Portraits from 2023

[nolindan]

...family portraits on 8x10 ... 3 shots today and none of them are sharp

What sort of unsharp were you experiencing:

Everything in the shot is uniformly blurry unsharp - camera movement

The head is blurry unsharp but the neck/collar are sharp - subject movement

Everything is uniformly fuzzy unsharp - really bad focus error

The head is fuzzy unsharp but, say, the collar of the shirt is fuzzy sharp(ish) - slight focus error

f11 is pretty wide-open for 8x10 and depth of field will be shallow.

A rule of thumb is there is a loss about 2 stops of DOF with 8x10 for an equivalent focal length - 250mm is equivalent to 125mm on 4x5 and two stops open from f11 is f5.6. So your DOF is about the same as f5.6 on a 125mm lens with a 4x5 - in a portrait that is going to yield sharp eyelashes and fuzzy ears.

[Martin Aislabie]

Looking for some portrait advice. I'm a landscape shooter, but recently have been taking some family portraits on 8x10 with a Fujinon 250mm/6.7 mostly at f8 or 11 on Fomapan 200 for around 3-10s. Well 3 shots today and none of them are sharp, I mean not even close. I'm baffled, f11 is shallow but what I want is in focus on the ground glass and the subjects are still enough. So I'm thinking its the movement of the standards as I insert the film holder is shifting things out slightly.

Anyone have any advice on this? I don't shoot a lot of 8x10, mostly work in 4x5 and MF and seldom have focus issues.

I don't shoot 10x8 at all - only 5x4.

However, 3 to 10 sec exposure, I'd make sure he/she/they are sat down.

Alternatively, lean them against something solid (wall/tree/...).

Even trained models can't stand perfectly still for that sort of time.

In addition, I would check the lens board to ground glass and lens board to film plane distances match - the sort of distance accuracy you will need means you probably need to use a vernier depth gauge.

Amazon sell a cheap and cheerful one for less than £10.

Martin

[nolindan]

Film holder/ground glass misalignment is easy to check using a ruler, a toothpick and a bulldog clip.

The only requirement is that the film holder's film-to-mounting-surface distance is the same as the ground-glass to mounting surface distance.

Slip a scrap negative/sheet of film into the holder. Clip the toothpick to the ruler, place the edge of the ruler on the holder's rails and push the toothpick down so it lightly scrapes against the film as you move the ruler. Without moving the toothpick place the ruler against the back's ground glass mounting rails and see if the toothpick is at the same just-barely-scraping distance from the ground glass.

[faraz]

I don't shoot 10x8 at all - only 5x4.

However, 3 to 10 sec exposure, I'd make sure he/she/they are sat down.

Alternatively, lean them against something solid (wall/tree/...).

Even trained models can't stand perfectly still for that sort of time.

In addition, I would check the lens board to ground glass and lens board to film plane distances match - the sort of distance accuracy you will need means you probably need to use a vernier depth gauge.

Amazon sell a cheap and cheerful one for less than £10.

Martin

I have calipers with a depth gauge, don't know why I didn't think of trying that, thanks

[faraz]

What sort of unsharp were you experiencing:

Everything in the shot is uniformly blurry unsharp - camera movement

The head is blurry unsharp but the neck/collar are sharp - subject movement

Everything is uniformly fuzzy unsharp - really bad focus error

The head is fuzzy unsharp but, say, the collar of the shirt is fuzzy sharp(ish) - slight focus error

f11 is pretty wide-open for 8x10 and depth of field will be shallow.

A rule of thumb is there is a loss about 2 stops of DOF with 8x10 for an equivalent focal length - 250mm is equivalent to 125mm on 4x5 and two stops open from f11 is f5.6. So your DOF is about the same as f5.6 on a 125mm lens with a 4x5 - in a portrait that is going to yield sharp eyelashes and fuzzy ears.

I got "The head is fuzzy unsharp but, say, the collar of the shirt is fuzzy sharp(ish) - slight focus error"

But I wouldn't shoot f5.6 on my 4x5 and expect much to be in focus! My tripod setup was not that steady so I guess this is the cause, I'm now impressed by the f8 shot which had a tiny bit of focus. Clearly I need to recalibrate my DoF thinking for 8x10. The trouble is I have Fomapan 200 and some nice indoors diffused light, add the reciprocity at f22 and exposure will be in minutes pretty quickly. I guess anyone shooting portraits 8x10 is doing so outdoors or with a lighting setup in a studio. Using natural light indoors would seem near impossible.

[grit]

Taken last week. Intrepid 4x5 with a 135mm lens on HP5+. Single exposure with a vortex filter handheld between the lens and subject. Part of a series I'm doing called "Dream Portal."

[FrancisR]

Very nice, grit !

[Tin Can]

Agree and like experimentation

[MilamBardo]

Taken last week. Intrepid 4x5 with a 135mm lens on HP5+. Single exposure with a vortex filter handheld between the lens and subject. Part of a series I'm doing called "Dream Portal."

Interesting image. Are there any more images from the project? What is the project description?

[Serge S]

Very Nice. Hope to see additional images from the series!