I Was Going To Blame Pete.

[Richard Mullard]

Last year I'd read with interest @Pete Askew 's write up of his D.I.Y large format camera project and it peaked my interest.

And tonight I have successfully processed my first couple of sheets of 5x4 FP4+, nerve's were jangled when I thought I had filled my tank with the fixer first, panic subsided when I checked the cap of the fixer and it was still tight, so I carried on with the processing, washing and fixing, temperatures weren't spot on correct but close enough.

Camera is a self assembly 'Bulldog 5x4' from 'Pinhole Solutions', the lens is a 'Polaroid Prontor 105mm' was 40 quid from e-bay, made my own lens board from a piece of 'Ky-dex' from work. I got my first DDS off of ebay as well. I've since gotten 5 more DDS's from 'ffordes' photographic and the tank, film and a 'MOD 54' all from 'Speed graphic' in four marks.

When the negs are dry I'll get some shots/scans of them and the camera as well.

Thanks Pete for giving me another string to my bow, in true 'delboy' parlance the world is my lobster now.

Cheers for now.

Rich.

 

[Pete Askew]

Great news Rich and I look forward to seeing the results.

 

[Richard Mullard]

Managed to get some rough scans tonight, and its highlighted the fact that my scanner glass needs a damn good clean. This is the best of the three that I managed to get, the mark at the top of the shot is on the back of the neg (I'd scanned it back to front).


First scan. par Richard Mullard, on ipernity

The next is what I based my exposure on, but using 1/60 exposure time on account as my shutter can't do 1/40 but using the aperture as recorded.


Light Meter Reading par Richard Mullard, on ipernity

Before anyone asks why a picture of my back garden as my first shot, I use it as my test area because when the light is right there an balanced amount light and shade and various textures.
I will try some different methods to get a better scan/shot of the negative.

Rich.

 

[Pete Askew]

Looking good Rich.

 

[Hamish Gill]

Looking good! It's a path I'm very very slowly walking too ... Also thanks to @Pete Askew

I too am marking negs left right and centre, much worse than yours in most cases!

What's your method for digitising the negs?

 

[Richard Mullard]

Hi Hamish.
When I scanned it the second time, I just put it on the glass emulsion side down with a sheet of white paper and a mirror on top facing the scan head. Its reasonable just to check out the neg, but it seems to have blown out the detail in the clouds.
I'm going to try back-lighting the neg to see if that gets the detail that's missing, and just to be on the safe side give the old dslr trick a go as well.

 

[Hamish Gill]

How do you do it with the slr?

 

[Richard Mullard]

Morning All.
Been busy this morning, finally ditched the idea of 'scanning' the neg as the resolution of the final image wasn't up to what I wanted.

In reply to Hamish's question here is a pic of the set-up I used.


Image capture set-up. par Richard Mullard, on ipernity

The only flat surface I had that was large enough was a scanner that I'd gutted for another project, I tried initially to use my 1ds but no live view, so it was a quick change to the 450d. What your doing is taking a picture of a picture, and the resolution was a lot better than I was getting with my scanner.

The next is straightened and cropped no pp.


Straightened and Cropped par Richard Mullard, on ipernity

The next is processed using the 'Judy Howle' preset in Nik Silver Efex2, as you can see the cloud detail is showing up, which is what I was after.


Processed par Richard Mullard, on ipernity

Some sites I've been to people have used flash to light the neg, as my batteries are flat for my flash it was natural light that won the day.

The world is my lobster now.

Rich.