Zenobia

[Jack Conrad]

I like this folder even though my copy has a bottom line Voigtlander Voigtar lens?? and Compur shutter. Weird. The original Hespar must have been swapped or replaced in the past.

Anyway, does anyone know how or why film grain would develop a grid pattern like this? I'm stumped.

 

[RichL]

No. And to add to the head scratcher, the vertical lines are more or less vertical throughout yet the horizontal changes from about a 20 deg. slope on the bottom left to somewhere around 3 deg. in the upper right.

Is the whole roll that way and does it go through the borders?

 

[graywolf]

What kind of film, what kind of scanner?

 

[MC JC86]

I know ICE or dust removal does funky stuff like that sometimes.

 

[sevo]

I've seen similar "wafer" patterns with EFKE Aura IR (the version without antihalation backing) on cameras with a structured pressure plate. Massive overexposure might provoke a similar pressure plate print-through on regular film as well.

But processing or scanning can do things like that as well - without details on film, process and scan it will be impossible to figure out what happened.

 

[Jack Conrad]

Thanks for the responses everyone.

The film is Tmax 400 and it was developed in fairly old D-76. I intentionally over developed because the D-76 was so old. Also, I very nearly ruined the film when emptying the developer from the Patterson tank; the cone shaped top fell out allowing a room full of light to pour in.
Surprisingly it only screwed up the last three shots I took which weren't very promising anyway.

Quite honestly, I'm amazed I got the above shot at all. The Zenobia is a real piece of work in and of itself. It has the wrong shutter and lens on it(an old 3 leaf Compur with a Voigtlander Voigtar) and the shutter button only works intermittently. I guess I could say It's my Holga.

It's a work in progress. 😛

Also, I don't have a scanner. My MF film images are copied via my DSLR, which up till now have never caused a grid pattern. So far none of the other shots have this grid like grain.

I'm sure I'm losing some image quality by photographing these 120 negs like I am but for the amount of keepers I actually shoot... a scanner seems kind of overkill. 😱

 

[Ken Smith]

I'm not suprised the original shutter and lens were swapped out. The original Hesper lens were made from a low quality glass that frequently developed mineral deposits - mostly on the rear element. The D.O.C. shutter which is a copy of the Compur-Rapid can be a crap shoot in finding a good working one - even witha CLA. I've owned 3 of these cameras and the glass was shot in all three of them. Nice body design and sturdy - just needs a quality lens/shutter set up on them.

 

[Brian Legge]

Thats interesting.

Maybe i'm just lucky, but I have a Zenobia which is in great working condition. The Hesper gives very nice, sharp pictures and the shutter has been trouble free. It had been used regularly over the years by the previous owner so perhaps that helped.

I loaded it with 100 speed film last year, shot half a roll and then didn't have enough light to finish the roll. Seattle wasn't cooperative. I still need to get back to it. 🙂

 

[Jack Conrad]

Aside from a few "issues" like shutter speeds that I think I can fix, the Zenobia is a nice compact well put together little MF folder.
I think I mostly just over developed this roll and blew the highlight detail.

Most of the shots were kind of dreamy looking around the edges. It definitely has that old style look to it. 🙂

 

[Jack Conrad]

I'm always amazed at how different one shot can look compared to another on the same roll using the same exact camera setup.

 

[Ken Smith]

Thats interesting.

My first Zenobia with the Hester had what I thought was fogging on the rear element. Tried cleaning it which didn't work. Front and middle elements cleaned up nice. Bought a second one with the hopes of getting one with a clean rear element. It was the same way. Decided to look at both with a loupe
to see if it was very small fungus specks - looking for the filaments. What I saw was micro pitting on both rear elements- or at first I thought it was pitting. After some severe inspecting I found that it wasn't pitting - but actually hard micro-bumps or deposits on the glass. Same with a third one. After looking around on the internet for this type of occurance, I ran across a scientific paper on the occurance of chemical reactions involving low quality glass used in some Japanese lenses from the 40's - 50's. It seems that some of these lenses developed mineral depositing on the glass over time. I was trying to find it now so I could post a link. Thought it was interesting - especially since I've had three of the cameras all with the same depositing problem. To the naked eye it looks like fogging - a closer look shows something else.

 

[kuzano]

Have had 4 or 5 of the Zenobia cameras.

Have had 4 or 5 of the Zenobia cameras.

Nice little replica of a Zeiss Ikon 645. Best were the Neo Hesper lens in Synchro Compur shutter. Nice shooter.

Rarest I have now is the Zenobia R, which has the later lens/shutter combo and a very accurate Uncoupled rangefinder. Needs recovering, but works well. Hunted for a long time for the rangefinder model. Finally located this one. Have not seen another. Interested if anyone here knows of or has the Zenobia R.