I'm borrowing a 375mm Eidoscope #2 from a generous member here and finally got a chance to use it yesterday on my 2D 8x10. It's fairly heavy so I ended up putting the rear rail on the camera and using back focus so I could keep the front standard centered over my tripod. This worked well. Next time I'll try using my tripod block under it instead. I drove a couple hours west to one of my favorite retired churches--St. Procopious. I know the lens was designed with portraits in mind but I wanted to take my time getting familiar with it.
I had some trouble with my chemicals. The collodion was nearing the end of the bottle and I think had lost a lot of ether solvent. It would coagulate as I poured. My silver needed filtering, and the temperature was only in the 40s--about 10 degrees cooler than forecasted. I was also trying out a new potassium nitrate developer. It took me several tries to get everything figured out. First shot was made on 5x7, and the second on 8x10. It did a beautiful job covering on 5x7 but looks like there isn't much room for movements on 8x10. I do like the way the lens rendered the images. I was shooting at f8 to slow exposure down to 1/2 second.
I had fun on this outing but think I'll need some more practice to understand this lens. It's different from my others. Looks like I need to focus it at the aperture I want to use instead of focus then stop down. I also need to be careful where I place the sharper center in the image, like I do with Petzvals. After some more practice I'll feel confident enough to try a portrait or two.
Kent in SD
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