My first 5x7 picture

[Sully75]

Perhaps not the most exciting news, but I'm really happy to be able to take a picture with my camera.

I bought a beat to shreds Eastman no.33 camera that I thought was a 5x7 on ebay. It was a mess, someone had glued the focusing rails together partially upside down, nothing really worked. I stripped it and stained and oiled it. I made new bellows from a kit by Sorin from diycamerakit.com. The whole thing took me 3 months of very part-time work (was finishing nursing school at the same time).

The camera came out beautiful. The focusing rack still kind of sucks but is workable, but otherwise I really love it. I ended up with Shneider-Kreuznach 180mm f.6/300mm convertible lens off ebay. I have about $200 into the camera total. The best thing about the camera is that it folds up into almost nothing. It has limited movements but my goal is to use it for portraits so I'm ok with that.

So far I've just developed one picture:

I developed it in a Bessler 11x14 drum with D76 1:1 for 11 minutes. Not really sure about what development time I should be doing...I'm pretty new to this stuff.

I just got a 4x5 spring back, and want to make a new wooden back to accept it. I would prefer to make my mistakes on 4x5 film if possible. I also have been thinking about loading 4x5 film holders with a sheet of hp5 on one side, and a sheet of portra on the other.

Anyway, just wanted to share a picture. I have a lot to learn but I'm excited about my first picture.

Here's before:


and after:

[Sully75]

PS

I had two questions:

1) It's hard to see, but there was a tiny bit of flare on his head (he's my roomate). I didn't mean to have the sky in the picture but the camera slipped at the last minute (need to get a washer for the front standard rise and fall). I think this is a fairly old lens, and might be un or minimally coated. But is there any way to compensate for that kind of flare? I'm not sure if a lens hood would do anything, since I'm shooting into the light source itself?

2) There were some very subtle drips on the negative...I photoshopped them out. I'm not sure what I did with the Bessler tank to screw it up. Is there some specific way you pour chemicals into and out of the tank? I don't have a darkroom so I'm stuck using the tank (which I like a lot, very easy to use). I was wondering if they could have been water stains, perhaps I didn't photoflow it properly? I wasn't sure if I should finger squeegee it or just let it drip dry, I ended up giving it two finger squeegee swipes and then hanging it.

[werra]

Congrats, this is some very nice work you have done on restoring.

[martinhughesireland]

Came out very nice well done

[keithwms]

Well done indeed!

RE: flare, always use a hood if you can. Let me suggest checking out the mamiya 645 and rb/rz hoods, they are collapsible plastic and come in various sizes. I never became fond of compendium shades, but these little plastic hoods do a nice job. If you can't get the right size for your LF lens (the diams tend to be pretty small) then you can just use a step down ring. There's not shame in rigging up something to a lens, especially an older one and a convertible which certainly doesn't have the flare control that some modern coatings offer.

Drips on the neg? Sounds like a drying issue to me. If you hadn't 'shopped them out then we might be able to tell otherwise. But note that the collodionites really like drips and streaks and other individualizing features

That's a pretty big drum you're using, right? Maybe you should consider something smaller. How do you know you're getting good even coverage and agitation when you put such a small piece of film into such a big drum? That'd be my concern.

I have but one critique... mind the feet, don't cut off the feet But well done, I get a sense of his character and actually this will be worth a lot to you someday.

[Shadowtracker]

I think the feet are a good point but probably happened as a result of the camera slipping as described. The tonal range is excellent, the focus is excellent, you have good blacks/grays/whites so I think your development is good. One thing that can cause streaks is too much photo-flo. I have not worked sheet film yet (but have a 4x5 to use and now a 5x7 on the way to rework into shape), but with regular film, I think a lot of people use too much photo-flow and it can cause drip marks with residue.

Great job reworking the camera - Looks like you will have many years of good use from it.

[John Koehrer]

The print looks a little soft to me.
Is the neg sharp and do you have a focusing loupe?

Keep in mind it's hard to tell here on the interweb.

[stillsilver]

Great restoration job!

Mike

[DLM]

Beautiful camera. I really like the photo also. While the background is a bit busy, I think it looks good because the posts on the right and the window on the left kind of frame the subject, keeps your eye on him. I can't wait to have the time and available space to get a lf camera one of these days, the results look so good.

[holmburgers]

As for flare, something to think about is how large the coverage is on a lens like this. So, that is to say there's a lot of "picture" or image that isn't getting to the ground-glass/negative & is getting thrown onto the bellows. So having an interior bellows surface that has low reflectivity is good, but also, "killing" this extra image with a hood is well advised. That being said, I need to get a hood for my Symmar 180mm (same exact lens i think??....)

nice restore!