hey guys, just checking in with a field report. been out shooting mass quantities of 8x10 color negative film (Portra 160 NC) lately, with wonderful results. i just love the look of LF color negs-- smoother and more real looking than transparencies, and much easier to massage into prints than trannies. only major bummer is the extra ten bucks per shot for a contact sheet, so i know what i got (without a contact sheet the negative is greek to me; i can't even tell if i like the image at all).

i chose Portra over the Fuji equivalents because all of my exposures are in the 1/4 of a second to 10 second range-- exactly the crossover point for the two different types of Fuji film (they have a short and long exposure film, totally different color balance, and the exposure cutoff is 1-second).

Portra is far grainer than tranny film, which is a bummer when blown up huge (i print all my work at 50x40"), but the gains in tonal smoothness and complexity are worth the trade-off.

i have decided after shooting for twelve years to get a second lens-- my workhorse 450mm is a little too narrow for some of my latest subjects and i need something wider. i am thinking of a Nikkor M 300mm, which matches the filter size as my current Nikkor 450M. before i go to the usual commercial places, does anyone out there happen to have one (or an equivalent lens) that they would like to unload?

i also need a lensboard for my Calumet C-1 too...

cheers,

~cj

www.chrisjordan.com