Are the higher shutter speeds on large format lenses always off?

[Bob Salomon]

Jody - if all I could do was match 90's commercial standards, what would be the point? You're making easy things sound hard, when they aren't. It just takes some commitment. I saw an old 1940's Kodak Dye Transfer advertisement that told people how easy it now was to make their own home color prints. Everything is relative. Then Ciba made things ten times easier, but was still somewhat pricey, needed masking, and had certain idiosyncrasies. I got good prints the first day I tried it, and was making collectable prints within six months. But now people whine and gripe how hard it is to make a mask, but they're willing to spend endless hours sitting on their butt attempting to clean up and doctor things in PS. And by the way, we don't call them slides, but chromes, unless it's 35mm in a slide mount. And yes, old chromes can be printed any number of ways. If they've faded or gotten mildewed, of course there will be restoration issues. I've seen 1940's 5x7 Kodachromes that look like they were made yesterday. In the past year or so I've reprinted 4x5 chromes from the 70's via internegs to very high quality standards. I've done 35mm slides considerably older than that, and some of my brother's 4x5 chromes from the early 60's. No problem unless the original is somehow blemished. I neither scan nor use PS. It's all darkroom.

Ciba didn’t just have “idiosyncrasies” it could suffocate you!

I Was an Agnecolor rep way back when and had the 16x20 processor. The first part of the processing was a piece of cake. But once you opened the cover- WOW!!

[Jody_S]

The relevancy about slide, er, chrome film was simply that we no longer live in a world where having your exposure be off by 1/6th of a stop will get you fired from your day job (apologies to anyone here who actually would be). That's not a justification for sloppy technique or laziness, simply that the questions that require an elaborate shutter speed tester to answer are no longer relevant. In large format still photography.

I have a healthy respect for printmakers, I was blessed enough to work with one for a few years in the '90s. Until I discovered he was running a stock agency out the back room and had been selling my images without my knowledge or consent. But I digress. He was still an artist and I have never been, nor will I ever be, able to match what he could do in a darkroom. I won't even try; if I'm going to invest years of my time mastering printmaking skills, it will be on Photoshop working with a professional printing outfit for the final form. Because no one wants to see (much less purchase) a physical print of any of my photos, so if I bought all the gear and made 5,000 prints while learning, all of that would just end up in a dumpster one day when I die. Whereas I'm halfway there to being competent at Photoshop, and I already own the equipment to go that route. I simply lack the motivation to perfect that part of my imagemaking skills at this point in my life. I already spend enough time sitting at a desk, it's more fun to trudge through a swamp hauling 50lbs of gear. And I've always hated darkroom work, I often leave negs in holders for months before developing.

[Drew Wiley]

I understand. I spent enough time with a keyboard before I retired, compared to just a little now, like at the moment. The tactility of darkroom work appeals a lot more to me personally. But I get out with the backpack regularly too, in snowmelt muck sometimes, but no swamps per se around here.

[Pere Casals]

The relevancy about slide, er, chrome film was simply that we no longer live in a world where having your exposure be off by 1/6th of a stop will get you fired from your day job (apologies to anyone here who actually would be). That's not a justification for sloppy technique or laziness, simply that the questions that require an elaborate shutter speed tester to answer are no longer relevant. In large format still photography.

IMO, a personal shutter tester not only serves to measure the real speeds... I guess shutter consistency is also a very interesting concept with our old and sometimes beaten shutters. Many of our shutters are quite old an many had not seen a CLA for decades. A major concern is to see if effective speed is exactly repeated shot after shot, if speed varies after it is exercised... if what changes is the opening ramp or the closing ramp...

Some times a shutters is ver inconsistent in the very low speeds but still very good at 1/20. Fortunately inconsitence in the low speeds are easy to percive with no tester, but at 1/20 it's not that easy. My view in that in many scenes a 1 stop error can be tolerated, but for challenging scenes better if we have 1/3 stop precision.

[LabRat]

Not with chromes, Pere... On a large even white background, 2/10th of a stop stands out...

Steve K

[B.S.Kumar]

I already spend enough time sitting at a desk, it's more fun to trudge through a swamp hauling 50lbs of gear. And I've always hated darkroom work, I often leave negs in holders for months before developing.

I do that (not through a swamp, but over hill and dale), except that I use a Betterlight scanning back. All the fun of LF photography, no darkroom work, and I do very little Photoshop, except for a couple of layers.

Kumar

[Bernice Loui]

One of the ways this was done back then. After hours and hours of in studio set up. A set of exposures were made on known-tested color transparency film (typically six or so sheets) absolute identical. Take the sheets to the local E6 lab, order process normal, then ya wait. Once the processed film was done, look at sheet one VERY carefully on the color correct light table. If ALL is ok, run the rest at the E6 labs normal processing. Feel luck and celebrate

If not, ask the lab to push-pull one or two tenths f-stop and repeat. ~If you're at push-pull more than 2/3 f-stop, you're in trouble.

The in studio set up MUST remain untouched while all this was happening in case something serious needs to be changed or tweaked or if ya run out of exposed film to lab-process. This is where the not so fun struggle begins.

Yes, 2/10 of a f-stop on E6 DOES make a difference. This is one of the reasons why accuracy, consistency and reliability of BIG studio strobes was SO important back in those days.



Bernice

Not with chromes, Pere... On a large even white background, 2/10th of a stop stands out...

Steve K

[Drew Wiley]

Current generation chrome films pull very poorly. It's not like Ektachrome 64 days or Fuji Provia I and II. But there was always a penalty to pulling much anyway, typically in terms of highlight crossover risk. I never did it unless I was deliberately trying to tempt some crossover effect for creative reasons. Most color photographers don't even know what an accurate light table is. It takes a good color temp meter just to determine that, versus misleading marketing claims.

[Alan Klein]

This is true... but if we use several shutters then we have to recall how every speed works in each shutter.

In the present situation most shutters around are pretty old and often they have not been CLA serviced since long ago, so testing shutters may be interesting, in special for Velvia.


Fortunately today we have cheap testers solutions that are totally accurate. I tested this one bellow (owned by a friend) and it nails the Nikon F5 speeds. Nikon F5 is a good benchmark because its shutter has sensors inside to calculate the actual speed happened in every in every shot and system is always perfectly autocalibrated automatically. The simple ($15) spot sensor I have it delivers the same readings if used properly, but that $99 tester is quite convenient and good for everyone.

One the great satisfactions I found in owning a shutter tester is calibrating my (appreciate) Galli shutter

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Well... it is true that high speeds are not often used in "fine art" mainstream, but of course they can be used for interesting purposes.

Pere: How does it work? Is it using light through the shutter or sound? Or something else?

[Bernice Loui]

Yep, this is why nailing the exposure first try is SO important. Once you're at lab push-pull, it is much about tweak saving with not a lot of margin.


Bernice

Current generation chrome films pull very poorly. It's not like Ektachrome 64 days or Fuji Provia I and II. But there was always a penalty to pulling much anyway, typically in terms of highlight crossover risk. I never did it unless I was deliberately trying to tempt some crossover effect for creative reasons. Most color photographers don't even know what an accurate light table is. It takes a good color temp meter just to determine that, versus misleading marketing claims.