Jonathan 4x5 (5x4 in Europia) is no beast. Its a good start into the world of large format and that style of shooting. Here are some links that you might or might not enjoy.
When I was just out of high school working in a studio in St. Louis one of the studio's shoe clients made use shoot 11x14 chrome. deardorf 11x14 portrait camera. It looked just like this.
I think this was made the same year Jan was born. (before he calls me a kid)
48" copy camera where sometimes refered to as the small camera because the BIG camera was 2-3 stories tall. http://jimsworldandwelcometoit.com/tag/robertson-copy-camera/.
I had a friend in High school who father worked at the defense mapping agency which has one of the super monster copy cameras. The final wash was done with a hose with the wall size film or so his father would tell us. I can't remember the size he told us.
When this was still the Polaroid studio I assisted on a few shoots here. Its called this now http://www.20x24studio.com.
I meet this guy are a art festival. He made a 20x30 polaroid that is pretty slick. The above guys still sell him supplies apparently. http://www.joachimknill.com/photography.html
The BIG DADDY OF ALL CAMERAs (or so he says)made by an Alum or RIT.
http://butterfliesandbuffalo.com/theproject/camera/ Its kind of a cool project.
On Mon, Mar 31, 2014 at 3:38 PM, Jonathan Turner <pictures@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Hey thanks everyone for all your comments - some useful suggestions. I kind of thought much the same with regard to going with the longer exposure, rather than the shorter, but hadn't thought of adjusting the aperture (made slightly complicated that I'm shooting with flash too and exposing for that...guess I can just alter the power coming out of the flash head).
On the whole though, I'm not entirely sure I trust this lens...I've done a couple of test shots with it and the first batch of negs look a little thin...just shot a couple more today so will see how they come back. Jan, I would send it off to your man in Chicago but I'm actually based in Leeds, England, so that may be a little far... I guess I can find someone round here to look at it, but I'm thinking, just to be on the safe side, I might just get another lens...kind of fancy something just a little wider than standard anyway. The rest of the camera seems fairly tight and clean, and I've shot some Polaroids through it too and there don't seem to be any light leakages.
Interesting to refer back to the thread about whether digital is really enjoyable or not...I guess I love the safety of shooting digital, as well as the process (yes, there is still process in digital I think) but somehow using this old beast of a 5x4...looking at an image upside down and back to front, through a ground glass screen just feels a little more exciting than looking through my DSLR somehow... Maybe that's because I know that unless I'm really concentrating on each step of what I'm doing, I will mess it up somehow, and there will be no chance to rectify it in photoshop's RAW window!
Thanks again, will let yo know how I get on.
Cheers,
Jonathan.
--
Jonathan Turner, Photographer e: pictures@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx t: 07796 470573 w: www.jonathan-turner.com
On 31/03/2014 18:39, Jan Faul wrote:
Call up Bob Watkins - http://www.precisioncameraworks.com/Pages/about.html
On Mar 31, 2014, at 12:03 PM, Stephen Ylvisaker wrote:
A local camera repair technician, if there are any around still, would be able to clean, lube and test the lens accuracy. That is if you intend to be serious about large format shooting. If this is just exerimentation to get exposed to large format photography, do some tests on your own, doing as Randy suggested.Before taking the lens to the technician, do a couple test shots to make sure you don't have light leaks, or to find and "fix" the light leaks.Stephen
From: Randy Little <randyslittle@xxxxxxxxx>
To: List for Photo/Imaging Educators - Professionals - Students <photoforum@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Monday, March 31, 2014 1:37 AM
Subject: Re: exposure issues
Set aperture to f8.3 or whatever fraction the shutter speed is off by. But you are going to need to test to even know what the shutter is actually producing speed wise. Its probably not very accurate any more.On Mar 31, 2014 4:32 AM, "Jonathan Turner" <pictures@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Hi,
I recently bought an old large format field camera that came with a lens which is so old it has shutter speeds that don't correspond with my light meter; it has 5th, 10th, 25th, 50th, 100th, 200th, instead of the normal shutter speeds (8th, 15th, 30th, 60th etc.)
So my problem is trying to work out what the correct exposure should be...working from my meter. I'm shooting colour negative, so I'm guessing it can take a bit of latitude either way, but can't quite work out if I should go with an exposure that is slightly over, or slightly under what the meter says. For example, if my meter reading is F8/125th, should I shoot at F8/100th, or F8/200th?
Any input appreciated.
Cheers,
Jonathan.
--
Jonathan Turner, Photographer e: pictures@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx t: 07796 470573 w: http://www.jonathan-turner.com/
Art Faul
The Artist Formerly Known as Prints------Art for Cars: art4carz.comStills That Move: http://www.artfaul.comGreens: http://www.inkjetprince.comCamera Works - The Washington Post
.
