The craft of photography

Recently I have been reading an interesting book called the Craft of Photography, by David Vestal. This is an old school black and white film photography book (published in 1972) about developing and printing techniques. Mr Vestal has some interesting things to say about exposure calculations, repeating the ancient photographic adage 'Expose for the shadows, develop for the highlights'. He encourages making some test shots to identify the best exposure for a particular film and development combination. He talks about using a separate exposure meter, which for most of my older cameras is what I use as they don't have built in meters. The technique works like this.
1) Choose a high contrast subject with both dark and light parts to it.
2) Using the light meter measure the exposure reading from the darkest part of the subject that you want to be able to see detail.
3) Make a test shot at this exposure.
4) Open the lens 1 stop and make another test shot
5) Open the lens another stop and make another test shot
6) Make a test shot with the lens 1 stop closed down from the meter reading.
7) Develop the film in the normal way and view the results.
These are my results (taken with my Olympus OM-2 in manual mode - film is Legacy Pro 100 - a Fuji film, developed in Rodinal, stand development 1+100 for 1 hour) ):

1/60th at F5.6 - this was the meter indicated setting from the dark areas of the camera body 

1/60th at F8 - this is +1 stop from the meter reading

1/60th at F11 - this is +2 stops from the meter reading (bit dark - under exposed)

1/60 at f4 - this is -1 stop from the meter reading and was the exposure indicated by the camera's own internal meter.

Which one is best?? 

Well interestingly the camera's own meter overexposes the shot, perhaps because of the white paper under the camera. What we are looking for is the best rendering of the dark tones. If you compare the shot taken at the meter reading and the one taken +1 stop side by side:

You can see that the one on the left, which is +1 stop gives the best shadow detail and the best contrast. The conclusion is therefore to get the best exposure, take a meter reading off the darkest part of the subject then open the lens 1 stop. Which is exactly what Mr Vestal recommends in his book!.

Exakta progress

Further to the problems I had with the shutter curtain on my Exakta Varex IIa I purchased another body from ebay at a bargain price. This one has a new shutter curtain. I still have the problem of the fungus on the Zeiss Biotar lens, however the test pictures show the camera works perfectly and the lens is very sharp.

This is an enlargement of a test shot.

Here is another test shot I often do of a fern, detail is very sharp:

Its quite interesting to compare this with the test shot I did to try out stand development. Same film, same developer (Rodinal) but different camera and different developing technique, While the picture below was developed using the stand method 1+100 for 1 hour, the one above from the Varex was done 1+25 for 7 mins.

The fungus on the Zeiss Biotar looks like this. It does not seem to effect the performance of the lens.

Interestingly I also tried the Zeiss Pancolor lens I originally got with my Exakta Varex IIb and I discovered why the photos from that camera were so poor. The lens does not stop down so all the shots were at f2. Next I should try the Biotar on that camera.

Exakta repairs

Bad news I'm afraid :-(
I tried to repair the shutter curtain on my Exakta VXIIa with the liquid electrical tape. I painted it on OK.

But to cover all the holes so no light showed through I needed several coats of the stuff. Eventually no light showed through but the paint ended up quite thick and uneven.

Having left it to dry over night, as I suspected, the shutter now sticks as the paint is too thick. When I have time I will try to dismantle the shutter to see it I can fix it. Replacing the shutter curtain is possible but its pretty complex.

Results from the Maximar

I have now developed and scanned the first photos from my 1930s Zeiss Ikon Maximar camera. The film I used was some expired Ilford sheet film I bought on e-bay.

First problem was that the film was smaller than the size of the plate holders. Ok, so I thought I would slide it under the little spring flaps on the plate holders, and this would hold it firm and flat. This worked OK and I got the film loaded in my changing bag.

The camera proved to be very fiddly to operate and impossible to focus in daylight. I had to use my dressing gown over my head to keep the light out so I could focus it on the ground glass screen. I also forgot to check which way around one of the film sheets was and got it back to front. 

To process the film sheets I used the 'taco' technique in a Paterson type tank, using hair tie elastic bands I bought in Boots. This did not work well and the sheets came out of the bands in the tank during development and stuck to each other. The end result is this:

The only way I could scan it was by sticking the sheets to my scanner 120 film mask so this is only a small portion of the image.  The image is covered in small black spots which may have come off the hair bands and also quite badly scratched, this may have been me handling the film or the film may be scratched anyway. The film is over exposed, so the shutter may be slow, but it is pretty sharp for a 80 year old lens.

Another Exakta

You might have thought one Exakta that does not work very well was enough, but I have always wanted a Varex IIa. Now I have one!

This one, although it looks quite good here has fungus in the lens and pinholes in the shutter curtain. These are the pinholes:

I have heard on the Exacta web site (www.ihagee.org) you can repair these with 'liquid electrical tape' which is a sort of flexible rubbery goo. I've got some (from Amazon) and will try it out.

I'm not very hopeful this will work but there is nothing to lose. Any photos I take with the shutter like is it will  have a lot of light leaks I think.

Stand development

After yesterday's disappointment with the Contax I thought today I would try my first experiment with stand development.  This is where you go against the normal rules of film development and use a very dilute mixture of developer with almost no agitation and long times. To be sure any problem with the results were not down to the camera I got my trusty Nikon F out. Both the 50mm and the 24mm Nikkor lens on this are pin sharp.

I loaded up a roll of my 'test' film, recently expired Legacy Pro 100 and took some shots. This was then developed in Rodinal mixed at 1+100 (only 5ml of developer for 495ml of water). The only agitation used was 30secs at the start. Then the developing tank sat in the kitchen for 1 hour. After that fix and wash as normal.
I have to say I'm very impressed with the results, very nice tones, which is what stand development is supposed to produce.

And it's so easy! Just set my alarm clock and get on with something else for an hour. I will definitely use this technique again.

Disappointment!

The results from my Contax II are not good :-( The film has come over exposed, by several stops at least. I think the meter is at fault. I checked it briefly against my Weston meter and it seems to be reading only about 1 stop over. I have tried to recover the photos but they are not very good. These are the best:

Wembley stadium arch reflected in windows.

I am particularly disappointed as I was trying out a new development process. These are taken on Ilford FP4+, developed in Rodinal (R09 as it is now called) 1+25, 9mins at 20C, 1 minute initial agitation then 1 inversion every 30 secs. 

Another one of the Wembley stadium arch

All of these were taken at  a shutter speed of 1/50sec. I think this may also be slow.

Stairs, shopping center, Dunstable

The rangefinder may be out too, as close up shots are out of focus. Oh well, better luck next time. When I win the lottery I will get this camera serviced!