Bausch & Lomb 506mm 5.6 / lens coverage for 16x20

[maxi0909]

Of course. Go for it, and have fun. You won't find a lot of 20" or longer, normal design (non-tele), lenses that won't cover at 1:1.

There are a few other things to keep in mind when choosing your lens, though, that you might already know, or might have been mentioned here even, but worth a reminder - For head and shoulders portraits on this format you will be at 1:1 or higher magnification (closer). That is a handy reference point to use.

At 1:1 you will need to extend the lens about double its focal length, so 48" for a 24" lens. Depending on the lens design and mounting, that will generally require just a bit less than that amount of bellows. Your subject will also be about 48" from the lens. So about 8 feet from the focus point of the subject to the ground glass. Add in some distance for the depth of the subject, to the background, and room to step back to view on a 16x20 ground glass. I can do it on 11x14" in my 15 foot shooting space, but more would sure be nice. This is one aspect where higher magnification is handy since you need less shooting space. Also, obviously, longer lenses need more space. I can't shoot all that much looser than 1:1 with 24" fl in my space.

At 1:1 your lens is effectively 2 stops slower, so an f11 aperture is working like f22. I use window light and find that way too slow for me. F6 is as slow as I like. Outdoors, or with enough light your options are greater.

Good luck with your project. I hope you'll post your progress.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yIC4-xrR0fE

This dude inspired me to built my own version

he exposed his image with a flash in a dark room... i think this will be also my way to do it, because the exposure is then just a second or less i think.... so the aperture shouldn´t be a problem?

of course i will share my work, but this will last some months... you can give me your personal email if you want

[maxi0909]

I need to say thank you to everybody

you helped me a lot!

Now i need to make some plans how big the camera must be... maybe there are some mathmatical formulars out there

[Mark Crabtree]

Good luck. It will be quite an adventure. I do think a slow lens will be limiting, but can work. You'll need quite a lot of flash power, and still have the very dim image for focusing. F22 does not make for easy focusing.

There are some very cheap faster lenses out there. Of course you can always add something like that later. In addition the the very heavy Aero Tessar 24" f6, I picked up an even cheaper, and much lighter, 22" f5 Beseler projection triplet. I'm sure there are others.

Here's a video someone here mentioned before that shows the cheap Beseler projection triplet in use for wet plate. You see the lens of and on starting just after 3'40". His is 18" and the same diameter as the 22", so even faster. He has it marked as f3.75 I think. Those are often very cheap; the 22" is a bit harder to find, but still often cheap.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zSPUcQ9eOlw

[Tin Can]

Great video!

I have the same type camera as Kurt Moser, same hardware.

Back to the drawing board.

Good luck OP!

[maxi0909]

Good luck. It will be quite an adventure. I do think a slow lens will be limiting, but can work. You'll need quite a lot of flash power, and still have the very dim image for focusing. F22 does not make for easy focusing.

There are some very cheap faster lenses out there. Of course you can always add something like that later. In addition the the very heavy Aero Tessar 24" f6, I picked up an even cheaper, and much lighter, 22" f5 Beseler projection triplet. I'm sure there are others.

Here's a video someone here mentioned before that shows the cheap Beseler projection triplet in use for wet plate. You see the lens of and on starting just after 3'40". His is 18" and the same diameter as the 22", so even faster. He has it marked as f3.75 I think. Those are often very cheap; the 22" is a bit harder to find, but still often cheap.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zSPUcQ9eOlw

But am I right that i can't use such small apertures? For example isn't at f10 just the nose in focus and nothing else?

So i just need this small aperture for brightness at focussing? And then i will raise it up to which one?
Maybe you know it, so I didn't have to make a lot of failed exposures

I want that blurry look, but the whole face in focus... the ears can be out of focus if necessary

[maxi0909]

Great video!

I have the same type camera as Kurt Moser, same hardware.

Back to the drawing board.

Which name has this camera?

Maybe it's not affordable for a student like me, but I find that interesting

Good luck OP!

[Tin Can]

max, my camera has similar hardware, but Moser has modified most of his gear. I doubt the lizard is OE!

His camera has two bellows, mine one.

I like his head rest, maybe from a dentist office.

Mine is The Levy Process Camera, which everybody here on this forum told me to throw away! I was new here then, but certainly did not throw it away. It will be converted to 11X17 X-Ray film one of these days...The previous owner was going to make a coffee table out it. I talked him out if it. He gave me the monster.

It is very heavy, but it has the best heavy duty leather bellows i have seen anywhere and I have a few old monster cameras.

I converted mine to 8X10 Calumet C1 back for testing. The big lens on front is Cooke Series 9 635mm f10 process lens. Very good lens.

It has only front rise and fall movement. Good enough. I converted the lens board to 4X5 Horseman so I can use a Sinar shutter.

It came with rather odd plate holders that are just odd, the GG distance is adjustable with that lever. I don't use it now. The bottom rear crank does front focus. The black right side hand wheel moves the back standard for rear focus.

Moser has his on a movie camera tripod, very heavy duty. I can do the same.

I have three 14X17 plastic medical film holders I will use one day, as I also have that size X-Ray film.

Notice how much focus light Moser has, that's very necessary unless out in the Sun. I also use strobes.

Pics in a second post coming right up.

[Tin Can]

IMG-2208 by TIN CAN COLLEGE, on Flickr

IMG-2209 by TIN CAN COLLEGE, on Flickr

IMG-2210 by TIN CAN COLLEGE, on Flickr

IMG-2211 by TIN CAN COLLEGE, on Flickr

[Mark Crabtree]

But am I right that i can't use such small apertures? For example isn't at f10 just the nose in focus and nothing else?

So i just need this small aperture for brightness at focussing? And then i will raise it up to which one?
Maybe you know it, so I didn't have to make a lot of failed exposures

I want that blurry look, but the whole face in focus... the ears can be out of focus if necessary

Those are actually large apertures you mean I think, but small numbers of course. Anyway, I shoot wide open which still gives me exposures from about 1/2 to 10 seconds in my available light settings. That is usually f4, f5, or f6 since those are the full apertures of my lenses, but these are effectively effectively f8- f12 because of the bellows extention. And that is shooting film. Shooting paper in the camera, which is getting closer to wet plate speed, I was getting 12 to 45 second exposures. It would need longer sometimes, but I just didn't bother trying past that time. Depth of field is very shallow, but everything seems different in large scale. I like the look, but do prefer a smooth/sharp lens that doesn't exaggerate what is in and out of focus.

I guess I should have mentioned that the two lenses I talked about earlier (Aero Tessar and Beseler projection) do not have usually stops, so always wide open anyway. That is one thing that makes them so cheap, but perfect for big portraits to me. The shot in the video I linked will be wide open. Also, I imagine the one in the video you linked.

[maxi0909]

max, my camera has similar hardware, but Moser has modified most of his gear. I doubt the lizard is OE!

His camera has two bellows, mine one.

I like his head rest, maybe from a dentist office.

Mine is The Levy Process Camera, which everybody here on this forum told me to throw away! I was new here then, but certainly did not throw it away. It will be converted to 11X17 X-Ray film one of these days...The previous owner was going to make a coffee table out it. I talked him out if it. He gave me the monster.

It is very heavy, but it has the best heavy duty leather bellows i have seen anywhere and I have a few old monster cameras.

I converted mine to 8X10 Calumet C1 back for testing. The big lens on front is Cooke Series 9 635mm f10 process lens. Very good lens.

It has only front rise and fall movement. Good enough. I converted the lens board to 4X5 Horseman so I can use a Sinar shutter.

It came with rather odd plate holders that are just odd, the GG distance is adjustable with that lever. I don't use it now. The bottom rear crank does front focus. The black right side hand wheel moves the back standard for rear focus.

Moser has his on a movie camera tripod, very heavy duty. I can do the same.

I have three 14X17 plastic medical film holders I will use one day, as I also have that size X-Ray film.

Notice how much focus light Moser has, that's very necessary unless out in the Sun. I also use strobes.

Pics in a second post coming right up.

Unbelievable to throw such a beauty away

Do you have a 16x20 one?

Maybe you can answer my last question from above?