Wanderlust 4x5 P&S

[Andrew O'Neill]

Okay. I lied. I'm going to put teeny weenie wheels on mine and pull it around behind me.

[Larry Kellogg]

I hear that the founding members are all gone.

But if you have a 90mm lens that stops down to f/64, I'm impressed.

Rick "thinking it would be an optically assisted pinhole" Denney

Gone but not forgotten.

The f/8 Super Angulon stops down to f/64. What's the fun of shooting this thing if we don't try out some of the smaller apertures?

I forget the f stop number for the pinhole, Ben mentioned it, but it's crazy.

[Larry Kellogg]

Okay. I lied. I'm going to put teeny weenie wheels on mine and pull it around behind me.

Here you go, you want the Morpheus dolly:

http://www.cinevate.com/store2/camer....3cWkCA50.dpbs

[Andrew O'Neill]

Now you're talking, Larry!

[Larry Kellogg]

It really doesn't seem like a tripod kind of thing, does it?

It's this

http://joby.com/gorillapod/slrzoom

tripod kind of thing.

[Steve Pitchford]

Hello to Ben, rdenny. Kellog, PLywood, Corran et al,

I wanted to jump into the conversation on zone focusing, depth of field, and viewfinders/rangefinders because it's directly related to using the Travelwide. Depth of Field, (DoF) might also be called Distance to Field of Focus in my case, since I recently lost my right eye to a tumor. My left eye isn't perfect, I wear glasses, so I've been thinking about some ways of improving my skills in that area . Of course I'll be doing GG focusing, but speed & ninja ability are half of what owning a travel wide is about. I know the nerve signals to my brain are not being interpreted or analyzed correctly, they're incomplete. I can improve that over time with practice.

Two things I've already been been doing are proving helpful in determining distance or DoF - When younger I belonged to a map & compass orienteering club. The first skill we learned was "pacing" knowing the average & close length of your walking step. Initially practice your pace at a heal to toe walk, over varying distances ten to fifty, feet, count your paces and use the average. You can become very accurate with practice. A second tool,which works much better for determining short distances, is provided by the construction industry- it's a world of modularity. 2,4,6,8, that's how far to Mary's gate. I've got boards up to 16ft. marked off along one edge with a dull sharpie. My wife place various objects on them and test me. The angle of viewing influences the results.

Guessing will never out perform a repeatable device like a tape measure, a rangefinder, or did someone say,"laser". So, what caused this need to know the distance and hence the DoF associated with it? The Kodak Brownie camera didn't have this problem. Well, lenses became better, camera technology advanced, film became flexible and cheaper. There was a surge in great photography and cameras. Oh, did I mention the Great War. It may have helped some photography industry companies grow large quickly. Most cameras still didn't have integrated rangefinders or light meters, (I bought a dozen or so on ebay) but companies like Konica, Rollei, Voitlander, Leica & Yashica to name a few all went into marathon mode to win the consumer dollar, but soon to be a consumer who wanted an ever cheaper, easier to use, smaller and lighter weight camera.

But before light meters and rangefinders were integrated and coupled to the camera controls they were a clunky add on. Lucky for us because we need them now. Good rangefinders are hard to find and a bit expensive. Also, most were designed to a smaller format like 35mm and may only work best within limited lens range; that is to say they weren't meant to be viewfinders also. Another design feature of camera rangefinders is they are supposed to work best in the near distances, generally from 1ft. to 20ft. sometimes 50ft, then leap to infinity. They are not meant for deer hunting! I have purchased two so far, a Walz and a BLIK. I wanted a BLIK but the Walz came along first. So now I have both. They are both split image type.

Just a run down - the Walz is Japanese old style, tall T mount to hot shoe. It has a large, easy to read dial, smooth to turn. The view window is bright. The dial reads from 3ft to 10 ft but then steps to 15, 20,30, & 50ft to infinity.
The BLIK is very stylish, low profile also mounts to hot shoe. The dial is small and spins horizontally; would be a bit difficult to operate with gloves. Viewing window is not as bright. The dial reads from 1ft. to 15ft with plenty of small increment marks, then jumps to infinity.

In other words the BLIK has more graduation marks on the short footage end and the Walz more on the longer distance end. I like them both and can't decide until I can try them out on the Travelwide. By the way, while searching ebay I found some really nice viewfinders new. Just search "zoom viewfinders" or Gaoersi. They're $104, a bit much.

After determining the correct focal distance the user can refer to a manufacture's chart for DoF or, after about 1962s markings on the lens barrel. Rollei is credited with first putting DoF marking on the Rollei 35,lens barrels,the first full frame compact 35mm. Many followed suit. The best way to control DoF with the least fuss is to use quality lenses of the appropriate focal length to subject and a correct aperture.

Finally we get to zone focusing. I call it icon focusing and some cameras also had icon aperture selection. You know the icons for focusing as a silhouette of a single person, a group of (3) persons and a mountain (or trees) for infinity, For aperture icons it's a sun, a cloud, and a window for inside shooting. Those are the only options. So right when the camera companies are making high quality rangefinder cameras with coupled light meters and fine focusing heilicoil lenses, the public wants smaller easier to use lighter weight, cheaper cameras. And that's what they got! Small and junky. That was right before SLR came on the scene bringing on the next revolution in cameras and lenses. I heard there a new kind of a camera now, called a digital, and it doesn't even use film. I don't know how that could work. I guess the times have changed again.

Happy trails,
SteveP

[Larry Kellogg]

Steve, I like all of those exercises to judge distance and think we should run a summer camp for photographers! I'm sorry to hear about your eye.

[Steve Pitchford]

Larry,
Thanks for your sympathy, I'm getting on pretty well and I have a great prosthetic eye that looks totally real. And in the meantime I discovered there are a heck of a lot more people with only one eye than I ever imagined. Of course few of them are using that good eye to view fine art photography or bromide and silver crystals in a darkroom.

Most of all, beside scaring the crap out of me, the loss has me made more determined to go out and shoot more and to try and print some of the several hundred unprinted negatives I already have developed. I also plan to learn the app. Lightroom. With it I would be able to scan and catalog prints and neg and slides. Otherwise I can just imagine my offspring selling off my stuff, (my treasures) in a garage sale.

A last thought- since we are unsure of the focusing GG I've been checking the web for availability. I came across the Deardorf site and they have a high quality GG for just $60, plus $6.50 shipping. It has clipped corners and grid lines.

Happy trails,
SteveP

[koh303]

Still no camera...?

[Larry Kellogg]

Larry,
Thanks for your sympathy, I'm getting on pretty well and I have a great prosthetic eye that looks totally real. And in the meantime I discovered there are a heck of a lot more people with only one eye than I ever imagined. Of course few of them are using that good eye to view fine art photography or bromide and silver crystals in a darkroom.

Most of all, beside scaring the crap out of me, the loss has me made more determined to go out and shoot more and to try and print some of the several hundred unprinted negatives I already have developed. I also plan to learn the app. Lightroom. With it I would be able to scan and catalog prints and neg and slides. Otherwise I can just imagine my offspring selling off my stuff, (my treasures) in a garage sale.

A last thought- since we are unsure of the focusing GG I've been checking the web for availability. I came across the Deardorf site and they have a high quality GG for just $60, plus $6.50 shipping. It has clipped corners and grid lines.

Happy trails,
SteveP

Steve,

My wife has vision in only one eye, since birth. While her depth perception has suffered, I think she is a good photographer as a result. She just sees things better than I do, flatter if you will, and it shows in her photographs. After all, we're really working in two dimensions when we photograph.

I have found some sense of closure with my work by printing a book. There is a long thread on here about my bookmaking activities which culminated in taking a class at ICP and designing and printing a book of duotones.

I would be happy to help you through that process. You'll need to learn Adobe InDesign. :-)

Thanks for the tip about the ground glass. Perhaps I'll give that a try.