Speed Graphic - Photos and Questions

W

wlewisiii

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Inspired by a posting by P C Headland over at Pnet, I got off my lazy duff and went out and took a few shots today with the Speed Graphic. I've scanned and attached the 2 better ones of them, but I'm still not especially pleased with my scanning technique. Would anyone care to offer suggestions (preferably in small slow words since this topic is kicking my butt... :bang: ) on how to better process these? Also, on the landscape, is the light blob in the lower left corner from a light leak or my developement? I'm not sure as both shots were only taken a few minutes apart and the slightly later barn picture doesn't appear to show it. It also was in the second set I developed while the landscape was in the first.

The film is TMax400 rated at EI640 and developed in Diafine (in my patterson clone tank). Scanned using Vue-Scan and my cheap Umax then slightly processed in Photoshop though I really don't have much of a clue with it.

Thanks,

William
 
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The white blob on the first one looks like a finger-tip in front of the lens. Not hard to do. The second one looks like some fog. or overall flare. Could be older uncoated lens? and criticle sun angle? Never-the-less you could improve them with adjustment of levels, and contrast and bring down brightness in Photoshop. I was never able to get VueScan to work properly for me.
 
Some irregular dark shading along the bottom of the barn pic, and I suspect the same along the top of the other one... Could this be from a low volume level in your dev tank, with one neg inverted? This would be a light area on the neg, could be incomplete developing. Also some black specks and streaks, could be debris of some sort on the print that you scanned. or on the scanner. Also a couple of white spots that would be dirt on the neg. I note that the histogram has the majority of the tonality crowded rightward into the lighter areas with no true black on one, while the barn pic has some unneeded black probably representing the shadowed interior of the tree. In both I'd pull the black slider to the right to taste. :)
 
William,
I took your landscape photo and did three basic steps in photoshop of which I'm posting screen shots here. I'm posting these to get you going; I hope you don't mind. I also noticed that you have some splotches on the negative that look like inadequate agitation. They appeared when I adjusted the levels in PS.
 
Thanks! Those screenshots are a big help - I've read some web pages that describe the process, but I'd had a difficult time visualizing what I was supposed to do. Which is ironic as I've been a computer person for years, but there is just somehting about Photoshop that always left me confused.

As for the agitation, I'll try to use a little more. My understanding is that Diafine isn't supposed to be agitated too much, but it may not be getting as much due to the tank needing to be much fuller of chemicals than with a roll of 120 in it.

Thanks to everyone for thier help. This is new territory and I'm having lots of fun learning.

William
 
You are certainly putting some hard work into this! This batch looks much better than the last.

Century Graphic and Photoshop. When this camera was manufactured, computers used mechanical relays and took 6 seconds to do a multiply. What a world.
 
William, when I was using my 4x5's, I developed the negatives in a 5x7 print tray and often used Dektol which is a paper developer. Total darkness, emulsion side up and fairly constant agitation. It's been years but the shots came out fine as I recall. The second tray either had stop bath or plain water while the third tray had fixer.

Walker
 
Thank you, Brian. I'm enjoying this camera tremendously.

Walker, eventually I'd like to do tray developement, but there isn't anyplace in this house that I can get fully dark other than my changing bag and a very full closet. It's an older and smaller house so I just do what I can.

William
 
Nick and the rest,

Now that I understand a bit better what to try, I spent a bit of time to try and adjust the barn shot. I think it looks considerably closer to what I expected from looking at the negative. What do you folks think of it now?

This weekend we'er going to a reunion on my wifes side. I think I'll have to take my 4x5 things along and see what I can do there. Of course this assumes I can keep the holders out of my curious son's hands - just a moment ago he held up a loaded one saying :angel: "Dad, can I pull this?":eek: :bang: :D

Thanks again everyone,

William
 
William, he's a good boy; he asked first! :)

The barn pic tonality looks considerably improved. There's still some odd black marks in the sky, as well as a white spot or two. (Is that some wires going over to the silo?) And what I think are development artifacts; vertical streaking covering both lanes of the road...
 
I think the streak going to the silo is a scanner artifact - I'll have to clean the glass before I scan again. You're probably right about the marks on the roadway - I'm pretty sure I didn't agitate the tank anywhere enough on that one.

I'm going to try using a rubber band to hold the sheets a bit more bent in order to get them covered better by the developer solutions. I've also mixed up fresh fixer too. We'll see on Sunday or Monday how that works. Since I've only got two holders right now, I'll be taking my changing bag, the box of film, and putting exposed shots back into a now empty envelope and storing them till we return home. But I hope to shoot at least a dozen over the weekend for the practice value of all the steps involved.

William
 
wlewisiii said:
I think the streak going to the silo is a scanner artifact - I'll have to clean the glass before I scan again. You're probably right about the marks on the roadway - I'm pretty sure I didn't agitate the tank anywhere enough on that one.

I'm going to try using a rubber band to hold the sheets a bit more bent in order to get them covered better by the developer solutions. I've also mixed up fresh fixer too. We'll see on Sunday or Monday how that works. Since I've only got two holders right now, I'll be taking my changing bag, the box of film, and putting exposed shots back into a now empty envelope and storing them till we return home. But I hope to shoot at least a dozen over the weekend for the practice value of all the steps involved.

William
Click to expand...

I've been getting the scanner-streak problem for some time now too. I think it's the scanning head itself; I use Clone Stamp in photoshop to get rid of those lines, taking clone samples of the closest area in tonality right next to the streak(s). Or, I can buy a new scanner.

I'd like to suggest you use some canned air and blow out your film holders and dark slides before loading your film. The dust on your negs/pictures can be taken care of without photoshop! :) Soaking the film for one minute in water before development makes a difference as well; when I got into 4x5 my camera store guy suggested it, and it did improve consistency in development. Just a suggestion. Good luck!

chris
 
William,

I played with your barn photo and I am posting it here to see what it looks like on the net. I can delete this post if you don't like it or I think it looks terrible on net.

Wayne
 
A little off kilter I believe but at least the dark specks in the sky are gone as are the wires.

Dick
 
I looked and didn't see any streaking in the silo. Silos have panels cast in the concrete from the way they make the forms, that and have a ton of cabling and gridwork going around them. I grew up in the country, but had never seen one up close until I climbed the neighbor's to shoot some pictures.
 
Much better William. I like how your mods have increased contrast yet kept detail in the shadow under the eave. There is a wire going to the silo or actually a pole just in front of it. You can see the uneven development in the gray area of the road. They show up well on my Mac monitor but may be too dark to see on a pc because of the different gamma setting.

You should be abe to make a great group portrait with the speed graphic at the reunion.

Wayne, your post looks badly pixelated on my screen.
 
Thanks. The shadow detail is one of the things that keeps me going back to that particular barn from a number of different angles. That and the fact that it's actually only a mile away inside the Madison city limits ... :) The uneven spots on the roadway show up on my wifes mac but not on the PC that I have my scanner on. I do wish the scanner would work correctly in USB mode on the Mac Mini, but it works in SCSI on the PC so that's where it's at.

I am hoping for a nice big group portrait or two - one advantage to having a relativly wide lens on the Speed. I'll also be taking the Moskva 5 with some NPH and Reala along with the Speed and it's Tmax so there should be a bunch of opportunities.

Wayne, your's looks ok to me. I like the crop, but I don't care for the wires being gone. Not sure why but that just seems wrong somehow. Thank you for an alternate take on it though, that's one of the fun things about sharing images here.

William
 
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