camera and get to know it! Some very great photographers have used these cameras to make some wonderful images.

[Carterofmars]

Another thing that just occurred to me; I haven't explored the use of filters yet. Maybe I would have achieved a more dramatic/exciting sky if I had used them this first time out.

Any recommendations for filters for LF B&W and color or can some one point me to a good article on the topic?

[BrianShaw]

Your pics look very much like my early pics with 4x5! Strive to improve but don't beat yourself up for "sucky" images.

The suggestions above are good ones, in my experience, so I not repeat them. For filters, consider getting the series filter adapter to fit the lens and a few filters... and a hood. Check out a guy aclled "Macintoshcat" on ebay for the series adapters. He has lots of them and he is inexpensive and reliable. Measure your lens (outside to outside) since I can't recall which adapter size that lens is.

Good source of info on filters is (believe it or not) Wikipedia. Another great source is the B+W filter handbook. Google for it; I think it is accessable from the Schneider web site. The Tiffen book, available at their web site, is pretty good too.

Other thing to consider is how you are metering. To my eye it looks like you average metered. A spot meter is something to grow into and with that you can make more knowledgable trades on exposure.

[BrianShaw]

p.s. I shoot a lot with a Super Graphic and 135 Optar... and after 20+ years of using that combination I'm still happy with it. There are definitely benefits to cameras with mroe movements and "newer" lenses with bigger image circles. When you want movements that might become important to you. Until then, have fun with what you are using. It works well for me in many, many situations.

[atlcruiser]

Looks pretty good.....I agree on the subject matter...boring! An I am the king of boring :)

the provia does not have enough range to cover all of your lighting. B+W or clr neg would have done a better job with both highlights and shadows

On B+W a yellow or red filter would help the skies a bunch. On clr search here for a ton of info on clr balancing. I have gone a bit cray with the clr meter and a pile of filters.

[Carterofmars]

the provia does not have enough range to cover all of your lighting. B+W or clr neg would have done a better job with both highlights and shadows

On clr search here for a ton of info on clr balancing.

I'm limited to provia because I'm using Quickloads. The scene may be to contrasty for that particular film you think? When I was shooting, I metered with a 1 degree Sekonic spot meter: the sky and then the darkest area to be sure they weren't more than 5 stops apart. From my reading, if your scene's shadows and highlights are more than 5 EV's apart then the highlights will be blown out. When i metered the scenes above they fell within 5.

For instance on this one the sky and dark tree appeared to be within 5 stops, I think the tree being 1/30th and the sky was maybe 1/250 or possibly 1/500:

http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6121/5959651670_8966c82e38_b.jpg


I then metered the village area in the photo at around 1/60 and then set the shutter speed to 1/125 so that part (which I felt most important) wouldn't be medium grey. Any blown out highlights are the result of me maybe going dodge and burn crazy a little. I need to adjust the brush and intensity in photo shop. Does any of this make sense or am I just butchering the principles of photography? :rolleyes:

[Peter De Smidt]

Slide film has much less latitude than negative film, either color or bw. You could try a color negative film if you have to stick to quickloads.

Regarding filters, if you're using color materials, your choices for filters to darken the sky are polarizers and neutral density filters. You can also expose two sheets of film, one for the foreground and one for the sky. Combine in Photoshop. The polarizer will have a varying effect, with the most effect when point 90* away from the sun.

If you using bw filters, a yellow, yellow-green, orange and red filter will darken the sky, ordered from least to most. I prefer a yellow-green for most things, as it will darken the sky, but it won't knock down the shadows as much as an orange or red filter will do.

[cyrus]

I like to use a graduated orange or red filter for dramatic skies...IF I can ever find a damned cloud in the sky when I need it! Seems like everytime I need one, it is either a perfectly cloudless day, or a totally clouded-up sky with nothing but featureless white from horizon to horizon. Grrr! On those days, I am tempted to go to the darkside and buy a computer with PS to insert dramatic clouds into the shot...or, refer to my negatives of cloudy skies for a combination exposure under the enlarger. Or just give up and go have a drink.

[Carterofmars]

Slide film has much less latitude than negative film, either color or bw. You could try a color negative film if you have to stick to quickloads.

Regarding filters, if you're using color materials, your choices for filters to darken the sky are polarizers and neutral density filters. You can also expose two sheets of film, one for the foreground and one for the sky. Combine in Photoshop. The polarizer will have a varying effect, with the most effect when point 90* away from the sun.

If you using bw filters, a yellow, yellow-green, orange and red filter will darken the sky, ordered from least to most. I prefer a yellow-green for most things, as it will darken the sky, but it won't knock down the shadows as much as an orange or red filter will do.

When using the yellow-green how many stops do you typically compensate?

[atlcruiser]

Meter through the filter...filters also have the filter factor usually engraved on them but the metering seems to work better.

Yellow filter I just used the metered exposure through the filter. red I use the metered exposure through the filter then add 1 stop

Slide film is 4 stops at best and your scene has around 7-9 zones as best as I can tell.
I understand about the quickloads but you gotta branch out :)

$100 will get you a pile of holders and a big box of shanghai or arista edu then go to town

[Carterofmars]

Meter through the filter...filters also have the filter factor usually engraved on them but the metering seems to work better.

Yellow filter I just used the metered exposure through the filter. red I use the metered exposure through the filter then add 1 stop

Slide film is 4 stops at best and your scene has around 7-9 zones as best as I can tell.
I understand about the quickloads but you gotta branch out :)

$100 will get you a pile of holders and a big box of shanghai or arista edu then go to town

I have holders, loading bags, you name it. I just need to load some film in the holders and try it out. I may by a box of color neg film as Peter suggested and just figure out the notch business and load them up. I'll remove from holders and drop into a box and take to lab. What the worse that can happen.

[Carterofmars]

Also- this is a 135mm lens. I wonder how these would have looked, considering the distance from the lake, had I used a 210mm or better? It was a very hazy day too.

[Ivan J. Eberle]

More than likely, as stated above, the brightness ratio of the original scene exceeded the range of the material you've chosen, at least from what I can see. (It might also be that your scanning plug-in clipped shadows and highlights). Color or B&W negative materials are a better choice in the middle of the day with storm clearing light extremes.

Incidentally, you don't want to use B&W film-specific filters with color transparency or negative materials.

[cyrus]

Also- this is a 135mm lens. I wonder how these would have looked, considering the distance from the lake, had I used a 210mm or better? It was a very hazy day too.

But if you change lenses then you can't really use this camera as a press camera was meant to be used (handheld, rangefinder focus) as you'd have to get a cam to go with the new lens (expensive)

[Carterofmars]

But if you change lenses then you can't really use this camera as a press camera was meant to be used (handheld, rangefinder focus) as you'd have to get a cam to go with the new lens (expensive)

Not interested really in using hand held, although I have thought about it, which prob means that on day I'll end up wanting to. I will try to get sheet film and load myself I think. This seems to be the natural progression I think considering the price and limited types of Quickloads.

Unless someone wants to help fund the arts and sell me 100 quickloads for 100 bucks ;)

[atlcruiser]

Cams are not that big of a deal or all that expensive but I agree that the beauty of the crown/speed is the RF when it is correclty adjsuted.

[Carterofmars]

Sample # 2 is after I got it into photoshop and did my dodge and burn and B&W conversion thing. At this stage the only thing I did was adjust the levels. Sample #1 is raw what came out of the graphic based on my metering of the village down on the edge of the lake.

Any observations/opinions/suggestions greatly appreciated.


Image raw from graphic:

http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6024/5973437503_c2542319bf_b.jpg

Image with levels adjusted in Photoshop:

http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6012/5973437571_34d416425f_b.jpg

Raw:

http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6123/5974034794_008a6e430c_b.jpg

Levels adjusted in photoshop:

http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6023/5974041240_3fba805bd4_b.jpg

[cyrus]

Was it a hazy day?

[Bill_1856]

Where was it made?

[Carterofmars]

Yes it was a hazy day, and hot as heck. These were made at Lake George in the Adirondacks, NY.

[Ivan J. Eberle]

If there's a scheduled event that means that you have no choice but to shoot under such sub-optimal lighting then the use of a polarizer and/or negative film emulsions can help a good deal (as can tweaking the curves in Photoshop later); but for landscape photography the basic fault seen here is that the time of day conspired with the haze to truly suck for good photography.

Half an hour before and after sunrise/sunset are your 2 golden hours per day--use them well.

[al olson]

Judging from your raw scans I would say, assuming that the actual transparency colors look natural, that you are not using the profile for Provia film when you do your scan. The correct film profile would correct for brightness, contrast, and color balance. From my experience, I would say that your raw files need less cyan overall with more yellow to enhance the greens, just for starters. Then, maybe some additional blue to help the sky.

You need to be careful here, because yellow and blue are opposites and cancel each other. If your software has a slider for, say, blue, move the right indicator to the left to increase the blue and the left indicator to the right to increase the yellow. This will shorten their brightness range which will increase the separation between these two colors.

[al olson]

I copied your raw file and did a few manipulations in Elements 2, my tool of choice.

First of all, the range of your histogram is very short. You are not obtaining the whole brightness range either on the dark end or the bright in your scan. This is an excellent indication that you do not have a good scanner profile for Provia.

Next I reduced the cyan, but only a few units, not as much as I thought.

The biggest improvement came by adjusting the yellow/blue.

Then I reduced the brightness by -4 units and increased the contrast by the same amount to tame the cloud highlights. The goal with clouds is to retain as much texture as possible. There will usually be some small specular highlights, but that is acceptable. Smaller is better. The result is below.


http://www.photo-artiste.com/images/lfformat/delete1.jpg

Further improvement can be made by implementing the unsharp mask filter. I tested this and the improvement was significant, but this is the file I wanted to show. The unsharp mask is used to tame the contrast and bring out the shadow details as well as give the appearance of sharpness.

These few brief changes do not compensate for a bad scan. A good scanner with the correct profile would give you a file with better color, contrast, and brightness range than I have created here.

[Peter De Smidt]

I did a little overall editing in Photoshop on one of the images.

http://i955.photobucket.com/albums/ae37/peterdesmidt/workup.jpg

[al olson]

The midtones are still terribly out of whack. Again an indication of a bad profile. What is now ailing are the midtones.

From the previously posted image I adjusted the midgreen by moving the slider to 1.08. The midblue slider to .90 to bring out the yellow for the trees. Then moved the RGB slider to 1.16. Finally I used the unsharp mask to bring out the shadow details in the tree, setting the Amount to 60% and the Radius at 2.2. The final result is shown below. Your taste may vary. Can you get a better raw scan of this transparency?

http://www.photo-artiste.com/images/lfformat/delete2.jpg

[Carterofmars]

If there's a scheduled event that means that you have no choice but to shoot under such sub-optimal lighting then the use of a polarizer and/or negative film emulsions can help a good deal (as can tweaking the curves in Photoshop later); but for landscape photography the basic fault seen here is that the time of day conspired with the haze to truly suck for good photography.

Half an hour before and after sunrise/sunset are your 2 golden hours per day--use them well.

Ivan, I think this is good advice.

Al and Peter you did really nice jobs with these images. I have to look at my scanner a bit closer. I'm using an Epson v700.

[al olson]

Carter, I can't find that you ever mentioned how the raw scans compare to your processed Provia transparency. I have been presuming all along that the problem is with the scan, but if the scan is an accurate representation of the transparency, then the exposure of the Provia is the problem that we should be looking at.

Your dodged, burned, and manipulated the raw image, does it appear closer to the transparency? Peter and I were manipulating your raw image without using the transparency for reference. Were our representations close to what you were looking for, in comparison with the transparency?

[Carterofmars]

Playing around in photoshop with images from this outing.

http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6030/5994839478_1eaf460b7f_b.jpg

I don't feel like I'm achieving anything close to "tack sharp". Any recommendations? I'm using a loupe; a Schneider-Krauznach 8x. Maybe I should replace the ground glass on this jalopy of a view camera. ;)

59320

59321

[al olson]

Carter,

It is still not clear to me whether the problem is with the Provia transparency, or is it with the scan from the transparency? If your transparencies are as muddy as the scans that you have shown then I would suspect that your problem may be with the film. Old? Improper storage? Else I would look at the lens, is it clear?

[cyrus]

You're taking vast landscape shots where there is plenty of opportunity for atmospheric haze, and with a press camera. I don't think "tack sharp" is an option here. Try a portrait shot and see what happens.

[sgelb]

The issue here is the optar lens. not a very sharp lens..

try a modern plasmat.. nikkor or schnider

or a nice ektar... those are great little lenses.. very sharp stopped down

[Ivan J. Eberle]

Horsefeathers! Tessars may have some faults (smallish image circles) but there's no lack of critical sharpness at typical working apertures. My two (Wollensak Raptars) are bitingly sharp at f/16 and f/22

[Carterofmars]

This is the very first test shot I made with the SSGraphic and the Optar lens using Provia 100. I had to make some adjustments in photoshop because I shot this indoors. No adjustments were made to sharpness.

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3385/5714656724_7c48987a78_b.jpg

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2649/5714163999_b6f9edae7b_b.jpg

Cleaned up and adjusted slightly again... lake lighter and far mountain a bit darker.

http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6147/5997729196_1321d95c64_b.jpg



As for the landscape shots. I think the time of day was very bad; the atmosphere was not optimal. I have to get a good dramatic sky day and go out around dusk and test I'm thinking.

[Carterofmars]

I posted two still life images in the previous post but for some reason they aren't showing. I'll post them later this evening.

[cyrus]

I posted two still life images in the previous post but for some reason they aren't showing. I'll post them later this evening.

They're there. They certainly seem sharp enough.

[Frank Petronio]

Toss these, move on, and go shoot something in open shade and start fresh, you don't need to buy anything but film.

[Carterofmars]

Player around a bit more with another image from the Lake George Outing.

http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6030/6000541932_d22c7746c5_b.jpg

Original scan:

http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6150/6000520554_a8b3a80ac5_b.jpg

[atlcruiser]

Toss these, move on, and go shoot something in open shade and start fresh, you don't need to buy anything but film.

Gotta say i agree with frank on this....move on :) You might also consider a haze/UV filter in general and it might have helped a bit on the shots you showed outdoors.

as a side note....it might be worthwhile to consider making some of these color adjsutments on the film not on the scan. I am not an expert but I am learning quick the use of CC and CB filters. I hate PS and LR.........:)

[Carterofmars]

Toss these, move on, and go shoot something in open shade and start fresh, you don't need to buy anything but film.

Hi Frank/Atlcruiser.

Yeah... I'm not married to these. Actually I think they suck, but it was my first LF outing so what can ya do. I'm going to take your advice though. Shun the sun next time out. Wont's have to deal too much atmospheric haze, super contrasty scenes, sweating to death, etc.

I'm getting my negs processed in a lab in Manhattan so I'm reading about N-1, N-2, etc., developing. I want shadows at ZIII but don't want highlights blown. But shadow or overcast days will cure that.

Also, on needing to purchase nothing but film... too late. I just picked up a Nikon Nikkor-W 210mm f/5.6 in great shape with clean glass on eBay for 170.00. Couldn't resist. Now I just need to find a lens board that will fit that lens and my Super Speed Graphic.

Also Question Frank- I noticed a self portrait of you on line holding a press camera with an awesome grip with a shutter release cable attached to it. Where can I pick one of those up?

[Carterofmars]

Still playing around with images from Adirondacks.

http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6086/6047729790_67b7482e9b_b.jpg

Opinions please... thanks in advance.

[Roger Cole]

Gotta say i agree with frank on this....move on :) You might also consider a haze/UV filter in general and it might have helped a bit on the shots you showed outdoors.

as a side note....it might be worthwhile to consider making some of these color adjsutments on the film not on the scan. I am not an expert but I am learning quick the use of CC and CB filters. I hate PS and LR.........:)

I'm going to agree but go another step to what was (if my quick skimming and recollections are accurate) discussed on earlier pages - you seem to be mostly converting these to black and white. There's nothing so wrong with the subject matter (that is, you should be able to find a pleasing composition on such a day under those skies) but if your final goal is black and white, shooting in black and white will give you a lot more brightness range to play with. So will color neg (even more so) but if your goal is black and white, shoot black and white. I believe Acros was available in Quickload and I know T-Max 100 was in Readyload but really just get some holders and learn to load them. It really isn't difficult and will give you much wider choice of film, and save a lot of money.

You can also develop the black and white yourself easily enough.

[premortho]

I actually liked the original scan on post #41. Your exposure really nailed that haze so often seen in the adirondaks. As for me, I only shoot BW and have only manipulated a print 3 or 4 times in 60 years. That doesn't mean I never shot a bad one, I just tossed those. When I first used my Speed Graphic (when I was twelve) with a 6 inch lens, I noticed right away that I was too far away from the subject. So I moved closer. That helped a bunch. Even with a 5 1/2 inch lens it's not a panoramic camera. The 210mm lens will get you closer, and have a more classic perspective than with a 5 1/2.