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Some B&W

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Some B&W Empty Some B&W

Post by Kenneth Armstrong Sat Aug 02, 2008 7:20 pm

I think the dark corners are from the lens hood? Maybe Nando can help me out with that, otherwise I'm really happy with the new gear.


Some B&W 2726691662_5a4dbc123e

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Post by Kenneth Armstrong Sat Aug 02, 2008 8:00 pm

Some B&W 2726796096_858ffdf073

Some B&W 2726796094_a499886d7d
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Post by Nando Sat Aug 02, 2008 10:27 pm

I hope that you are enjoying the camera and lenses. The vignetting is definitely from the big hood and thick filter.

As the lens is a Soviet copy of the 50mm f/1.5 Sonnar, the hood is also a copy of the original Zeiss hood. The hood is made by Fedka, a dealer of Soviet camera gear based in the US. Like the original Zeiss hood, it is huge! However, unlike the Zeiss hood, it is cheap. The original Zeiss hood goes for well over $100 in 'mintish' condition and hard to find. The Fedka reproduction cost me something like $15 and it came with a cap.

Here's a link to an original black hood on e-Bay:
link

Here's a link to a photo of an original silver one on a 50mm f/1.5 Sonnar mounted on a Zeiss-Ikon Contax III:
link

At the time, I figured that a copy of the original Zeiss hood seemed like a better idea than a vented hood. I don't know why. When I used the lens there was a bit of vignetting but not as much. To protect the soft coatings on the lens, I put an el-cheapo Bower filter on it, which is also quite thick. I used to use the hood without the filter. Try using the hood without the filter and see if the vignetting is still heavy. You can try the lens sans hood but the lens can flare easily if you're not careful. When unscrewing the hood/filter, be gentle as sometimes the front part of the lens also turns quite easily.

Another thought, the 50mm Sonnar does have a slightly larger image circle than the standard 36mmx24mm frame. Is it possible that the scan was made of the entire image circle instead of cropping for the standard 35mm frame? With a 50mm, I usually shave about 1-2mm off the left and right sides to get a perfect 36mmx24mm frame. That doesn't sound like much but it might make a bit of a difference. With wide-angle lenses, the image circle gets larger and with telephotos it gets narrower and closer to the standard 35mm frame. Perhaps the scan did crop the correct 36x24mm frame but relative to the left-edge of the image instead of the centre?

I was going to get a new hood and filter for this lens but since I haven't used it in a while, it got put on the back-burner. I've just ordered a Leica-style, vented hood for it and will pass it onto you when it arrives. The vented hood should eliminate most of the interference in the viewfinder and make the kit more compact. Without the huge Zeiss-style hood, the Jupiter-3 is actually a very compact lens considering it can open up to f/1.5.

Very much like the photos, BTW.


Last edited by Nando on Sun Aug 03, 2008 12:30 am; edited 1 time in total
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Post by Kenneth Armstrong Sat Aug 02, 2008 10:39 pm

Well hopefully I don't have it too long.
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Post by Nando Sun Aug 03, 2008 12:26 am

Take your time with it. I think that I'll only need it when I decide to go shoot in downtown Detroit again. Wink
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Post by Kenneth Armstrong Sun Aug 03, 2008 10:53 am

Heh, count me in for that shoot Very Happy

Some B&W 2727688861_685402cc0c
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Post by Cujo Sun Aug 03, 2008 7:14 pm

I like.

First one in your 2nd post. Third one in the first are my favs.

The third one reminds me of when new films shoot old films now and all the "classic" neighbourhoods have the big sheets hanging on the line to dry. But those sheets I'm pretty sure aren't sheets and are a barrier to stop the debris from blowing all over and prying eyes from peeking in. It's just a weird scene overall that I like.
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Post by Kenneth Armstrong Sun Aug 03, 2008 9:21 pm

Thanks Cujo. Maybe next time I'll get some people in the scenes. There were a few with people in them but I wasn't happy with those shots.
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Post by Cujo Sun Aug 03, 2008 10:50 pm

Bah they're good without people. Gives it all a deserted look.
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Post by Kenneth Armstrong Mon Aug 04, 2008 12:40 am

It's the roll that never ends... I posted another of the sheets just for you Very Happy


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Post by Nando Mon Aug 04, 2008 12:44 am

Its a good roll. I think that the RF is for you.
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Post by Cujo Mon Aug 04, 2008 2:38 am

HAHA you posted the sheet for me without knowing that I love that freaking car. I walk by it with the dogs all the time and drive by it if I'm heading down town. I want it. It's perfect for things I want to do.

I just want a large piece of land and a crap load of old ran down cars haha.
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Post by Kenneth Armstrong Mon Aug 04, 2008 12:52 pm

The car one is the only one I cropped because there was a satellite dish in the background. I need to pay more attention.

These are probably the last I will post from the roll. They were just test shots but I'm fairly happy with how most turned out.

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Post by crowellphotographs Tue Aug 05, 2008 4:31 pm

Wow Ken!
I've been out of town for a while and was pleasantly surprised to return to these great photos.
Awesome camera, awesome shots. The old truck, the sheets blowing in the wind, the beautiful tones of the light post in the first one. All great compositions.

I'm really enjoying looking over these. I'll probably look over them again this evening and have more to comment on. Congrats.
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Post by Kenneth Armstrong Tue Aug 05, 2008 6:16 pm

Thanks Colin. It's not a Leica but if you want to borrow my Canon rangefinder you are welcome to it. It's got a nice 45mm f/1.9 lens on it but no meter. Fully manual. You had mentioned you wanted to try a rangefinder and it cost me $15 so you're welcome to try it out.

Constructive criticism is always welcome for me. I dish it out so I'd better be able to take it.
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Post by crowellphotographs Wed Aug 06, 2008 10:28 am

I may have to give that a try. 15$... did I ever get into the wrong formats and bodies.

I've looked at these a few times last night and this morning. I love them. It's really interesting to see almost a whole roll from a very different photographer from myself. I've always been a huge fan of contact sheets. You just can't hide anything.

This is an all-star roll. Composition wise, there's nothing I could even dream of criticizing these about. What I do notice is the contrast level in some of the shots. As you know I'm a contrast junkie, but I do get a neutral feeling from the mid tones in some areas of a few of the photographs. I also think that some of these beautiful textures need popping.
I had a teacher who would describe it as, "wanting to feel the textures".
The hood of that truck (#Cool. I like the tonal average. (um... when you look at it from far away, no detail, just the overall tone of that section of the image) but I would like to see the transitions more exaggerated. The fold to the left of center has a great shadow, the nose has a geat highlight. Just more pronounced.
Most of the shots of that, tarp fence. The sky just doesn't have that pop that I've enjoyed from almost everyone of your pictures. I think I even want to feel that tarp itself a little bit more.
I guess as an example of what I'm babbling about would be the first image, Mike's lunch. From the wall on the left, to the sky to the sign and especially that light post. Ahh Beautiful textures. Great mid-tones.

I've been going thru a stage recently where I'm really not sure of anything to do with printing now. This may have been the worse advice possible, so please take it with a grain of salt.

Hope that helps. The beauty of constructive criticism is that it either helps to see your image in a new way, or it helps to fortify the decisions you've made about an image. Neither is ever wrong.
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Post by Kenneth Armstrong Wed Aug 06, 2008 10:49 am

I totally see what you're saying. Once I settle on a lens for this camera (I am borrowing from Nando right now) I need to get some filters for B&W. I don't tend to photoshop even my digital images, when I do I always screw it up like I did with that HUSKY sign. With film I feel like I want to touch it even less, the only thing I did was give them a consistent tone, C41 B&W tends to have a weird colour cast.

I know there's no sin in dodging and burning, or at least that sin is easily forgiven. At the very least I should have cleaned up the bad corners before posting. No one has ever accused me of being a perfectionist.

I have 2 more rolls coming back soon, they are PANF 50 Plus 36 exposures which I have been happy with in the past. Currently I have a roll of NeoPan 1600 which I planned to do some night shooting, but I haven't gotten around to it. I haven't put a colour roll near this camera yet but I probably should.
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Post by crowellphotographs Wed Aug 06, 2008 11:05 am

Like I said, they're beautiful shots. A lot of this comes down to personal process. I'm a printing junky.
I've never really used C41 bw film much. I do like PANF though. I know quite a few photographers who use it exclusively. If I remember correctly, it is a softer contrast film. (all the more reason for on camera filters) Personally, I'm almost exclusively an Ilford FP4 Plus user. ISO 125 may be slower than you're looking for, I'm just very comfortable with that film and rodinol developer. I'm really excited to see some color from that camera. What's your poison? Personally, I'm a Provia fan.

A lot of the corrections I regularly use do have darkroom roots. Dodge, burn, split contrast printing and of course bleaching. But I have all the respect in the world for a clean, "in camera" image.

I realize that you're not a big user of the digital dodge and burn, but if ever you are interested, please let me know. The actual dodge/burn tools in photoshop don't actually react the way they do in the darkroom. From what I understand, it's one of Adobe's strategies to keep photoshop somewhat for the pros.
I learned a dodge/burn technique from an Adobe seminar that works really well.
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Post by Kenneth Armstrong Wed Aug 06, 2008 11:22 am

I shot the C41 B&W for the convenience of seeing instant results more than anything. The whole reason to use the Jupter-3 50mm f/1.5 is the characteristics it has wide-open. I couldn't do that daytime with this 400 speed film. I just didn't want to wait a week... my first roll is still out. This roll was techncally my second through the camera. The NeoPan 1600 was just something lying around at Camera Craft, mostly I plan on shooting the PANF. I shot a roll of FP4 with the Canonet rangefinder using sunny 16 and it turned out nice. Mostly for Ilford I have shot Delta 100 in the past.

The missing link is developing my own negs. I have a tank with reels and some chemistry but no space in the new house to do it. If I put a laundry sink in the laundry room that'll be a big help. Having a 3 year old sort of limits where I can develop negs.
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Post by crowellphotographs Wed Aug 06, 2008 11:34 am

Completely understandable Ken. I really struggle with the idea of dumping that stuff down the drain. Let alone having little ones to worry about. I dumped a bottle of rodinol on my clothes and in my darkroom box once. Needless to say, the clothes were ruined. The interesting part was that it stripped all the ink off of the ruler I had in the box.
NASTY NASTY STUFF.
The nastiest stuff I've used is potassium ferro-cyanide (sp?) for bleaching. If you accidentally mix it with stop, it makes cyanide gas. The problem is that to make it work properly, you need to mix it with fix. A stupid mistake in the early morning and you can clear a room.
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Post by Kenneth Armstrong Wed Aug 06, 2008 11:43 am

Yah... that wouldn't go over good with the wife. Very Happy
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Post by Nando Wed Aug 06, 2008 11:52 am

When my friend John taught me how to develop film, we did four rolls in his kitchen without problems. I don't think you need that much room. I know a few photographers that develop film in small bathrooms.

I use yellow filters with my Summitar but never thought that I needed one with the Jupiter-3. Always felt that it was contrasty enough. It may be the scans that are lowering the contrast. I often have to do a slight S-curve to match the contrast from the negatives. Sometimes the scans have somewhat of a grey cast.

Contrast depends a lot on personal preference and it changes over time. Right now, I'm really liking low-contrast and smooth tonality. I think the key is to make sure that there is no big area of just a neutral greys that dominates the entire photo. A lot of this has to do with the shooting conditions, of course. Sometimes the subject matter and/or the composition is strong enough to overcome overly neutral tones and I think this holds for some of your shots above. This is really good for a first roll with the Bessa.

I should show you my humongous Lee Friedlander book. There are lots of photos there that I think you can relate to given your shooting style and preferences.

The CV 75mm will render a slightly more contrasty and modern look than the Jupiter-3. If you like high contrast, you ought to try my CV 21/4.
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Post by Kenneth Armstrong Wed Aug 06, 2008 12:01 pm

Technically it was my second roll Very Happy The 1st roll should be back from Toronto either tomorrow or Tuesday.

I should do test shots that don't matter more often.

I have a bunch of shots from my Canonet and Olympus Rangefinders that I should get around to scanning. These shots were just from a photo CD that I got with processing. That could also account for them not being scanned as nicely as they could be.
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Post by Kenneth Armstrong Wed Aug 06, 2008 10:58 pm

OK I lied. Here's 2 more from the same roll. I really think the first one needs a person in it.

Some B&W 2740544630_df5500267a

Some B&W 2740544626_3bab05c806
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Post by crowellphotographs Wed Aug 06, 2008 11:13 pm

I think I agree with you about the first shot.
The second shot is very well composed. Everything draws me back to that bag and the scraps around it. It makes me curious about it's contents.
That's the roll that keeps on giving.
You seem to have been inspired by that camera. I'm excited to see the others.
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