New Camera !

DaireQuinlan · 24-01-2010 8:52pm #1

Finally finished my 8x10 that's been sitting idly in a press for quite a while. I spent ages trying to assemble some sort of complicated clever way of holding in the ground glass and film holders, eventually I settled on rubber bands

Takes normal 8x10 film holders, 300mm Industar 37 in front of a Sinar leaf shutter, all bolted onto nested foamcore boxes that do the job of focusing. Unfortunately shooting it and developing the subsequent sheets is a bit time consuming so I've only really had a chance to go through a couple of shots just to verify it was actually working. Nothing quite like a negative 8 inches by 10 inches in size

Here's the beasty itself, more notes on the flickr page if you click through.

Here are a couple of test shots:

Incidentally, taking shots of red flowers under tungsten light with B&W paper is never going to be an ideal situation ... 32 sec for one of them at f/4.5 :eek:

sineadw · 24-01-2010 9:14pm

Holy jaysus. How long did that take?

humberklog · 24-01-2010 9:16pm

I'd like to see the bow-tie that USSR looking spy camera came from.

pullandbang · 24-01-2010 11:49pm

If in doubt............use a rubber!

DaireQuinlan · 25-01-2010 10:37am

sineadw wrote: »

Holy jaysus. How long did that take?

About 6 months or so all told. I'm lazy with this stuff though, I have a half finished 6x6 monorail view camera sitting in a box for the last 2 years (coincidentally ever since mark was born :rolleyes: ). You could sit down and do it over a weekend if you were sufficiently motivated.

I process the sheets in dilute DD-x (about 10+1 or so I think) by inspection under a safe light. As soon as something starts to turn completely black (ie, the highlights are blowing) I snatch it out and dump it into a water bath.
Paper is incredibly contrasty and red-insensitive, some people recommend pre-flashing it for a couple of seconds before use so I'll have to try that. I still haven't had a chance to take shots in daylight with this though. One of the main things I envisaged it being used for was portraits. It should really shine ...

Fajitas! · 25-01-2010 12:28pm

Saw them on Flickr, they look great, can't wait to see what you'll get out of it from a few portraits tbh.

DaireQuinlan · 25-01-2010 3:08pm

Fajitas! wrote: »

Saw them on Flickr, they look great, can't wait to see what you'll get out of it from a few portraits tbh.

That's the plan all right. Some lovely Ortho goodness. The problem is getting time to do it, and willing victims subject. Almost my entire family is due back from mexico this weekend. I think I'll head down and try and catch them while they're hungover and unable to resist. My Dad has blue eyes, he's got to look good taken on paper

Chorcai · 13-02-2010 6:09pm

When you say negitive, does that mean you are using a sheet of photo-paper that you'd use in a dark room for printing ?

DaireQuinlan · 13-02-2010 8:16pm

Chorcai wrote: »

When you say negitive, does that mean you are using a sheet of photo-paper that you'd use in a dark room for printing ?

Yep, box of jessops multigrade I got in their half price sale a few years ago. I load it into 8x10 film holders. It's a damn sight cheaper than shooting film. 8x10 B&W is bad enough, but check out the price of 8x10 colour film :eek:

New Camera !

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