Pumpkin

[vickersdc]

Here's another image from my 18x24cm FKD camera - it's the fourth one I've taken, and was exposed directly on to a paper negative (Ilford Multigrade). Exposure was 3 minutes at f32, with the pumpkin being lit by two 100W spotlights (after that exposure the heat from the spotlights had just about cooked the pumpkin a treat... )

[ntenny]

This is great. What do you assume the EI of the paper is? I've shot a couple of paper negatives in my 5x7, guessing at about EI 3, but I ended up with gross overexposures. Not sure if I rated the paper too low or just counted the seconds poorly.

-NT

[vickersdc]

It was based on guestimate, and the exposure depends greatly on the type of light; so with direct midday sun you may well get an EI of 3 (my old Weston Meter doesn't deal in ISO, so I assume a Weston value of around 1.5, which would be slightly slower than EI3, maybe EI2). However, with tungsten light it's much more orange (hence the requirement of a blue filter for colour film).

My thinking went along the lines of... if dark amber would be a safelight for paper, then an orange light is going to slow things down with reference to sunlight. I did try a first exposure of 1 minute 45 seconds, but it obviously wasn't enough, so I just added some more and made it a round 3 minutes!

Nothing scientific I'm afraid! Just best guesses. The great thing about working with paper is that I can take a shot, whizz into the darkroom, develop the paper and get an idea of anything needs changing with the exposure; if the exposure is out, I don't even bother to fix (just stop developing in a stop bath of tap water).

I'm going to retake this shot with a different background as I hate this one!

Hope it helps?!

David.

PS: Here's another paper negative image of an Allium plant seed head...

[Christopher Walrath]

Man, you're having more fun than I am right now. Stupid magazine! ;p

[vickersdc]

Man, you're having more fun than I am right now. Stupid magazine! ;p

Yes, I'm having fun with the new camera, but in a way spending an hour or so and ending up with 1 image out of the 2 taken is fine. Can you imagine doing that with 35mm - 2 images in 1 hour?

The other night the wife went out and I managed to take 5 images in 2.5 hours!

As for the magazine... well, I don't regret handing on to you Chris as it does take up an inordinate amount of time and it's nice to spend the odd hour that I get making images

How's your foray into the world of LF going anyway?

[bobwysiwyg]

I wish one of every two pics I shot were good.

Nice shots though. Another of those things I would like to try some time.

[vickersdc]

Although I'm going off track a little on my own thread, (it's still a still-life though) - I thought I'd post this image as one that I feel just doesn't work. What do you think?

]
Chrysanthemum. Paper negative.

[Jeff Kubach]

Really like the images, makes me want to get into large format!

Jeff

[vickersdc]

Really like the images, makes me want to get into large format!

Jeff

Thanks Jeff,

Although I've messed around with some of the smaller large format cameras, this one is definitely the biggest! I know it's 'just' a Russian camera, but the FKD 18x24cm works and is 'cheap' - it cost me around $175 / £120 to get the camera, lens and a holder. Of course, if you've been to my blog you'll see that I've had to tinker with it to get it up to scratch, but that was enjoyable and not at all taxing. Using the paper negatives is a cheap way to obtain some really big prints too! Although I do have other plans to go back to glass plate photography eventually.

[Christopher Walrath]

That's great, David. Me, well, I've increasing my frequency shooting LF lately. I haven't picked up the Minoltas in a month. A couple of photographs here. Not much yet.