This Summer's Project: Learning Film

[kdthomas]

Good luck man. Jumping into 4x5 film without film or MF/LF background, I think, is daunting. Most photogs build up to LF ... Miniature then MF then LF.

Remember that attention to details ... at every step, will save you time, money and make you a hero. Along with all the other stuff ... get a small notebook and take notes. Notes of what to do and notes of what you did ... copious notes.

Good Luck.

I have a little bit of recreational film experience, my time in the army about 30 years ago (my Minolta x-700 and its split prism focus ... ... Those really were the days)

 

[kdthomas]

Woot! It's here! Watched a few youtube videos before getting started. Oh. That doesn't look bad. Here goes.

I got the lens on the lensboard (need to order a lens wrench ($22 ... grrrr) to put the retaining nut on properly I suppose. But the glass seems to be very nice, and the camera body is really cool. My first impression is that it's a simple, fairly rugged, ingenious design. Not one tiny bit more complicated than it absolutely needs to be. You have no idea how much, as a software guy ... I so totally dig that. If only MS, Oracle made their frameworks this way.

But I digress. Where were we? Oh yeah.

I set the whole rig on a table and focused in on my kitchen, using a little simple 8x loupe against the ground glass. Seemed to focus really sharp. Had some trouble figuring out the film holder/ground glass thing, but realized that the ground glass pulls straight back (not hinged) on stiff springs to hold the film holder by friction. Again ... simple, straightforward design.

Started to explore the shutter. Simple. Cock the shutter. Hold it ... shutter lever won't actuate. Oh. The shutter's open in focusing mode. Close it... again with the lever. Click ... bzzzzzz ... click. So if I can work the shutter once before removing the lenscap, I know I wont zap the film when when I pull off the lenscap. Oh, and look at that. The markings are on the top and bottom of the lens in case it's mounted too high, you can see the settings from beneath.

Even the film holders! Holy smokes, even I can't goof this up. Everything can be done in the dark (duh ... of course it can). Little plastic bumps and ridges and notches and stuff tell you where everything is and whether it's in the right place. The thing won't even close if you do it wrong. Except maybe if you put the film in backwards. But the notches tell you that.

I guess over 170 some-odd years some of the kinks get worked out, so that doofuses like me have a harder time screwing it up.

I thought I was going to have to have some kind of rocket surgery degree, maybe go through some bizarre initiation rite like Kevin Bacon in Animal House. ("Thank you sir may I have another!" ... That scene)

Only thing left now to get is a good, sturdy tripod, a shutter release cable, a darkcloth (aka fabric remnant from hobby lobby), and a lens wrench (yeah I could use two screwdrivers but better the right tool for the job).

Many thanks to everyone who provided me with sound advice and guidance! I'm going into this a lot more confident and excited, and with realistic expectations, than I would be otherwise.

--Kerry

 

[Derrel]

GOOD WRITE-UP! Yeah...you've got things pretty close to ready to go....just need the tripod and a couple of small things. Maybe put a small piece of tape on each film holder's back corner edge, with a number, so you can keep good track of which holder has what exposure. You'll have a lot of fun with a view camera! WAIT until you see some of the cool stuff it can do. As to the spanner wrench...you CAN use just one screwdriver to "pull" the locking ring tight...I'll admit it...I have...put the blade in, and using your thumb as a rest, "pull" the groove toward your belly...again, not rocket science...it does NOT need much torque, really.

 

[kdthomas]

Aquired the buffalo bludgeon ... Manfrotto 3046 stand with 3600 head. It's a heavy-duty video head, but it should be plenty sturdy enough ... without being *TOO* heavy. Shutter release, spanner, same shop ... Camera Exchange here in Denton.

Now I think I'll take a few shots!

 

[tirediron]

Aquired the buffalo bludgeon ... Manfrotto 3046 stand with 3600 head. It's a heavy-duty video head, but it should be plenty sturdy enough ... without being *TOO* heavy. Shutter release, spanner, same shop ... Camera Exchange here in Denton.

Now I think I'll take a few shots!

 

[kdthomas]

I love my new view camera ... but I can't figure out the autofocus. Does anyone know where the autofocus is on Toyo monorail 4x5's?

 

[Derrel]

I used the 3046 legs for 20 years or so...pretty good stability for a lightweight 9-pound set of legs....I liked the crutch style leg design. Obviously, you want to position the camera so that it is well-balanced on the tripod mounting block, with the camera not wanting to tip back or forward too awfully much, so get the camera "balanced" more or less by deciding where the balance point needs to be and setting the camera at the right position in the block's grip. Get a rough focus by moving one standard or the other, then fine focus using the loupe. The 45S is a neat camera. It looks like both front and rear standards have geared focus on the 45S. Have fun with that sexy beast!

 

[kdthomas]

I used the 3046 legs for 20 years or so...pretty good stability for a lightweight 9-pound set of legs....I liked the crutch style leg design. Obviously, you want to position the camera so that it is well-balanced on the tripod mounting block, with the camera not wanting to tip back or forward too awfully much, so get the camera "balanced" more or less by deciding where the balance point needs to be and setting the camera at the right position in the block's grip. Get a rough focus by moving one standard or the other, then fine focus using the loupe. The 45S is a neat camera. It looks like both front and rear standards have geared focus on the 45S. Have fun with that sexy beast!

Derrell, buddy, I hope you didn't think I was begin serious Although, that would be kind of a neat invention. A fast image processor, an Arduino, some servos, contrast-comparison algorithm ... Hmmmm ...

But, to be serious (for just a brief moment ). Yes, exactly re: the 3046 ... that thing is stable, man. One of the reasons I chose it is the big (deck of cards +) sized mounting block.

And ... woot! I have my film in for processing at Photographique in Dallas (dropped them off today). I'll have my scanner Wednesday, and hopefully I didn't blow it

 

[tirediron]

I love my new view camera ... but I can't figure out the autofocus. Does anyone know where the autofocus is on Toyo monorail 4x5's?

It's the little switch about the compact-flash card door.

 

[Gary A.]

I love my new view camera ... but I can't figure out the autofocus. Does anyone know where the autofocus is on Toyo monorail 4x5's?

It's the little switch about the compact-flash card door.

Nope, that switch is for the airbags ... the AF button is next to the cup holder.

 

[kdthomas]

And ... here they are. Fresh off the scanner. All I did was scale them and rotate 90 left. The epson scanner turns them sideways grrrr.

FWIW this is Ilford FP4 Plus ISO 125.

The first image is with the strobes of course, f/11 at 1/60 and she is approx 75" from the lens (big soft box to her right, white card to her left. I think I added 1/3 stop for bellows expansion on this shot.
The second is metered on the middle of the white blanket with the D810 near her elbow. It's f/5.6 at 1 sec, again about 6-8 feet from the lens.

So on the second one ... it seems (my imagination?) it might have a bit of that glowy vivian maier kind of look to it ... to my eye ... it doesn't "look" like it came from a digital camera. It "looks" like a film image to me, like I'd see in a book.

So all you film pros ... help me out & tell me what I'm looking at here, and whether or not this is my imagination.

 

[Derrel]

The second one looks like a 4x5 film image because that's what it is...very shallow depth of field, punctuated by patches in crisp focus, with tremendous fine detail and texture revealed in the areas that are in the depth of field plane. It also has dust and lint on it, and looks like a film scan that has not been cleaned up. I looked at the second on in PS...the scan has a lot of lint on it, plus dust.

The thing about 4x5 is that there is tremendous detail, and the capture is BIG, so the depth of field at this close a range is very shallow. f/11 is a pretty wide aperture for 4x5 at THIS distance...her face is in focus, as is her left hand, and the upper part of her right shoulder and upper arm...and then the depth of field slides into defocus...her right arm, and the blanket she's got on her lap are OOF. You have one side of her chest in focus, the other is out of focus.This is a very common "look" to large format shots done without the camera's movements being used to "place" the focus band...what it does is creates some interesting visual variety...one couch pillow on the left is OOF...her arm is OOF, but the face is sharp...there are multiple in-focus and out of focus areas that are physically close to one another, due to the simple geometrics of the couch, and the camera's relation to the couch...this is what larger format images look like when the camera is shot at wide f/stops from close range...and f/11 is "wide-ish"...especially with no movements. This might be the "glow" or the "book-like" vibe you sense.


A. spotted for dust, then sharpened with USM.
I took the original you put up, a small scan of only 2100 x 2721 pixels, and cropped it in about half, then spent 20+ minutes cleaning up the dust and fibers to get to this, which by the way, has an oddball 20% dot gain profile, so it looks kind of gray. Photo A was sharpened, four times, each time at 100%, .3 pixel radius, threshold of 0, then each pass faded to 40%, including the last one.


B. blanket,chest,right arm sharpened and faded, and then size reduced to 1,575 x wide.


C.photo B as above, but instead of the 20% dot gain, a Gradient Map was applied, which is the way I do a lot of my Photoshop B&W stuff.