Tag Archives: Cameras

Shallow depth of field on 5×4

Today I was looking for a lens to put on my MPP 5×4 to shoot a still life in the studio, and I picked out a 150mm f2.8 lens which originally came from a photocopier. The reason I know it’s origins is because about 15 years ago, a slightly eccentric neighbour was breaking up an old photocopier outside my house, so I asked him if he would give me a lens if he found one inside. I got it and I’ve had it sitting in a box of odd lenses and unusual bits of glass since then. Putting it on the camera, I really liked the shallow focus and beautiful soft background, but with a fixed aperture of 2.8, I had to find some way to control the exposure. I decided that some very slow X-Ray film and a diffuser over my tungsten light would give me a manageable exposure which I could time in seconds. I cut some strips of X-Ray film and put them in a dark slide, then did a couple of test shots, one at the exposure I expected and one with more exposure. The second one gave me the kind of negative I was after, so I cut a piece of film to the full 5×4 size and exposed it. I took it into the darkroom and processed it in a tray of paper developer for a minute and a half, gave it a quick stop and fix, then washed it. The negative looked much softer in the background than it looked on the focusing screen (this is something I’ve noticed a lot) and I thought it would make a nice print. Then I remembered that somewhere in my studio I had a 150mm f2.8 projector lens which gave really nice out of focus softness, probably better than this one I’d just shot, so I thought I’d expose a second shot through it and compare them.

I had a faint idea that I’d read somewhere that two lenses with the same focal length and aperture should produce the same depth of field, so I was interested to see if it was so. After shooting and processing the second sheet of film through the projector lens, I could see immediately that they were quite different. The projector lens had a much shallower focus and was far softer in the out of focus areas, so I must have misremembered the thing about comparable focal lengths.
Anyway, I present the two images here for comparison.

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2 Comments

Keith

Posted 21/11/2014 at 7:22 am

This makes me want to get my old MPP Mk VIII out of the box and take some still-life.
I only have a 150mm Xenar lens though.

Thomas Binsfeld

Posted 27/11/2014 at 5:38 pm

Could you give some advice how to attach the lens to the camera and e.g. which lens to which camera?
Kind regards,
Thomas

1923, 1988, 2014

1 Reply

Alongside my eclectic collection of cameras which have built up over the last 35 years, I have been acquiring negatives and prints wherever I find them. Much of the collection sits in boxes that have not been opened for twenty years or so, but last week I rediscovered a box of them whilst looking for something else. I lifted a few out and held them up to the window to see what was on them and of the first two I looked at, one looked rather familiar. After contact printing it I realised that it was of a farmhouse which I had photographed in the late eighties, when it was very dilapidated. I found the negative and did a print off it too, noticing that I had stood almost in the same position as the first shot, taken 65 years previously.
I remembered that the house was renovated a few years after I had photographed it, so I revisited it this week to get another shot from the same viewpoint. I think the three images make an interesting set.

2 Comments

Dave Burrows

Posted 17/11/2014 at 10:01 pm | Permalink | Edit

Hi Andrew
I really like the comparison between the images as a piece of history, you where lucky to find the 1923 negative, how did you find it.
Glad you are back and writing.
Wish I had interesting projects to work on such as this one.
I posted a link to your website the other day on my face book page telling people. they should check you out as a fine artist and master printer I hope you don’t mind.
Regards Dave
Regards Dave

2. Paul Blanchard

Posted 05/12/2014 at 8:48 pm | Permalink | Edit

Have just found your site, Superb comparison of the Farmhouse in the spirit of ‘How Buildings Learn’ I am working my way through the wealth of posts and shall leave any comments, when worthwhile, as I know from personal experience that it is hard to get them!/Paul

Ilford films, -the results

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So I finished the task, (see previous post) -though I did need to ask for a weeks extension. All of the images were shot over five weeks and I spent another week working late into the night producing over 100 10×8 proof prints. The final selection has not been made, but I present my favourites below. I would be interested to hear your responses,…

Although I was very lucky with some days regarding the changeable British weather, I also had odd days which were a bit of a disaster, with shutter problems on one camera, meter inaccuracies on another and a misaligned focusing screen on a new camera I purchased on ebay, which meant I lost a number of shots. I also discovered a couple of inaccuracies in the processing information for one of Ilford’s film developers and worked out a new ’stand’ process for a couple of the films and this has proved to work very well. All of this will give me enough material for a number of future blog posts.

3 Comments

Keith

Posted 29/05/2014 at 1:55 pm

Well done Andrew, obviously you undertook was a long task for Ilford.

Which of the Ilford film developers did you find that the information was inaccurate?

The stand development may also be of interest to followers of your blog.

Alex

Posted 02/06/2014 at 4:04 pm

Congratulations on completing such a difficult job. I hope you will share your detailed objective conclusions with us.
A comparative analysis of different films in some kind of spreadsheet form could prove to be a great source of information for many of us.
And of course, the new stand development is always an interesting topic.

Tom Kershaw

Posted 16/06/2014 at 6:06 pm

Hello Andrew,

Perhaps an odd question, but what was the aim of this comparison, simply to show a variety of results or make aesthetic judgements?

I have considered doing something similar for my own purposes in the past but have now decided on using a small number of film & developer combinations, centred around XTOL. I would think about using DD-X if I didn’t want to work with a powder.

Tom

Ilford films

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Ilford / Harman have asked me to shoot images to promote all ten of the films they produce. I have to create something eye-catching and inspiring for each of the ten films. Each image has to show what that particular film is capable of, or what it might be used for. The project is very exciting, but I’ve only got a month to complete it! I worked out that I will have to shoot for two days, process and contact for one day, then shoot for two days, process/contact for one day and repeat the cycle for thirty days. I have to come up with a strong shot every two days.

I’ll be shooting on a range of emulsions, from Pan-F at 50 ISO/ASA right through the mid speed range; FP4, Delta 100 and Kentmere 100, then the faster ones; HP5, Delta 400, XP2 and the fastest; Delta 3200. There is one other film in the range and that is the semi infra red film SFX. I’ll be leaving this one til last, not because it’s the least interesting, but because it needs full foliage on the trees to get the best out of it. Bare branches in weak spring sunlight will not produce a striking effect. Hopefully, by the end of the month we should have more greenery around.

When the final images have been chosen I will be required to produce fifty prints of each of the ten negatives. Quite a task, but one I’m looking forward to.

7 Comments

Andrea

Posted 12/04/2014 at 1:42 pm

Oh nice. Looking forward to the results of this !
All 35mm?

David McCormack

Posted 14/04/2014 at 8:02 pm

Fifty hand prints from each of ten!? Look forward to seeing the images and how you match them to each of the film’s characteristics. Looking at the photo of the ten films makes me realise how good it is that we still have a great variety of films to work with. And two from Kentmere… didn’t know about that. How do they compare to FP4 and HP5? Will have to wait for your photos I guess……!

Keith

Posted 19/04/2014 at 8:38 am

I don’t envy your task Andrew, especially if there is a deadline to make.

I have often wondered why Ilford only have square images on their boxes of photographic papers?

David Burrows

Posted 22/04/2014 at 8:30 pm

Hi Andrew
Looks like a tough project one that I would love to do, looking forward to seeing the results
Just a thought, do you remember when I did a workshop with you one on one, one thing I remember I photographed a raindrop on a leaf you showed me how to do on film, that memory has always stuck with me. You turned me into a photographer
Regards Dave

Dave V

Posted 10/05/2014 at 2:55 pm

Greetings,
I discovered your blog while doing a bit of a web-crawl. I have been pondering loading my 1955 Rolleicord V, and leaving my digital camera in the closet. I was interested in the paper negative process also, and that is what specifically led me your way.
I am grateful Ilford is still on the scene, manufacturing film and paper. I tend to be partial to FP-4.
Nice blog!
Best, Dave

Thomas Binsfeld

Posted 12/05/2014 at 7:27 pm

The difficulty in this task in my oppinion is what is the difference in the certain characteristics of e.g. PAN F, Delta 100 and Kentmere 100 …. or HP-5 and Kentmere 400.
The Delta 400 stands for more fine grain, the SFX is clear.
But also the difference between Pan F and Delta 100… Hard to make this clear in a single photo!

Thomas

BenSandyOscar

Posted 15/05/2014 at 11:24 am

Wow Sandy what an honour! Proud we are your customers! Can’t wait to see the results.

View Camera Magazine

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I was recently contacted by a writer / photographer in the USA asking if I would like to be included in an article in View Camera Magazine. The article is on photographers using unusual film types, such as duplicating film and X-Ray. I have been shooting on X-Ray film since 1988 and have written a number of articles on the subject, but was surprised and flattered to be asked.

The article is called Alternative Films, Extraordinary results. and is in the July/August 2013 issue.

It is also mentioned on the esc4p.org blog, -resources page

Reciprocity failure

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Recently I have been doing a lot of pinhole photography, and due to that I have had to explain to a number of people (unfamiliar with the more technical parts of photography) what reciprocity failure is.

Reciprocity is the relationship between shutter speeds and apertures, which means that as you reduce exposure with a change in, lets say the shutter speed by one stop, then increase the exposure by one stop with the aperture, you will have exactly the same exposure. Each one-stop adjustment of the shutter speed, is equivalent to a one-stop adjustment of the aperture. This holds true throughout the normal use of the camera in most lighting situations.

This linked relationship begins to slip away with exposures longer than one second, and the longer the indicated exposure, the more of a difference there is between the indicated exposure and what is actually needed. Many years ago I included in my book on night photography, a chart for working out the amount of exposure correction you might need in situations where exposures were between 1 second and 17 minutes. I have been referring to this chart for my extended pinhole exposures, and I include a link to a word document here which shows the full chart:

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/88621650/Reciprocity%20chart.doc

Kirk Toft

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It’s not very often that I do a post on another photographer, but recently I had a visit from an old friend who I don’t see often enough, and who’s work I think deserves more attention. Kirk is a photographer who has devoted himself to one process and knows it inside out, he also has a really good eye for a classic composition.

He visited recently to give me a large format camera which he was planning to throw out. I said I’d be happy to give it a good home and have been using it a lot recently, so I’d like to say thanks again Kirk! His generosity is not the reason for this write up though. I genuinely think he deserves more attention. He showed me a selection of his oil transfer prints and they were really gorgeous. I managed to prise one from his grip and I’ll be getting it framed soon.

Seeing this image here you get no sense of how subtle the tonality is and how the ink sits in the fibres of the paper. Oil transfer is a lovely process, -as are many of the alt processes when they are done well. These prints take a long time to make, and Kirk only produces them for a few months each year, when the humidity and temperature in his house are favourable. Each one is a special object.

One Comment

Andrea Ingram

Posted 14/12/2012 at 10:21 am

What a lovely image. And such lovely work on the interweb too.
I have been wrestling somewhat unsuccessfully with this process recently. Coating paper with gelatine – only to have it fall off again. Now resorting to fixed fb paper! How humid should it be to do such things? It’s always damp here next to the sea!
Look forward to an online tutorial!
regards
A
Greetings for the season.

A nice discovery

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I was looking through a box of old lenses and collected junk earlier this year, with an idea to sell off some bits on Ebay. I had sold some unused brass lenses, enlarging lenses and old cameras, and was about to list a little lens I had found languishing in the bottom of the box. I had acquired it so long ago, that I couldn’t recall where from. When I did a little research to pad out my description it made me reconsider my decision. So before I listed it, I tried it on my 10×8 camera. -Wow! it almost covered the whole negative area, and the corner vignetting was rather interesting. I won’t be selling it now, and I am looking forward to doing more with this lens. It is a Taylor Hobson Cooke Series VIIb 108mm Wide angle Anastigmat. The information online states that it is meant for a 7×5 camera, but I like seeing what it will do at full stretch.

Winter light

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I love the low sun and long shadows that are a feature of winter days. Shadows have been a fascination of mine for many years and will continue to be I expect. Every sunny winter morning the light shines directly into our kitchen and on this occasion I placed a piece of driftwood on the table to explore the distorted and extended shadows.

Walker Titan Pinhole 5×4

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Using the Walker Titan pinhole 5×4.

I have been using the Walker pinhole camera for a few months now, though not exclusively because I’ve been busy with a lot of paper negative stuff. Having shot with it in a few different locations, I have really grown to love it.

When I’ve shot pinhole stuff before, I’ve always enjoyed making the cameras, -and for me this has been an important part of the satisfaction at the end result. I thought at first that using an ‘off the shelf’ camera would be less likely to satisfy and wouldn’t have the quirks of a home made one. I have been surprised to find that this simple plastic box is actually one of my favourite pinhole cameras of all time, -and I’ve been making them since 1978!

Angle of view. I prefer wide and super wide pinhole cameras over ones that mimic a standard lens, mainly because I enjoy the distortions that occur when objects are placed close to the camera. The Walker has an equivalent angle of view to a 70mm lens on a 5×4 camera and considering that 90mm is a pretty wide lens on this format, it would seem that this was in the realm of super wide. It is roughly equivalent to an 18mm lens on a 35mm camera, so that gives you some idea. Previous to using this, I had been using a home made 10×8 pinhole camera which had an angle of view equivalent to an 11mm lens on 35mm. This really did distort and had quite dark vignetting in the corners. Mike seems to have got the angle of view exactly right with this camera, as there is sufficient distortion (yes, I know it’s rectilinear, -no pedantry please), but virtually no vignetting.

Using it is simplicity itself. A standard 5×4 dark slide fits in with a pleasing click and you are ready to expose by removing the tethered plastic cap. With home made pinholes, especially if made from tins or cardboard boxes, there is always the problem of positioning and stability. Unless you go to the trouble of gluing a threaded nut to the base of your tin (no point doing it with cardboard), you are limited to shooting from the ground or any place you can rest it, -this severely limits your compositional options. With a properly made camera you are provided with a tripod bush -two in fact on the Walker Titan, so shooting from a tripod becomes the normal method and opens up all sorts of image making possibilities.

All of the shots I have shown here, were done on Ilford Ortho film. It is great for this kind of thing because long exposures give nicer results (Ortho is 25 ISO -or less, if you want more tonality out of it). I like long exposures for pinhole, because things happen during the exposure which you hadn’t planned for, and provide unexpected and interesting results.

All exposures were all 90 seconds, and during that time people have stood in the scene for a while and then wandered off, leaving a ghost (beach scene) and the boats sitting in the corner of the harbour were bobbing about violently, as the sea was quite rough and have become very indistinct on the pinhole shot.

Thewebdarkroom

Analogue photography explained.

Tag Archives: Cameras

Shallow depth of field on 5×4

1923, 1988, 2014

Ilford films, -the results

Ilford films

View Camera Magazine

Reciprocity failure

Kirk Toft

A nice discovery

Winter light

Walker Titan Pinhole 5×4