The real shutter speeds of mechanical shutters often deviate from the numbers you find printed on the dial. Hence to decide if you need to get your shutter cleaned and adjusted, and to know which of the speeds deviate most (so you can compensate during exposure)), it is advisable to actually test your shutters.
If you do not want to send each of your shutters to someone who will do it for you, you have to learn how to measure shutter speeds by yourself. With a sound card in your computer and a light sensitive sensor attached to it, and with some patience, this will be easier than you think!

As I am not an electronics geek, I decided to give one of the shutter testers made by Florin Vasile a try (http://www.lavise.com/). The device is rather cheap and simple, but works like a charm. It is basically a small plastic box with a light sensitive diode and some simple electronics to generate the signal. It comes with a cable to connect it to the sound card of your computer. Florin will provide you with some files by email, which among other things contain a manual in English (well written).

To record the signal, you need to install some recording software. I personally chose Audacity as it is free and was recommended in the manual. The software is more or less self-explanatory and does a sufficient job to record the signal and read out the shutter speeds.

The images below show (a) Synchro-Compur shutter about half-shut, and (b) my personal set-up when measuring shutter speeds for my large format camera.

As you can see, I use the camera itself as part of the set-up: The lens with the shutter is mounted to the camera, and the light sensor hangs behind the focussing glass, pointing towards the lens. The camera will then simply point out of the window and I do some test measurements. Depending on the brightness outside (the amount of light reaching the sensor) I adjust the line-in of my sound card in order to get a good signal without peak heights exceeding range. Once this is done, I am ready to measure the speeds without an artificial light source, just using the indirect sunlight from the outside.

Below you can see two example signals from my Super-Angulon lens with (a) a slow shutter speed, and (b) a fast shutter speed.
As you can see, the 1/2 second exposure (a) is measured as 0.55 seconds, about 10% longer than its nominal value. 1/200 measures as 52 milliseconds (b), which is roughly 5% longer. For a mechanical shutter both are fairly good agreements and there is no need to get the shutter cleaned and adjusted. It is fairly useful to be aware, for which of your shutters and speeds deviations exceed 15% or 20%, so you can compensate for these deviations in your exposure.

To summarise, measuring shutter speeds with a light sensor and a sound card is really rather simple. And if you do not want to build the (simple) electronics needed by yourself, just let someone else do it or buy a simple solution such as the one presented here.

PhotoScapes - A Photographic Travel Blog by Alexander Thorsten Blumenau

In this final part of my report on my first large format photography adventure with the Tachihara 4×5 camera, I will present some of my first images taken – acceptable images but also some obvious failures. The images are rather technical and had the mere purpose to get friends with the camera and the lenses. Hence, please do not expect fine art here! On the last 3 weekends I went to the following places for shooting:

• Schloss Neuhaus, a renaissance palace in Germany near Paderborn – and the nearby Wewelsburg, a castle with triangular layout.
• The city of Gera in Germany and nearby castles and small villages.
• Dornburg castle and palaces, a group of castles/palaces situated right at a steep limestone cliff above the Saale-valley.

I chose these places as they are easily accessible and offer some scenes with landscape and architecture to play with.

The choice of film:

For a start, I tried 3 different types of 4×5 sheet film:

• Adox Ortho 25: an orthochromatic film at ISO 25. This kind of film is much less sensitive to red light than panchromatic film. It has a very fine grain and easily gets over-contrasty – depending on the type of developer and dilution.
• Adox CHS 50: a panchromatic film (ISO 50) based on an emulsion from the 1950s. This film appears to give very smooth gradients.
• Ilford FP4+ 125: another classic panchromatic emulsion.

Below you can see a comparison of (a) the Ilford FP4+ with (b) the Adox Ortho 25. Both are exposed in a similar way and the same developer/dilution was used. The difference in contrast is obvious. The difference in colour sensitivity, however, is not that apparent, as the scene was nearly free of red.

The particular batch of Adox Ortho 25 I used in this test was actually oversized. Film sheets were about half a millimetre too wide and too long and they hence would not fit the film holders without brute force. If you do have to use force, the film will bend and easily scratch (and it did). It would even not fit the 4×5 scanning frame of my scanner either, so I had to cut it to desired size after development of the negatives. To avoid this problem in the future, next time I will probably stick to another brand when it comes to orthochromatic film.

Resolution and depth of field:

To give you an idea of the shallow depth of field in 4×5, below you can see enlarged details of the last image shown above, which was taken with the Symmar 150/5.6 lens at an aperture of f/16: (a) the little plate on the door in the centre. This plate was more or less exactly in focus. (b) part of the column to the left of the door, which was just slightly in front of the plane of focus. As you can see, the difference in sharpness is already apparent.

All negatives were dry-scanned with an Epson V700 Photo, which will give sufficient resolution for the web and some magnification. However, this will not really represent the actual resolution and sharpness of the negative. Please keep this in mind when looking at the magnifications. A dry scan on a flat-bed scanner does not really meet the quality of high-resolution drum-scans.

Some failures:

Of course, as this is the real world, the first times out with a new camera will also result in a fair amount of technical failures! I decided to show you some of the worst I made, so you can laugh or learn from it! But the greatest value is probably for those who just started with large format photography: These failures of mine might help overcome your frustration when you see that failure is normal and part of the learning process.
Below you can see
(a) a magnification showing pieces of lint which apparently were on the film when exposing. Additionally there are the traces of little air bubbles which apparently stuck to the film during development. I suspect the lint to come from my changing bag which I used to insert the film into the holder.
(b) an example where I accidentally pulled the dark slide of the film holder half-open when the holder with the exposed film was in the camera bag.
(c) I mistakenly opened the sheet film holder when the shutter was still open from the focussing procedure.
(d) here you see a light leak on the bottom left of the image. This probably happened when I pulled out the dark slide after I inserted the film holder into the spring back of the camera. If this is not done carefully, one might lift part of the spring back and open a gap which lets in a fair amount of light.
(e) similar to (d) but less pronounced.
(f) accidental double exposure! Do not ask me how this could happen.

To summarise, the first three weekends with the Tachihara were real fun and I think me and the camera got to know each other much better.
The only thing which still bothers me is the occasional bit of lint on the negatives, especially since I usually have to refill the film holders while travelling – sometimes not really in the cleanest environments. I ordered a changing tent and hope this might improve the situation here.

Further articles, such as on how to develop 4×5 sheet film and how to measure the exact shutter speeds of mechanical shutters will follow later.

 

PhotoScapes - A Photographic Travel Blog by Alexander Thorsten Blumenau

On the last 3 weekends I did my first tests with the Tachihara 4×5 camera and the Schneider-Kreuznach Symmar 5,6/150 and the Super-Angulon 5,6/75. As these were mere technical tests, I chose some historical palaces castles and churches which are easily accessible.
In such places open to the public, a photographer with a large format camera quickly becomes the centre of attention of many of the other visitors. You get stared at, people talk to you, ask a lot of questions. I was actually rather shocked how many people in their 30s and 40s seem to have forgotten what photographic film is, apparently never heard of bellows and focussing screen – and hence they cannot imagine that a camera can be so simple and mechanical, without any black box electronic magic.
So, if you ever try shooting large format yourself in public, be prepared to attract a lot of attention. It is sometimes even hard to concentrate on the shooting itself if too many people approach you.

Setting up the camera:

The following series of images show the setting up of the large format field camera: First you attach it to the tripod, unfold it, lock all the knobs tightly but not using real force, attach the lens board which holds shutter and lens, screw in the cable release, and finally you put the dark cloth on the back of the camera.

I got myself a small Harrison dark cloth, which is silver on the outside to keep temperatures down in the sun. But I have to admit it looks rather alien and together with my modern tripod it slightly spoils the classic appearance of the Tachihara 4×5. I have to get myself a black dark cloth some day, even if in the sun this means more sweat.

Composing and focussing:

Before your head gets under the dark cloth, you should open the shutter so you will actually have an image on the focussing screen. Most shutters have a little lever to open the shutter independently from bulb mode. At least at this stage it is also advisable to set the largest possible aperture in order to get a bright image on the screen.
With your head under the dark cloth, you can now compose the image (upside down) on the screen and adjust the camera’s tilt and shift movements (see also Scheimpflug Principle, Wikipedia link). Focussing is best done with a loupe on the screen. Below you can see myself under the dark cloth, focussing, and two of my loupes.

The one on the right hand side is a very cheap plastic loupe. It does the job in a way, but it is tiring to use and it is quite hard to really judge focus as that little piece of plastic is an optical disaster. Its only advantages are its weight and that it is very cheap. You probably will not get happy with that one.
The loupe on the left hand side is made from proper glass at least, and the tube it is stuck in was a bit of DIY by cutting off the hollow handle of some tool.

Exposing the film:

To expose the film, a light meter is of great help. In order to get exposure really as you want it, a spot meter is the best choice as you can use it to measure exactly the darkest and brightest areas of the image, and to measure those areas which are of particular importance/interest. If you own some other camera with a light meter built in, you can of course also use that camera’s light meter. After these measurements are done, you can then set your aperture and shutter speed to the the desired exposure. I will not go into detail here, but if you do not want to purely guess your exposure from those readings, you should have a look at the so called Zone System (Wikipedia link).
If you have not done it yet, you should now close the shutter and cock it. The following images illustrate the next steps: the film holder is inserted behind the focussing screen, the dark slide is pulled away, and finally the shutter is released via the cable and the image is taken! Of course, to protect the film from light, after the image is taken the dark slide has to be inserted back again completely.

Things to go wrong:

A lot of things can go wrong in all this, and believe me, I have made my share of mistakes! The following list gives some typical things which can go wrong easily, but it is by far not complete:

• The sheet film was inserted upside down, with the emulsion layer on the inside of the film holder. This way it will never get really exposed (white negative).
• The dark slide is pulled open when the shutter is still open after the focussing process. This way the film will be totally overexposed (dark negative).
• Acidental multiple exposures on one sheet of film. To avoid this you usually insert the dark slide the other way round after the image is taken. This helps to identify those film holders with already exposed film.
• Another hazard is wind. A large format camera offers a large area for the wind to attack. Hence even with a good and heavy tripod, camera shake can become a problem.
• With wooden cameras with a spring back, pulling out the dark slide too rigorously might cause the spring back to partially open and hence might cause a light leak.
• When extreme shift and tilt movements are used, in particular those of the camera front, then vignetting might occur if the image circle of the lens is to small for the movements. Sometimes, stepping down the aperture can help a bit.
• If you come from a 35mm film background or even from medium format, the first time you shoot large format you will probably underestimate the shallow depth of field. For large format photography f/16 and f/22 are not really small apertures yet. Don’t be shy and try f/32, f/45 and beyond!

But even if you do everything right, things can go wrong as I had to experience on second weekend of test-shooting: After roughly the 20th exposure with my old Symmar, the shutter decided to stay open and to ruin the exposure totally! This was my last sheet of film I had with me on that day so I could not repeat it. Further experimentation with the over 50-years-old Synchro-Compur shutter showed that all the slow speeds below 1/25 would occasionally get stuck. And this seemed to get worse from day to day. Apparently the shutter had not been serviced and cleaned for a long time.
Fortunately, Mr. Reinhardt from Fotomechanik Reinhardt in Germany was able to react quickly and solve my problems. Now the shutter seems to work very reliable.

Below you can see some more extreme shift movement of the Tachihara camera, and two of the first negatives I produced with the Symmar 5,6/150 and the Super-Angulon 5,6/75.

In part 4 I will show some more of the first test images I took with this setup. Articles on how to develop 4×5 sheet film and how to measure the exact shutter speeds of mechanical shutters will follow later.

PhotoScapes - A Photographic Travel Blog by Alexander Thorsten Blumenau

This is a short report of how I develop black and white film. I can only encourage everyone to just try it at home, since it is not very complicated. And it is really fun!

Recently I found some old roll of 35mm Agfapan APX 100 black and white film, expired since 10 years ago. I did not know how the film was stored, except that the last 5 years it was not in the freezer but in a box in one of my cupboards. As I was curious if it was still usable, I went to the Zoo, exposed the roll and started developing it using a package of 20 years old Ilford ID-11. In the gallery above you can see some of the images as scanned with an Epson V700 scanner. Not a bad result if you consider that here a film roll from the last century met developing chemistry from the last century. But now for the actual process of developing the film:

The equipment needed:

There are several ways to develop black and white film, but the most convenient and cheapest for roll film is certainly in a cylindrical development tank. I personally use a Paterson Super System 4 development tank, but there are other brands around with similar products. Unlike for colour processing, for black and white film, temperature control and exact timings are less critical. Don’t get me wrong, different temperatures and timings will influence the outcome of the process also for black and white, but deviations will not completely ruin the negatives as it can happen in colour processes. Hence a thermostat or an automated processor are not really needed.

The minimum equipment needed is illustrated in the three images below:

• A development tank with a light-tight lid. I use a Paterson 3 reel tank which can take up to 3 rolls of 135 (35 mm) roll film simultaneously or two rolls of 120 roll film. And of course you need at least one film reel compatible with the tank system you use.
• For mixing and storing the development chemistry, you will need some measures, something to stir, at least one funnel and at least three empty containers to store the working solutions of the developer, the stop bath and the fixer.
• Last but not least you will need several smaller items: ideally an opener for film cartridges, as this makes opening in the dark so much easier, a pair of scissors to cut the film, a thermometer for temperature control, a stop watch, and film clips for the drying of the film afterwards.

Of course some things can be improvised. Optionally you might further need a larger container to take the chemistry containers and fill it with water of defined temperature (if temperature control is an issue on a very hot or cold day). And if you do not have access to a dark room and cannot get your bathroom light-tight, then a film changing bag can serve as a miniature dark room.

Preparing the chemistry:

Developers for classic black and white film come in various varieties. Some you get as a liquid concentrate which you have to dilute, others come as a dry powder which you have to dissolve to produce your stock solution. Also some, such as the legendary Rodinal, survive for ages on the shelf, while others will degrade (oxidise) over time and even might die a sudden death when you least expect it and ruin your film. For the more advanced there are also 2-step developers, which consist of two different solutions applied subsequently.

Choosing the ideal developer / film combination – and all the other parameters such as exposure of the film, dilution of the developer, development time, temperature, agitation during the process – can be a very long process, and very much depends on what you want to achieve and on personal taste. Different combinations will result in differently pronounced film grain, different “sharpness” and contrast and tonality. These issues are discussed all over the world wide web, sometimes controversially, and I will not go into details. Probably everyone has to find his or her own path by experimentation.

So what are the chemicals we need?

• A black and white developer. In this illustration I use a package of Ilford ID-11 – a well known standard black and white developer. It comes as two different powders which have to be dissolved according to the instructions on the package. From this so-called stock solution one can further dilute with water to produce a one-use working solution.
• An acid stop bath, which once in contact with the film will immediately stop the effect of the alkaline developer. I personally use a stop bath with an indicator: a colour change will indicate once the stop bath has lost its acidity from too much use and has to be replaced.
• A fixer. I use Ilford Rapid Fixer. The fixer will remove the remaining silver halide salt from the film emulsion and make the image permanent. After this step, further exposure of the film to light will have no effect. Fixers usually come as concentrated liquids which have to be diluted with water according to the instructions.
• A wetting agent for easier drying of the developed film and to avoid drying stains. No preperations are needed here, a few drops of the wetting agent will be simply added to the water after the last washing of the film.

The three images below show (from left to right) a) the four main chemicals applied, b) the diluting of the developer stock solution and c) the diluting of the yellow indicator stop bath:

In principle, the stock solution of the developer can be used several times. But as the effective chemicals will slowly use up, for each re-use a slightly longer development time will be needed – e.g. the time has to be increased by about 10% for each subsequent use. To avoid this, most people prefer to dilute the stock solution into a working solution which can only be used once. In this case I chose a 1+3 dilution, which means adding 3 parts of water to 1 part of stock solution.

The amount of developer solution needed per film reel depends on the tank system you use, for the Paterson shown here, 290 ml are needed to ensure one reel of 35 mm film to be fully submerged. Furthermore you have to be aware, that for some developers a minimum amount developer per film is specified. In the case of Ilford ID-11 this would be the euqivalent of 100 ml stock solution per 35 mm film with 36 frames. With a dilution of 1 + 3, this equals to 400 ml of working solution, substantially more than the 290 ml specified as the tank minimum!
For the stop bath and the fixer, 290 ml would do, but as they both can be reused many times I do not bother preparing such small quantities and go for a litre each straight away.

Instead of the stop bath, watering the film to wash away the developer will also do, but will give less precise timings – in particular bad if you work with short developing times. If you want to save money, you can also produce your own stop bath by diluting e.g. citric acid or similar.

When preparing the chemistry, you must make sure to always use clean measures, funnels and canisters, free of residues of the developing chemistry or detergents. If you accidentally get stop bath or fixer into the developer, this will likely ruin your development process. Also it is highly advisable to properly label all the containers in order to avoid a mix-up.

Transfering the film into the development tank:

Now, with all the chemistry prepared, it is time to transfer the film from the film cartridge into the development tank. Everything described in this paragraph has to be done in absolute darkness, in a tightly sealed dark room or in a film changing bag! The images below are shown under illumination for illustration purposes only! The tiniest bit of stray light will expose the film and ruin it. Also make sure no one accidentally opens the door of the dark room to tell you dinner is ready.

It is best to sacrifice one or two rolls of film to first train the process under illumination where you can see what you do, before you turn to the real thing in total darkness.

First you need to open the film cartridge. This is ideally done with a special opener. If you are very talented you might be able to do this with a knife or other tools, but do not blame me if upon trying this you damage your film, cut your fingers or punch a hole into your film changing bag. You have been warned.
Once one of the lids is removed, you can pull out the film roll. At this stage the emulsion side of the film is pointing to the inside of the roll. Ideally you will not touch this side.
Once the roll is pulled out, you should cut away the first tapered bit of the film strip, the leader, as this will make it easier to spool the film onto the film reel:

To load the film onto the Paterson reel, first insert the start of the film strip (where you just cut away the leader) into the reel’s groves. Pull it in a bit further, and then twist the two outer wheels of the reel forth and back, holding it as illustrated below, with your thumbs guiding the film still outside the reel. This will draw the film further into the reel. Be careful not to jam the film, and not to twist the lose end with the film spool still attached. Once the film is almost fully loaded onto the reel, cut off the spool.

Developing the film:

With everything prepared now, the development process can begin. As mentioned a few paragraphs earlier, dilution, temperatures, timings and all other parameters will influence the outcome of the process. And everyone should experiment and find his personally preferred process. However, for a start, there are guidelines available. Be it in books, in the developer and film instructions or in the world wide web. A very good resource to start with, if your film / developer combination is not covered by the instruction of either of the two, is the online B&W Film Development Database.

For APX 100 film exposed for ISO 100 with Ilford ID-11 diluted 1+1, this database gives 13.5 minutes development time at a temperature of 20°C. As I diluted 1+3, I extrapolate the time to 22 minutes as a rough guess. Also I realised room temperature was closer to 21°C so I decide for 21 minutes. This will not make a huge difference though. As I said, you best experiment with all this for yourself.

So the development process applied looks as follows:

• It starts with the developer: Pour it into the tank and agitate every first ten seconds of each minute using the rotational agitator of the Paterson tank. This rhythm follows the Ilford advice. One could also agitate by slowly inverting the tank upside down and back again – with the cap tightly closed of course.
  After each agitation the tank is set firmly onto the table, with a “knock”, to shake off tiny air bubbles from the film’s emulsion.
  Shortly before the 21 minutes end, I start emptying the tank by pouring out the developer. Best you collect it as liquid waste and dispose it properly.
• The stop bath: Pour it into the tank, shortly agitate and leave it for 10 seconds.
  Pour it back into the container (using a funnel).
• The fixer: Pour it into the tank, agitate, and leave it for 4 minutes.
  Pour it back into the container (using a funnel). Now you could open the tank since the film is fully developed.
• Watering/washing: My washing procedure also follows the Ilford advice: Fill the tank with water, invert five times (or agitate by other means), drain the water away, do the same again with 10 times inversion and then again with 20 times inversion. This procedure uses substantially less water than just rinsing the film with water for many minutes.
  By the washing the residual chemical agents are removed. This is important to ensure a long life of the developed film without degradation.
• Now the film can be removed from the reel. Most reels can be taken apart into two parts by a twist, so you can easily remove the film from the reel without the risk of mechanical damage to the emulsion. Do not touch the emulsion side as it is soaked with water and very sensitive at this stage.
• Final watering with the wetting agent: For the final watering, I add a few drops of the wetting agent to the water. This allows the surface water to easily drop off after the film and avoids drying stains later on. Ideally in this step deionized or distilled water is used to be 100% sure.
  Alternatively you could use a special film squeegee to get rid of the water on the film surface, but this always bears the risk of mechanical damage to the emulsion.
• Drying: In the last step, the film clips are attached to the two film ends and the film can be hung up for drying – best in a dust free area. Usually one of the two clips is heavier. This one serves as a weight to pull the film strip straight. I avoid drying with a hair dryer since this often blows a lot of dust onto the emulsion, which will be hard to remove later.

When the film is finally dry – this can take some hours – I cut it into shorter strips of 6 exposures each. At this length the film strips are easy to archive and furthermore fit perfectly into the scanning mask of my Epson V700 scanner.

Conclusion:

Even long time expired film and developer of dubious origin are worth to give it a try as they can might still yield acceptable results. In this case of my APX 100 which has probably never seen a freezer, in the end the film grain seemed a bit over the limit. But this could also partially stem from poor temperature control on this hot day and I was probably beyond the 21°C measured in the very beginning when I prepared the chemicals.

PhotoScapes - A Photographic Travel Blog by Alexander Thorsten Blumenau

Hohentwiel Fortress in Germany was one of Baden-Wüerttemberg’s largest fortresses. Starting from a smaller medieval castle situated on top of the Hohentwiel – a long time inactive volcano of the Hegau group of volcanoes – in the 16th century it was extended into a larger fortress. As far as I know, Hohentwiel went through some sieges, but was never actually taken by force. Today its ruins can easily be visited from the town of Singen nearby. After climbing the volcano one first enters the lower part of the ruins. This part is connected with the upper part by a ramp. Once the top is reached, in good weather one will be rewarded by a spectacular look across the landscape and its steep hills – most of which are actually inactive volcanoes as well.

Last weekend the plan was originally to go for a walk in the Hegau area to see some of the volcanoes which dominate the landscape, but after realizing how large the fortress on the Hohentwiel actually is, we basically spent half a day exploring the ruins and gave up the idea of a longer walk.

         

PhotoScapes - A Photographic Travel Blog by Alexander Thorsten Blumenau

Since I started my large format photography adventure a couple of weeks ago with the purchase of the Tachihara 4×5 field camera, I spent a lot of time hunting for second hand equipment, such as sheet film holders, wire releases, some lab parts, and of course lenses. The lens question is really a tough one, since a large variety of lenses has been produced by various companies over the last 100 years.

First of all one has to decide for a specific focal length. Here you have to keep in mind, that the visual effect you achieve when composing the images is not really depending on the focal length of the lens, but on the angle of view of your system consisting of the lens and of the recording medium, be it film emulsion or sensor. The combination of focal length and the dimension or format of the film or sensor define the angle of view: The larger the format for a given focal length, the wider the angle of view. The longer the focal length, the smaller the angle of view. The Schematic image to the right gives an impression what the difference in format really means if you compare the area covered by the 35 mm format (24 mm x 36 mm) with that covered by the 4 inch x 5 inch format. In today’s digital world, 35 mm is often referred to as “full frame”. This “full frame” looks already rather small compared to 4×5, the smallest of all large formats.
Besides on the angle of view, in practice the much larger format will also have a pronounced effect on depth of field. For a given f-number the depth of field will be considerably smaller for the larger format.

Inspired by my photographic habits in the smaller formats, I decided for a “normal” lens of 150 mm and a wider lens of 75 mm. These very roughly correspond to focal lengths of 50 mm and 25 mm on 35 mm full frame.

Of course the focal length is not the only parameter important for a lens, one should not forget about

• the image circle: shift and tilt movements of the lens will require an image circle that is actually larger than the dimensions of the format.
• the glass coating: very old lenses are often uncoated, giving heavy internal reflections that can lead to ghosting and in any case reduce the amount of light reaching the film. In later years lenses were single-coated, and today even multi-coated.
• the aperture range and the range of shutter speeds and – in particular if buying second hand – the deviations of the mechanical shutter from the nominal values.

The Schneider-Kreuznach Symmar 5,6/150 convertible lens:

As my plan was to start with two lenses only in the beginning – one short focal length (“wide angle” in small format terminology) and one “normal” lens – I thought a so-called convertible lens would be a good idea for the normal lens. Convertible lenses can be converted to a longer focal length by removal of either the front or rear lens cell. Of course, since the various optical aberrations are only compensated in a well balanced set up of both lens cells, removal of one of the elements will result in reduced image quality. Actually some convertibles at the longer focal length only give half way decent results when used on black&white film in combination with a colour filter (e.g. yellow) to suppress chromatic aberration.
Nevertheless I wanted to give it a serious try and decided for the Symmar 5,6/150 convertible lens, produced in Germany by Schneider-Kreuznach since the 1920s. When you remove the front cell from this lens, the focal length is extended from 150 mm to 265 mm, and the maximum aperture is reduced from f/5.6 to f/12.

The specimen I managed to find is equipped with a German Synchro Compur shutter and was built in 1961. By the way, you can identify the age of a Schneider-Kreuznach lens by its serial number on their webpage: Schneider-Kreuznach Serial Numbers. The image above shows the lens with the front and rear lens cap in place. It looks a bit beaten with several pronounced scratches on the metal parts, but the glass looks fine. This lens has certainly seen some heavy use over the last 50 years!

But now for some more details. Large format lenses often consist of three parts, usually screwed together: the rear lens cell, the front lens cell, and in between the shutter element which contains the shutter and the aperture. The image below shows the three parts disassembled:

Below from left to right you can see the lens with a) the shutter open and the aperture fully open at f/5.6, b) the aperture at f/16 and c) the shutter closed:

Mounting the lens on a lensboard:

Before the lens can be used with the camera, it has to be mounted on a lensboard compatible with the camera. The Tachihara takes lensboards of the Linhof-Technika type, and I was able to get a second hand original Linhof board (see images below).

The diameter of the shutter element of the lens has to fit the hole in the lensboard. Diameters are usually specified by numbers: Copal #0, #1, #2, … (Copal is a Japanese company producing shutters). The lensboard shown has a hole for Copal #1, which corresponds to 41.6 mm, exactly what is needed for my Symmar lens. As can be seen, the hole is not fully centrical, but shifted downwards on the board a bit. Later this has to be taken into account when the bellows of the camera is positioned. The protruding ring on the board’s rear side serves as a light-trap when fitted into the camera’s front standard.

The tiny hole which you can clearly see on rear and the front of the board was drilled to attach a Linhof-Rapid wire release adapter. However, this adapter is missing on the board so the screw hole has to be sealed light-proof before taking any images with the camera. Else this hole would project a second (ghost) image onto the film – just like the pinhole of a pinhole camera.

Before the Symmar lens can be mounted on the board, the tiny screw marked with an arrow in the image above has to be removed. This screw was originally meant to fit into a notch on the lensboard, to prevent rotating of the lens when setting the aperture, shutter speed, or cock the shutter. However, when the shutter/lens is tightly mounted on the board, the screw is really obsolete and you can really spare yourself the effort to drill the corresponding notch into the board.

To mount the lens to the board, the retainer ring has to be unscrewed from the shutter. Then the shutter is inserted from the front side of the board. In the case of the Symmar lens, for this the rear element has not to be removed, as it is fully cylindrical and will fit through the hole in the lensboard. When the shutter is in place, the retainer ring can be screwed back onto the corresponding thread on the shutter. The raised ridge of the ring has to face towards the lensboard and has to be carefully fitted into the hole. This will assure the lens sits well centred in the hole.
To tighten further, one might use a special tool like a lens wrench, or – if applied very carefully – a pair of pliers.

The next three images show how the Linhof Technika lensboard is mounted on the Tachihara, the protruding ring on the lensboard’s rear side fits tightly into the round hole of the Tachihara front standard:

The Schneider-Kreuznach Super-Angulon 5,6/75:

This lens has a rather short focal length, which is in the range of the minimum bellows extension of the Tachihara 4×5. Hence it is advisable to mount it on a recessed lensboard to allow for easy camera movements. Compared to a standard flat lensboard, the bellows has to be compressed by far less as the lens is mounted recessed towards the image plane of the camera (see image below).

Luckily I was able to get the lens as a Linhof Technika version from 1967, already mounted on a lensboard, with a Linhof-Rapid wire release adapter installed. You can see this adapter in the images below – a black cone with a white ring at the top. This adapter is meant to allow for a quick plugging and un-plugging of the wire release. However, I found out that my wire release shown above does not hold well in the adapter. Hence I will probably get a new one which is fully compatible.

So, with the two lenses I am almost ready to go now. The list of excuses why I did not take a single image with my Tachihara yet, gets shorter and shorter! As my first batch of 4×5 film holders arrived in the mail a couple of days ago, now the only things missing are a focussing loupe, a dark cloth and of course some sheets of 4×5 film.

PhotoScapes - A Photographic Travel Blog by Alexander Thorsten Blumenau

End of last year it became clear I was going to be in Edinburgh for the Edinburgh Marathon Festival 2012 as a marathon “support team”. Since I had to be there anyway, why not also register for one of the shorter runs? As I never did a half-marathon before, I decided to give it a try. Even though I could only prepare for the run about 4 weeks in advance, it was a very enjoyable experience.

The (half) marathon starts right in the centre of Edinburgh, close to the Castle and the Royal Mile, and from there reaches the coast after a couple of miles and then follows the coastline to Musselburgh and further on, turns around and follwos the coastline back to the finishing area in Musselburgh. Starting at 8am on Sunday last weekend, after about half the distance the sun came out and it became really warm, with almost no shade. I felt some pity for the marathon runners starting later that day, as they would have sun all the way and twice the distance. After the run there was a bus shuttle back to central Edinburgh.

On Friday and Saturday before the run there was some spare time to walk around in Edinburgh. The resulting images can be seen in the next blog entry.

 

PhotoScapes - A Photographic Travel Blog by Alexander Thorsten Blumenau

Last weekend I had the chance to be in Scotland for the Edinburgh Marathon Festival 2012 (see also previous entry). Taking an early flight on Friday, there was half of Friday and all of Saturday to explore Edinburgh before the run on Sunday, and the weather was brilliant. Unlike usual Scottish summer (and spring, winter and autumn) there was no rain at all, and most of the time it was really sunny.

The majority of images of Edinburgh shown here were taken on or near the so called Royal Mile, which connects Edinburgh Castle with the Royal Palace of Holyrood House. With a private home right at the Royal Mile as our base, this part of the city with its plenty of medieval houses, Churches, bars and restaurants was very convenient to explore. I also made it twice to Arthur’s Seat, with its splendid views over the city and the sea.

For some images of the Marathon Festival on Sunday see the previous entry.

       

PhotoScapes - A Photographic Travel Blog by Alexander Thorsten Blumenau

After having spent so much time with 35mm film and so-called full-frame (digital) sensors, I finally start taking first steps into the land of large format photography. The idea for this experiment arose pretty early, long time before I started with digital – even before I tried my first 35mm slide film. I am not sure what really kept me from giving it an earlier try – maybe it was the rather poor results from my home-made pinhole camera, maybe I was just scared things might get too complicated, maybe I was just too lazy or maybe even a lack of budget? Probably a bit of everything I just mentioned.

So what are actually the reasons for giving large format photography a try? For me personally, the answer consists of several aspects:

• Large format to me always appeared like a journey back in time, back to the roots of photography.
• While larger and maybe a bit more complicated to handle, large format cameras often are rather simple in their design, with a lack of electronics, batteries and fancy features: just a lens, a shutter, some light-tight bellows and a film holder.
• Nevertheless many large format cameras show more freedom when it comes to composition and focussing: Shift, tilt and swing movements of the lens and the film holder allow to shift and rotate the film out of optical axis of the lens. This opens up possibilities to compensate or strengthen the effects perspective (converging lines in tall or wide structures) and to tilt the plane of focus with respect to the plane of the film.
• While digital photography these days sometimes feels a bit like fast food, as it is so easy to just click away so many images per minutes, for each image in analogue large format photography you are forced to take your time, slow down, think more.

The last bit of inspiration needed was incrementally built up by the presence of some old 19th century wooden field camera in my living room (see image above). I got this camera on an auction just for its historic value first. But soon I was inspired by the idea how much fun it would be to reactivate this piece of history and try if I could produce some decent images with it. Unfortunately the bellows have some light leaks and so do the wooden film holders. So the alternative plan was then to get some working specimen of a large format camera from the subsequent century.

Deciding for a camera – The Tachihara 45F:

One prerequisite the camera should fulfill was quickly defined: it should be lightweight enough to be carried on backpacking tours. This would rule out many rather heavy cameras made from metal, such as a Linhof Technika or most monorail studio cameras. Also this would rule out formats larger than 4×5 inches (or the slightly smaller metric equivalent of 9×12 cm), as most 5×7 or 8×10 cameras are very bulky and a pain to lug around without a mule or a car.

After weeks of thinking and research I narrowed my selection of cameras down to this list:

• The Toho Shimo FC-45X monorail camera. One of the very few really lightweight monorail cameras below 2kg
• The Shen-Hao HZX-45IIA wooden field camera
• The Chamonix 045-n2 (or a second hand 045-n1), very lightweight (below 1.5kg) made from wood, metal and carbon fibre
• The Wista Field DX 4×5 or similar
• The Tachihara 4×5 wooden field camera made from cherry wood

I was really keen on the Toho, as a monorail allows usually for the most flexibility in camera movements. However, I soon found out that the Toho went out of production some time ago, and it is close to impossible to get a second hand one on short notice.
The Chamonix would probably have been the most sensible choice as it is the cheapest and lightest of all cameras listed, and the most versatile of the field cameras. However it lacks the really classic appearance of an all wood and metal field camera.
In the end I decided for the Tachihara, as it appears as a real beauty, it is reasonably lightweight (slightly heavier than the 1.5kg stated in the specs though) and it is one of the cheaper cameras but still well built.
I soon found out however, that the Tachihara 45 is not that easy to get in Europe. The used ones you find on ebay or elsewhere are very often in a very bad state or are sold on different continents.
So it took some time, but after some research and hunting I found a dealer in Germany (RK-Photo-Solutions) who had some specimens in stock. A couple of days later – on May 8 2012 – I finally could un-box my Tachihara 45F from 2008!
Below you can see first images of the camera still folded, in the process of unfolding, and fully set up with a lens board but without a lens.

So what is still missing before I can really start? Well, quite a lot!

• first of all of course a lens with a shutter
• a wire release
• a sturdy tripod (OK, I have got some tripods to choose from, so not the biggest issue for me right now)
• a light meter (or another camera with a built-in light meter)
• a focussing loupe
• a dark cloth for focussing
• 4×5 sheet film holders
• sheet film

And for the subsequent process of developing:

• all the black and white chemistry and storage containers
• a development tank with 4×5 sheet film holders or as an alternative just some lab trays
• a thermometer
• a stop watch
• oh yes, and a dark room or a light tight bag

At this point I do not plan to do any enlarging by myself. Hence I will not need an enlarger. Instead the plan is to scan the negatives with an Epson V700 flatbed scanner.

PhotoScapes - A Photographic Travel Blog by Alexander Thorsten Blumenau

Last weekend I had a chance to stay in Amsterdam for a couple of days. Weather was great, so I spent all Sunday walking the old town with its canals, bridges, old merchant houses, boats and the Red Light District. The latter actually covers about one fifth of the central old town.

If you skip the museums, the coffee shops and all the tempting bars, then you can actually well explore the central part of the old town in one day and even have a nice dinner in one of the plenty restaurants. Oh, and you should not forget to try the local chips or fries!

The last 3 images of the series presented were actually taken at the waterfront to the North-East of the old town. There you can find a nice selection of boats from the last century and right in front of the ship museum – the star of the show – a replica of a tall ship of the East India Company (at least I believe it is a replica).

Besides the digital images shown, I also took some images on 35mm black&white film on this trip. These will be shown later once I got them developed and scanned.

PhotoScapes - A Photographic Travel Blog by Alexander Thorsten Blumenau