Oldest Camera Used for Stock

[spacecadet]

7 minutes ago, Inchiquin said:

finish making the slide holder for my Illumitran

Do that. I've just licensed my first 6x6- a brand new 1983 Ford Fiesta.

I think I cut down an enlarger neg holder- but then I made those myself as well, in those same 80s. The enlarger only came with a glass sandwich, and that way madness lies.

I find vignetting can be a bit of a problem with 6x6 on the 'Tran, but the LR tool sorts that out.

Edited November 8, 2022 by spacecadet

[Nick Hatton]

Quite chuffed that I have just sold an image off my first ever roll of film back in 1976, off my Zenit E , it was from the world speedway final in Poland. The winner on the day  England's Peter Collins has just had his autobiography published and one of my shots of a crowd scene has been used.  

[Inchiquin]

On 08/11/2022 at 09:46, spacecadet said:

Do that. I've just licensed my first 6x6- a brand new 1983 Ford Fiesta.

I think I cut down an enlarger neg holder- but then I made those myself as well, in those same 80s. The enlarger only came with a glass sandwich, and that way madness lies.

I find vignetting can be a bit of a problem with 6x6 on the 'Tran, but the LR tool sorts that out.

 

I'm on the case. I've made a rudimentary frame from cardboard just for testing and I'll probably cut a permanent one out of a plastic sheet. At the moment I'm struggling to get the optimum camera position. Using the bellows it's impossible to focus on the whole frame with either a 50mm or 75mm enlarging lens. The 75 would be OK if the bellows could be mounted an inch or two higher. I've had better luck with removing the bellows and attaching the camera directly to the frame through one of the bellows mounting holes and using a 50mm macro lens but I can only get close enough for around 3000x3000 whereas I would like to use the entire frame area of the 5D2 which would give me a square image of 3744x3744 (most of the images were shot to take advantage of the square format so a lot of information would be lost by cropping a 3:2 section). I'm thinking of drilling an extra hole in the support pillar so the camera can go a bit lower but I want to get it absolutely right and I need three hands to support the camera firmly while measuring the required height! Ideally I'd like to find a way of attaching the camera directly to the bellows slider but I don't have the engineering skills or tools to do that.

 

How are you mounting your camera, Mark? And what are you using to fire the flash (assuming you're not risking damaging a DSLR)?

 

One bonus I've found already is that the images from the 1937 Rolleiflex are noticeably sharper than most of my 1980s 35mm pics. This surprised me somewhat because I was using top-quality Canon lenses in the 80s and I assumed that lens technology would have improved enormously over 50 years, enough to eradicate the difference in image size.

 

Alan

[Harry Harrison]

19 minutes ago, Inchiquin said:

The 75 would be OK if the bellows could be mounted an inch or two higher.

When I was using my 5D2 on the Illumitran I used an 80mm Rodagon enlarging lens (I think, might have been the 50), a Nikon adapter on the top of the Illumitran and an EOS/Nikon adapter to the camera, I don't think they made EOS adapters anyway. This meant that I could use widely available and inexpensive Nikon AI extension tubes to lift the camera higher away from the lens, and clear of the bellows of course as it is too big to fit on those.

 

The vignetting on the Illumitran for medium format is pretty poor though, best to have the flash stage right at the bottom, or maybe lifted a little, certainly not higher up.

 

 

Edited November 15, 2022 by Harry Harrison

[Bryan]

13 minutes ago, Inchiquin said:

 

One bonus I've found already is that the images from the 1937 Rolleiflex are noticeably sharper than most of my 1980s 35mm pics. This surprised me somewhat because I was using top-quality Canon lenses in the 80s and I assumed that lens technology would have improved enormously over 50 years, enough to eradicate the difference in image size.

 

Alan

I shot my brother in law's wedding many moons ago using a Rolliecord and a Pentax ME Super. I had the colour photos professionally processed and the chap in the shop mentioned that the photos from the larger format camera were sharper than those from the brand new Pentax. There's nowt wrong with the Pentax lenses, I, now use some of them on my Sony a6500, but a good big un will always beat ..........

[spacecadet]

1 hour ago, Inchiquin said:

 

I'm on the case. I've made a rudimentary frame from cardboard just for testing and I'll probably cut a permanent one out of a plastic sheet. At the moment I'm struggling to get the optimum camera position. Using the bellows it's impossible to focus on the whole frame with either a 50mm or 75mm enlarging lens. The 75 would be OK if the bellows could be mounted an inch or two higher. I've had better luck with removing the bellows and attaching the camera directly to the frame through one of the bellows mounting holes and using a 50mm macro lens but I can only get close enough for around 3000x3000 whereas I would like to use the entire frame area of the 5D2 which would give me a square image of 3744x3744 (most of the images were shot to take advantage of the square format so a lot of information would be lost by cropping a 3:2 section). I'm thinking of drilling an extra hole in the support pillar so the camera can go a bit lower but I want to get it absolutely right and I need three hands to support the camera firmly while measuring the required height! Ideally I'd like to find a way of attaching the camera directly to the bellows slider but I don't have the engineering skills or tools to do that.

 

How are you mounting your camera, Mark? And what are you using to fire the flash (assuming you're not risking damaging a DSLR)?

 

One bonus I've found already is that the images from the 1937 Rolleiflex are noticeably sharper than most of my 1980s 35mm pics. This surprised me somewhat because I was using top-quality Canon lenses in the 80s and I assumed that lens technology would have improved enormously over 50 years, enough to eradicate the difference in image size.

 

Alan

I stuck with the cardboard😉

Same here, too close with the 75. I'm on APS-C rather than full frame, so this may take the lens too far away for you, but I attached the bellows by the top screw only, thus giving extra extension. This makes it a little wobbly, but there's a folded piece of sheet steel (not sure what it was really for) which you can attach between the two bellows mounts for a bit of extra stiffness.

Anyway this was all superseded when I got a 90mm. macro for Christmas. The camera is now attached using a strip of wood of an appropriate length as an extension to the column. That might suit you better, but I know there's a limitation due to the depth of the 5D body.

This was for scanning 35mm- I used a kit lens for 6x6, not the bellows.

The Illumitran is rumoured to have a high trigger voltage, so initially i built a Zener diode circuit to drop in to 5V, but what I use now is a cheap Chinese wireless trigger. One of the many identical ones here

https://www.ebay.co.uk/sch/i.html?_from=R40&_trksid=p2380057.m570.l1313&_nkw=wireless+flash+trigger&_sacat=0

The price has gone up by half, like everything else. Check which batteries are included so you can order them at the same time and be ready to go. I think the 12V in the receiver was included but I had to provide the two AAAs in the transmitter.

It works a treat. The transmitter ( the bit with the button on top) goes on the camera hotshoe and the 'Tran PC lead plugs into the receiver (the bit with the hotshoe on top- so you can use a hotshoe flash wirelessly as well).

It syncs fine below about 1/60 IIRC.

Incidentally the Canon is supposed to take a 250V trigger voltage but for the price of the wireless trigger (which you can use on any flash), why risk it.

 

 

 

1 hour ago, Harry Harrison said:

The vignetting on the Illumitran for medium format is pretty poor though

The LR vignetting tool can deal with this fairly well.

Edited November 15, 2022 by spacecadet

[Harry Harrison]

1 minute ago, spacecadet said:

The LR vignetting tool can deal with this fairly well.

Yes, later versions of LR, later than both of ours I think, have a flat field correction tool so it will correct for any unevenness, not just vignetting. Tantalisingly it used to be a free plugin for our versions by someone called Eric Chan but now seems to have been removed from the site. I'd quite like it really. I don't mind a bit of vignetting for transparencies though and as you say it can be countered with the vignette tool. Not good with colour negatives though, especially if you use the NegativeLabPro plugin as it can produce colour casts.

[spacecadet]

5 minutes ago, Harry Harrison said:

Not good with colour negatives though, especially if you use the NegativeLabPro plugin as it can produce colour casts.

Well, I have exactly six colour negs up here as archival, and one has licensed recently. I see I've let some of the vignetting stay if it doesn't show too badly. Any under-exposure is problematic though- I think we used to call it "crossed curves" and the shadows go (insert choice of Y, M or C here).

In this case cyan.

[Inchiquin]

2 hours ago, Harry Harrison said:

 

When I was using my 5D2 on the Illumitran I used an 80mm Rodagon enlarging lens (I think, might have been the 50), a Nikon adapter on the top of the Illumitran and an EOS/Nikon adapter to the camera, I don't think they made EOS adapters anyway.

 

 

 

I already had adaptors for FD->bellows and FD->EOS so I just put those together.

 

Alan

[Inchiquin]

2 hours ago, spacecadet said:

 

...Lots of useful information...

 

 

 

Many thanks for all this. I like using the Canon macro lens as it's easier to fine tune the focus than with the bellows, and after I posted it occurred to me that if I lay the Illumitran flat on its back I should be able to position the camera without having to support it, allowing me to drill a new hole in exactly the right place. So at the moment that's my preferred route, though I might try your trick for raising the bellows higher.

 

My thoughts on the trigger were to use one of my old SLRs to trigger the flash and just open and close the 5D2 shutter around it (working in darkness of course). That would avoid any expense but I'll investigate your suggestions as well.

 

Alan

Edited November 15, 2022 by Inchiquin

[Inchiquin]

1 hour ago, spacecadet said:

 

Any under-exposure is problematic though- I think we used to call it "crossed curves" and the shadows go (insert choice of Y, M or C here).

 

 

I used to have this problem when scanning Kodachrome. Eventually I found that I could virtually eliminate it by fairly aggressive use of the RGB histograms in Photoshop.

[Rebecca Ore]

3 hours ago, Inchiquin said:

One bonus I've found already is that the images from the 1937 Rolleiflex are noticeably sharper than most of my 1980s 35mm pics. This surprised me somewhat because I was using top-quality Canon lenses in the 80s and I assumed that lens technology would have improved enormously over 50 years, enough to eradicate the difference in image size.

 

When I was 14 or 15, I got my first film camera.  What the local photo store wanted to sell me were Yashicamats, Minolta Autocords, around $80 to 100 in 1965 or so.  I looked at the Rolleiflex, which was monsterously expensive.  Pre-war lenses would have been hand ground and bench tested, plus you're using a considerably larger negative.   Basic consumer cameras cut different corners -- like the Autocord's focusing lever.   Ended up with an Asahi Pentax 35mm from a pawn shop.  My later Autocord was sharper than my Hasselblad, not sure why, possibly aggressive cleaning by a photo assistant before the lenses left pro-hands.    If I were back in the US, I'd love to have another Autocord or a Rolleiflex, but film here is problematic. 

 

Other thing that might be helping with sharpness is camera mass and how it's generally held at waist level. 

[Harry Harrison]

4 minutes ago, Rebecca Ore said:

My later Autocord was sharper than my Hasselblad

The lens on my Autocord is extraordinarily sharp, even wide open. The focusing lever is a weakness as you probably know, they can break off if they get stiff, otherwise very easy to use in fact.

[spacecadet]

41 minutes ago, Inchiquin said:

 

Many thanks for all this. I like using the Canon macro lens as it's easier to fine tune the focus than with the bellows, and after I posted it occurred to me that if I lay the Illumitran flat on its back I should be able to position the camera without having to support it, allowing me to drill a new hole in exactly the right place. So at the moment that's my preferred route, though I might try your trick for raising the bellows higher.

 

My thoughts on the trigger were to use one of my old SLRs to trigger the flash and just open and close the 5D2 shutter around it (working in darkness of course). That would avoid any expense but I'll investigate your suggestions as well.

 

Alan

Having the camera vertical is awfully convenient- I can get a scan from scratch in 5 or 10 minutes even with the camera in its bag-, but I only have an A58 and I think the 5D2 is quite heavy, so it might be difficult to avoid bending if you just use a tripod screw to attach it. So you may do well on the flat.

Just use the open flash switch on the 'Tran and a 1/2 or 1 second shutter speed. I did that before I got the trigger. But it's still only £15 and handy for off-camera and studio flash work as well, so it's earned its keep.

Edited November 15, 2022 by spacecadet

[Cal]

I've got some on here from the original Canon EOS 1Ds (just checked - 2002!) and from a 450D which was released in the late 2000s. For a while I used exclusively a Sony SLT-A35, a very consumer level camera body that had such hateful AF accuracy that I resorted to only using manual focus.

 

I kind of miss my 1Ds, but it was just so heavy that I grew to dislike it. It also tended to output photos with a slightly green cast, which in certain scenarios was hard to process out. For what was an early attempt at a professional level full frame DSLR though it wasn't all that bad. ISO maxed out at 1250, and was borderline unusable.

[Rebecca Ore]

11 minutes ago, Harry Harrison said:

The lens on my Autocord is extraordinarily sharp, even wide open. The focusing lever is a weakness as you probably know, they can break off if they get stiff, otherwise very easy to use in fact.

 

If I were to get medium format again, it would be an Autocord in good condition.  Hassies are too fiddly.

[Inchiquin]

37 minutes ago, spacecadet said:

Having the camera vertical is awfully convenient- I can get a scan from scratch in 5 or 10 minutes even with the camera in its bag-, but I only have an A58 and I think the 5D2 is quite heavy, so it might be difficult to avoid bending if you just use a tripod screw to attach it. So you may do well on the flat.

 

 

I'm only planning to lay it horizontally while I measure for the exact position to drill a hole. It's almost impossible to hold the camera steady in the vertical position without it slipping as you measure. Once that's done I'll scan vertically. I'm using a strip of 18mm MDF as a spacer to hold the camera away from the pillar so that it's positioned directly over the slide holder. The hole is barely big enough for the screw so it provides extra support which should help prevent bending.

 

Alan

[spacecadet]

14 minutes ago, Inchiquin said:

I'm using a strip of 18mm MDF as a spacer

My 1/4" Allen bolt goes through an aluminium collar, but your way sounds better. I wish I'd thought of it, 6000 slides ago.🤪

Edited November 15, 2022 by spacecadet

[wiskerke]

12 hours ago, Inchiquin said:

 

I'm on the case. I've made a rudimentary frame from cardboard just for testing and I'll probably cut a permanent one out of a plastic sheet. At the moment I'm struggling to get the optimum camera position. Using the bellows it's impossible to focus on the whole frame with either a 50mm or 75mm enlarging lens. The 75 would be OK if the bellows could be mounted an inch or two higher. I've had better luck with removing the bellows and attaching the camera directly to the frame through one of the bellows mounting holes and using a 50mm macro lens but I can only get close enough for around 3000x3000 whereas I would like to use the entire frame area of the 5D2 which would give me a square image of 3744x3744 (most of the images were shot to take advantage of the square format so a lot of information would be lost by cropping a 3:2 section). I'm thinking of drilling an extra hole in the support pillar so the camera can go a bit lower but I want to get it absolutely right and I need three hands to support the camera firmly while measuring the required height! Ideally I'd like to find a way of attaching the camera directly to the bellows slider but I don't have the engineering skills or tools to do that.

 

How are you mounting your camera, Mark? And what are you using to fire the flash (assuming you're not risking damaging a DSLR)?

 

One bonus I've found already is that the images from the 1937 Rolleiflex are noticeably sharper than most of my 1980s 35mm pics. This surprised me somewhat because I was using top-quality Canon lenses in the 80s and I assumed that lens technology would have improved enormously over 50 years, enough to eradicate the difference in image size.

 

Alan

 

You could probably use the 75mm lens when you put a macro ring between the body and the bellows. You do need an adapter anyway, so why not go from Canon to 42mm and build on from there. It's certainly the cheapest option. Well except for just drilling a hole. I would cut a slit though.

 

wim

[Harry Harrison]

20 hours ago, Harry Harrison said:

When I was using my 5D2 on the Illumitran I used an 80mm Rodagon enlarging lens

Well, so I had a look last night and I didn't do that, I copied medium format with a copy stand over a lightbox which enabled me to get both completely even illumination and I could move 6x6 to shoot 2 frames and use photomerge in Lightroom to get around 5500 x 5500. In fact Bowens state that a copy stand needs to be used for medium format. 

 

However playing around I can see that if you could contrive to raise the bellows and its support up by around 40mm, and have 30mm of extension between the camera lens flange and the top of the bellows then that would work fine, at least with an 80mm lens.

 

 I did use the method I described (without any riser) for 35mm copying so that a big camera like the 5DMkII can be used on the Illumitran, it needs to be above the bellows as of course it can't move along the bellows itself. The Illumitran does lend itself to smaller, lighter mirrorless cameras, full frame or APS-C (possibly M4/3 but never tried), especially those with tipping screens for ease of use. I use a Wein SafeSync for the flash but you do need 3 or 4 stops of ND filters as the flash is way too bright. I use 75m gels in the filter drawer under the diffuser, I also made an extra diffuser which helps a bit also.

 

Surprisingly I also get good results using the tungsten viewing bulbs alone but you then have to do it in very subdued lighting, I made a cardboard tunnel to slip between the lens and the slide carrier. No NDs required then of course.

Edited November 16, 2022 by Harry Harrison

[spacecadet]

The copy stand is for copying with a MF camera, not of MF originals onto 35mm. It's addressing the extension limitation. I think you would be able to use a 50 on FF for MF.

There's even a copying box for 5x4, but I used a retort stand in front of a white monitor screen for that.

 I started with a couple of sheets of drafting film as ND. Then I found my sheet of ND. As Harry says a starting point of about 1.2ND is about right. Bowens recommended K25 so there go 2 stops for a start.

Wim's slot is a good idea, so you have a bit of adjustment. Unless it compromises your rigidity. So to speak.

Edited November 16, 2022 by spacecadet

[Inchiquin]

9 hours ago, wiskerke said:

 

You could probably use the 75mm lens when you put a macro ring between the body and the bellows. You do need an adapter anyway, so why not go from Canon to 42mm and build on from there. It's certainly the cheapest option. Well except for just drilling a hole. I would cut a slit though.

 

 

Trying to keep it simple Wim - it looks like very tough metal!

 

Alan

[spacecadet]

6 minutes ago, Inchiquin said:

 

Trying to keep it simple Wim - it looks like very tough metal!

 

Alan

Ah right- I was thinking this was the MDF🤪

The 'Tran is just mild steel AFAICS. But then I haven't tried drilling holes in it, and I have a drill press, which makes things much less exciting.

Just a good HSS bit and a splash of oil, then. And something underneath you don't love.

Edited November 16, 2022 by spacecadet

[wiskerke]

2 hours ago, Inchiquin said:

 

Trying to keep it simple Wim - it looks like very tough metal!

 

Alan

 

Just drill 2 holes and file or saw out the slit in between. That way you have nice endings and you can make sure the edges are straight too. The slower the process, the better the result. Do use a center punch before drilling though. A steel nail will do.

Why a slit? It makes the whole thing adjustable in case your cardboard is thicker/thinner or you decide to use aluminium or an existing holder after all.

And once you have a slit, it's easy to make it longer using a file. A cheap set of mini or precision files from the local pound store will work.

 

wim

[Harry Harrison]

3 hours ago, spacecadet said:

I think you would be able to use a 50 on FF for MF.

Yes, you're right, provided the camera slides along the Illumitran (BPM) bellows. I've just confirmed that with my Fuji, a 38mm square on APS-C equates to 58mm captured on full frame. Using a 60mm enlarging lens is still possible but you need extension on the camera and it's critical to get the right extension. With mirrorless this isn't as easy as it might be because most adapters are quite long in order to span the difference between mirrorless and a standard SLR. The exception to this is the one for Leica rangefinder as the flange focal distances are much closer to mirrorless so I often use a Fuji/Leica M on to a Bowens Leica M camera adapter.

 

I noticed for the first time in the Bowens brochure that they also offered a special column for copying medium format uncut film. It had splayed legs and a special film carrier so that the film went from front to back instead of left to right. This really only makes sense for uncut 645 really. Never seen one. The simple (and rarer) upright (i.e. not the Contrast Control Unit) also has a slot, I'm guessing for half frame.

 

 

Edited November 16, 2022 by Harry Harrison