Show Your Compendium Shade on a Field Camera Thread...

[ic-racer]

Today I'll try to calibrate the hole in my 'barndoor' shade for front rise. I have a scale on the front of the camera I can use. With one extra hole, that will give me three working positions. That should be enough.

[rfesk]

I usually use collapsible hoods for my lenses but also use the Cokin size "P" lens hood system and stack the hoods as needed depending on the focal length of the lens when in the field with Sinar F2. They have limited use when a large amount of movement is involved.

None of my lenses require filters larger than 52mm except for the Nikon 90/8 which uses 67mm filters. I use screw-in filters only except for one graduated filter.

[Greg]

Sinar bellows lenshood mask 2 (533.21) mounted on the the frame of a Sinar Norma auxiliary standard. Initially wanted to adapt a HORSEMAN bellows lenshood to the front standard of my Chamonix. As you can see in the second image, the HORSEMAN is a lot larger than the bellows lenshood mask. Lens hood mask is atop an 8x10 holder. It easily fits inside a soft case that holds my 8x10 holders, and works equally on all my Chamonix field cameras. In practice the Sinar bellows lenshood mask 2 works as good as a bellows lenshood, and I find it much easier to set up and align.

HORSEMAN will be adapted to my Sinar X in the near future.

[LabRat]

I have found few situations where bellows flare raised its ugly head, but because of good lens shading, not a problem... Usual problem is from not overhead (as lens is shaded) but from other angles, like sides, bottom of frame etc... Like shooting into sun late in the day, but the snow/water/sand is reflecting directly into the lens causing ghosts, blobs etc... Or something out of frame is super bright and you are trying to shoot a low key subject (common in night photography)...

Sometimes the culprit is not the bellows, but a smooth (even black) strip in the camera that reflects directly to film at some lighting angles... You can see if any are there by setting up camera in darkened room and shine a very bright light just out of frame towards lens, remove GG panel, and look carefully for anything with a "glow" inside anything camera/bellows/FS & RS insides, and film back area... (Put light over/under/all sides of camera and keep looking...) Ultra black matte paint can even reflect a lot of light, so cover area with felt strip, half a velcro strip, or a fine grooved surface...

I often use an external light stand with cards as "flags", but also look carefully on lens area externally if something reflects a lot of light towards lensboard and apply another flag... Waving your hand around near lens will leave a slight shadow, so put the flag there...

I do a lot of night work, and lens front surface is a handy "mirror" that reflects light that hit lens, so I adjust flags until highlight spots vanish...

(Oh, this post was supposed to be in the bellows flare post currently running, but ended up here... Ooops!!!)

Steve K

[Bernice Loui]

Sinar adjustable curtain shade works GOOD when properly applied as needed.






Bernice

[Drew Wiley]

Some bellows material are less reflective and better than others. But besides that, oversized tapered bellows control internal reflections better than just big enough "box" bellows, which tunnel the light more. And most important is a good adjustable compendium shade. Mere overhead shades are better than nothing; but sometimes the glare comes from below, like a bright water or snow reflection. Screw-on lens shade aren't much good in terms of cooperating with view camera movements, and certainly don't work well with wide angle lenses; but again, they're better than nothing.
All my view cameras have integral shades; and a good one doesn't necessarily weigh much, but must be capable of locking down well enough to resist wind deflection.
Overall, in my case, I'm confident that flare is a very insignificant problem with view camera photography because I routinely control it. Same goes for my enlargers.
I have never applied a "flare factor" to any exposure or development model. That seems as arcane to me as a starter crank on a Model T Ford. I have sometimes deliberately employed a bit of flare within a composition to wash out something slightly; but a compendium allows that itself to be precisely controlled.

[Cor]

I hardly use a compendium, partly I do not seem to be very proficient in using them..I seem to include the edged on my negative, I know about looking through the cut corners on my ground glass, I need to practice I guess.(any tips ?) Luckily I had no major flare problems due to the bellows of my Technika Color or my Galvin 4*5 as far as I can tell

best,

Cor

[Michael R]

Applying a “flare factor” would indeed be arcane, approximate at best (since you can’t measure it in the field), and wouldn’t really do much anyway. You can’t really compensate for flare via exposure/development.

Some bellows material are less reflective and better than others. But besides that, oversized tapered bellows control internal reflections better than just big enough "box" bellows, which tunnel the light more. And most important is a good adjustable compendium shade. Mere overhead shades are better than nothing; but sometimes the glare comes from below, like a bright water or snow reflection. Screw-on lens shade aren't much good in terms of cooperating with view camera movements, and certainly don't work well with wide angle lenses; but again, they're better than nothing.
All my view cameras have integral shades; and a good one doesn't necessarily weigh much, but must be capable of locking down well enough to resist wind deflection.
Overall, in my case, I'm confident that flare is a very insignificant problem with view camera photography because I routinely control it. Same goes for my enlargers.
I have never applied a "flare factor" to any exposure or development model. That seems as arcane to me as a starter crank on a Model T Ford. I have sometimes deliberately employed a bit of flare within a composition to wash out something slightly; but a compendium allows that itself to be precisely controlled.

[Gabe]

I use the Lee filter holder with built in compendium shade. It works well.

[r.e.]

I use the Lee filter holder with built in compendium shade. It works well.

For some recent discussion about the Lee hood, and a video about the current version, see posts 12, 13, 19 and 20 in the thread Internal Bellows Reflections.