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More and more film fun with something other than a Leica M

Cindy Flood

Super Moderator
spiderfrank, The VitoII shot is very nice. There is something to be said for a camera this small....besides just the fun factor.:ROTFL:


I loaded the Minox EL with some black and white TMax 100 this morning. I'm looking forward to using it. I'm still going to pursue finding that ND filter, though- to give me more range. Yesterday, I used f stops from 2.8 to 8 and was surprised to find the whole roll in focus. I guess my guesstimating is pretty good.:D
 
S

spiderfrank

Guest
guesstimating the distances is not so difficult, more or less a step is 80 cm, a medium size car 4 meters (ok, in Europe... ;-) ), a road is 8 m large ... I help myself comparing things
 

Stuart Richardson

Active member
Cool shots guys! I like the minox photos. I am sorry I did not answer you all before, I did not see the thread was updated. Thanks for the comments on the 4x5, I have been shooting it a bit more lately, and it is always a great experience. The camera is an Ebony SV45Ti, which is a beautiful wooden folding field camera. I have two lenses, a 210 Apo Symmar and the 110 Super Symmar XL. Between the two, I have not really found many photos I could not take...at least not that I would really want or need to take on 4x5...
The film was Delta 100. I have a few more that I will be posting later. I had some sheets of Polaroid Type 55 still left (expired in 07), so I wanted to shoot them. If you don't know about Polaroid Type 55, it is an instant postitive/negative film. You get a nice 4x5 inch polaroid print, but you also get an incredible fine grained black and white negative. I believe it used to be Panatomic X, so a very slow, fine grained and fairly contrasty neg. I have a friend who is leaving to go back to his home in Germany, so I took some portraits of him and another friend. He in turn took these two photos of me:



 

Cindy Flood

Super Moderator
Stuart, I've heard of the Polaroid Type 55 before, but thanks for telling us about it again. I guess it is no longer available, is it? I appreciate seeing this sample (and fine images of you). The tone gradations are really smooth. Must you tease us with these 4x5 images? My gear bag is already full and my wallet is already empty....oh, but a "a beautiful wooden folding field camera" sounds so lovely.:ROTFL:
 

Lloyd

Active member
Cool shots guys! I like the minox photos. I am sorry I did not answer you all before, I did not see the thread was updated. Thanks for the comments on the 4x5, I have been shooting it a bit more lately, and it is always a great experience. The camera is an Ebony SV45Ti, which is a beautiful wooden folding field camera. I have two lenses, a 210 Apo Symmar and the 110 Super Symmar XL. Between the two, I have not really found many photos I could not take...at least not that I would really want or need to take on 4x5...
The film was Delta 100. I have a few more that I will be posting later. I had some sheets of Polaroid Type 55 still left (expired in 07), so I wanted to shoot them. If you don't know about Polaroid Type 55, it is an instant postitive/negative film. You get a nice 4x5 inch polaroid print, but you also get an incredible fine grained black and white negative. I believe it used to be Panatomic X, so a very slow, fine grained and fairly contrasty neg. I have a friend who is leaving to go back to his home in Germany, so I took some portraits of him and another friend. He in turn took these two photos of me:
That Type 55 is (was?) the bomb! (Btw, nice to put a face with the name, Stuart.)
 

Stuart Richardson

Active member
Thanks Lloyd, I totally agree about Type 55.

Cindy -- Thanks for the compliments. You are right about Type 55...it is gone. You can still buy it in some places from old stock, but they stopped making it in 2008 I think. It was expensive even in the best of times (I think the last pack I bought was 80 dollars for 20 sheets), but now people are asking over 10 dollars a sheet for long expired film.

Here are a few of the shots I took of my friend:





 

Stuart Richardson

Active member
Thanks Lloyd, that one is my favorite as well. It was a bit hard to get focus right, as my strobes necessitated shooting at f/8, which with a 210mm is not that much depth of field! Especially when the person needs to stay still while you close the lens, stop it down, insert the polaroid holder, pull out the insert, and then fire the shutter. The whole process takes about 10-15 seconds if you are quick, and depth of field is only a few millimeters. But in this shot it worked well. That is the thing about large format -- it can be such a pain to get right, but when you do, nothing can touch it.
 

bensonga

Well-known member
Love your Type 55 images Stuart. It's funny that Type 55 should come up now. I first tried Type 55 in the mid-90s, but didn't quite get the hang of it. When I saw images on the Flickr Type 55 Group (worth checking out) I thought....I've got to try this again. Next thing I know....it was being discontinued, so I bought 4 boxes from B&H Photo.

Long story short, it's been sitting unused in my refrigerator ever since. I just packed up two boxes to send to a friend in Tennessee who loves the stuff and actually uses it (but was down to his last box).

Really sad that so many excellent film based products are going the way of the dinosaurs.

Gary
 

emmawest72

New member
Stuart,
I hardly dare to look at your 4x5 stuff, much too tempting :)

I rescanned some slides today and this was one of them ( nikon Fe/135mm/ Kodak Panther 100 ).



 

jlm

Workshop Member
i remember that 55; used to carry a little tank of bisulfite solution with me in the field to soak the negs. i'll poke around and dig up a shot or two from the old days
 

bensonga

Well-known member
Finished off a roll of Fuji Acros in the Canon EOS 1V recently. I had been toying with the idea of selling my 24-70L lens, since I mostly use the 24-105L now (on my 5D), but I think the 24-70L will just live on the 1V for awhile longer. This shot was taken earlier in the week, near the outlet of Ship Creek to Cook Inlet. The ice builds up in Ship Creek as the tide goes in and out.

Gary

 

Stuart Richardson

Active member
Nice shot Gary! A little cold there I take it? I hope you are liking Acros....it is my favorite film. It has so many advantages and so few disadvantages....
 

bensonga

Well-known member
Thanks Stuart. Cold, but thankfully not TOO cold! Actually quite nice here today...mid 20s F and we got 8-10 inches of fresh snow overnight. Glad we didn't get the 2 feet of snow Washington DC and surrounding areas received!

I really do like Acros. I haven't shot enough of it to say whether I like it better than Ilford Delta 100, but those are the two B&W films I seem to be using now. I just wish Acros was still available in 4x5 Quickloads. I did learn of a place that can get Acros Quickloads from Japan, but the cost is quite high...about $110 USD for 20 sheets! Ouch.

One of these days I'll get my Nikon 5000 scanner hooked up and see what these Acros and Delta 100 negs can really deliver. Still using my old Canoscan 2710 for 35mm. Shameful, I know. :eek:

Gary
 

Stuart Richardson

Active member
Nice Gary -- blow off valves are designed to relieve pressure, right? That one is pretty big, I wonder what it's for?

As for Acros vs. Delta 100, I think the best way to see the difference is in the use rather than in sheer resolution or tonality. Acros does generally have finer grain and higher sharpness, but it is quite minor.
One big difference is in long exposure -- Acros is unique in the film world in having no reciporcity correction up to 2 minutes, and only half a stop up to 17 minutes! So for Acros the recommended compensation for a 20 minute metered exposure would mean about 30 minutes of exposure. For Tri-X, a metered 20 minute exposure requires 2 hours 2 minutes! The biggest advantage is that you don't need to worry about reciprocity in reasonably short exposures...with 17 minutes of exposure you can capture most of the darkest nights assuming you have a fast lens.
Another big difference is that Acros is very forgiving of variations in processing -- lots of different chemicals work very well, and it is not finicky about time and temperature. Finally, it is ergonomically really nice to work with -- the 120 spools have Fuji's easy-load system where the backing paper locks into the previous spool, it has easy-tear tape on the backing so it rips cleanly and easily when you remove the film for processing, bright easy to read numbering, it resists curling, and scans well. I kind of see it as a super-film...it is like Xtol or Ektar, or even the Nikon F6 -- a preview of the next generation of film based products that appeared right at the end of the film's heyday. It's kind of sad that we will probably not see too many more products like it be developed.
 
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