Search:

Over many decades I've used a variety of enlargers as the basis of copy stands. Some enlargers require only slight modifications. If an enlarger is stable enough for its intended purpose, it is...

Kanishka - That second portrait shows excellent use of framing, lighting, and lens to emphasize a fine subject and eliminate non-essential detail.

I believe profvandegraf in post #5 has the most likely answer: blue window lighting and incandescent artificial lighting causing an illusion of color in the glass plate.

You are right. Camera to subject distance determines apparent perspective on print.

I worked several years at making half-tone duplicates up to 32x40 inches on vacuum frames. The original and copy were sandwiched between fairly thick glass and thick strong air-tight fabric. This...

Deardorff -- Very nice!

Anyone who merely swaps plugs between the 120 and 220 Volt devices had better know exactly what they are doing.

William Henry Jackson may be somewhat forgotten now, with our digital recording and manipulation of photographs and, for me, over 10,000 Kodachrome slides stored away. However, his contribution to...

Salmo -- Having the sink's drain near available plumbing is the logical way to go. As for the slope of the sink, rather than design that perfectly, just build it with the often recommended 1/4 inch...

While this thread has stressed the theory of close-up photography, there also are practical problems. The image quality from some lenses decreases at close focal distances. Also, retro-focus and...

The Japanese woodblock artist Hokusai often placed tiny humans in expansive prints, perhaps to remind us of our insignificance in the universe. His famous "Breaking Wave at Kanagawa" shows the wave...

Long ago folding wooden tripods often served well. My pre-WW2 8x10 2D came in a 8x18x27 case which held a Folmer Graflex Crown No. 4 tripod, the camera, 7 film holders, two lenses, and smaller items....

A meniscus lens with a diaphragm in front of the lens as used on many basic cameras from perhaps the 1930s until recently forms the sharpest image on a curved surface. The original box-shaped cameras...

fj55mike - There's a lot to appreciate in this close-up: contrast, detail, uncluttered background, and few distractions.

This is the Graphic View II (1949-1967), my favorite workhorse 4x5. It's predecessor, the Graphic View (1941-1948) had a 3 inch shorter rail and base tilts instead of the center tilts of the later...

Two very nice shots indeed! They have intriguing texture and detail.

Even my old Epson 2450 was good enough (by my standards) for 4x5 negatives, but certainly not for 35mm except for making contact strips or perhaps images for online use. There is little improvement...

The Omega B22XL was my favorite, too. It served for many years. After losing it in a fire, I went to an enlarger that could handle slightly larger negatives and was a little more solid, which meant...

Cornelius - That second nude is well done!

I bought an Anniversary Speed Graphic in the early 1960s to shoot Polaroid film, followed by a NeuVue (me, too. Yuk!). Next came Burke & James 5x7 flat beds and monorails, and a few other cameras...

223178
Taken about 1999-2000 and posted on LFPF soon after. Published in the 2001-2001 Missouri State Manual. Probably 4x5 Kodak Professional Copy Film 4125 with an Ektar 203mm f/7.7. I was too lazy...

Beautiful!

In the ASA standard, the "T" depth is measured from the face of the holder to the face of the septum, not from the face of the holder to the front of the film. For film holders up to and including...

From the new edition: "Fifteenth paperback printing, 2021". The cover is also new, as shown in the link in comment #9 above. A leisurely comparison of new and old editions will have to wait until a...

Wow!

I would have passed this opportunity up because of the technical obstacles which you overcame magnificently. Now I keep coming back to it. Photographs rarely have that magnetic quality.

doubled or doubted?

It looks more like a camera made by a good craftsman, not mass produced by a company. A few items, like the focusing rack and pinion, would be purchased.

Rather than rely on one thick slab of plywood to provide strength and stability for an enlarger baseboard, consider two much lighter pieces of plywood separated by and bonded to a web of smaller...

John - You might scale your idea down a bit like this photographer did: https://danageraths.blogspot.com/2012/01/mammoth-camera-nearly-complete.html

Beautiful!

Only? It may work BEST with consistent diffused northern light. As shown, the mercury vapor lamp would provide very uneven light.

Large format images often have high enough image quality to permit tilting the camera to record the entire desired subject, scanning the image, and restoring correct perspective in Photoshop or...

Why not start with a Graflex and add a rangefinder, sports finder, and whatever else you need to make it work like a cobbled up Graphic?

An expensive price tag seems to make a photograph look good to too many collectors.

Weight of camera and tripod is not as important as good engineering and construction. 150 years ago, with big cameras and slow plates, the problems with long outdoors exposures were fairly well...

After drilling holes at each end of the slot, the channel between them can be layed out and cut with a chisel. Clamping a guide along the outside edge of the slot simplifies the task.

-Gabe- Beautiful presentation of an intriguing subject.

Many decades ago when the USAF 1951 charts were not readily available, I improvised this chart and still prefer it when comparing images where absolute lp/mm isn't required. A user can measure a...

This idea may be elegant, but is unnecessarily complex. Careful construction of a back with appropriate surfaces well blackened and based on the models of well over a hundred years ago should still...