About a year ago, I acquired the legendary Kodak Aero Ektar 178mm f2.5 lens and it was another few months after that I got it mounted on the speed graphic. The first trials of this lens gave me some headaches as I experienced micro-shakes from the large focal plane shutter. Finally, recently I went back to the beast and re-strengthen the mount, so far so good. Can’t wait to go out and take some shots with this!
I also went back to the Graflex speed graphic box and looked at the flash attachment. At first, I thought it was incomplete but in close inspection, everything was intact and looked amazingly cool once attached.
I haven’t done pinhole in the longest time and WPPD was a great excuse for me to start again. I was in Shanghai and faced with less than ideal weather conditions, drizzling on and off all day, windy and cold. Nevertheless, I managed to get a few shots in. It was quite a challenge to do long exposure in Shanghai because everyone is wondering what you are doing and in times stood right in front of my camera, ruined many shots.
I tried to do this as scientifically as possible. I will measure my film to hole distance and divide by 0.6 to get my f ratio (I usually stuck with f128) then I will use that in my meter. I didn’t want to use my expensive Acros for the job and used my el cheapo Shanghai film instead. The reciprocity is super crappy with that film. A shot that is meter to be one minute will take eight minutes to complete! The lighting was also bad as it was dark and gloomy most of the day and most conditions were metered to be 1 to even 30 minutes! I ended up taking a lot more Polaroids as it was rated at 3000 iso. The reciprocity is also quite bad with these Polaroids and a 30 second exposure will span into a 2.5 minutes shot.
With all the rain and chaos, I ended up at home and made a few shots of the beautiful tiger lillies in a more controlled environment. The following is a photographic diary of today’s shoot.
Test shots at home before heading outIt was raining and found a covered spot for long exposureResulting Polaroid.Waiting and rainingMy ghetto pinhole setupBusy road shootingPeople stopping in front of the cameraNice door but unfortunately people are always going in and out!Home sweet home.
Getting my equipment ready for WPPD (http://www.pinholeday.org/)
Ready.
Speed graphic with pin hole board + FP3000b + Shanghai film. Special thanks to Kirk Lau for his assistance with the making of the pinhole! It’s extremely precise at 0.6mm!
After a weekend of crappy weather, Monday was a complete opposite. Kirk Lau and I couldn’t resist on the amazing weather and took our Grapflex Speed Graphics to the Shanghai Bund for some night photography. Knowing how bad the reciprocity of the Shanghai 4×5 film, we decided to give it a go away. I was armed with only two lenses, the Fujinon 65mm f5.6 SWD and a Leica Dimaron 150mm f2.8. I only took 4 slides of Shanghai 100iso 4×5 film in two film holders. Here is a shot taken with my RX100 II on my shot.
Large format photo session at the Shanghai bund.
Let’s see how the photo will do. I am stand developing them with Kodak HC110.
In the early morning, I arrived at the TaiO dock. The tranquility was a good change from the busy norm. Taken with Graflex Speed Graphic + Fujinon 65mm f5.6 SWD lens + Kodak TXP. Developed in Rodinal 1:100 stand. Scanned with Epson Perfection V700.
One day I saw an old beaten up Leitz medium format projector on sale on ebay. On closer look, I see that it has a Dimaron 150mm f2.8 lens on it. I contacted the seller about buying the lens on its own and to my surprise, they agreed and all for $25USD! The lens came and considered how beaten up the original projector was, the lens was in pristine condition. It even came with the original cap!
Using just a simple cardboard gift box that i saw lying around, I cut up a small square. I put the lens on the paper, drew a circle and cut a small hole that will fit the lens. Then I mounted it on my Speed Graphic and see how it looked in the focusing screen.
Somehow, there was no light leak and the lens is able to fit 4×5 without vignetting! I didn’t try tilt shift but I doubt it can cover that. I was really happy that it can even cover 4×5, consider it was from a medium format projector.
I quickly setup a scene to test the lens with FP3000b. Here is the first shot.
The leica sharpness and the constrast is unbeatable, not to mention the amazing bokeh.
Amazing sharpness, solid contrast and dreamy bokeh.
I was blown away with this lens, even though this is only a piece of glass and doesn’t have an aperture. I am basically stuck with f2.8. For individual portrait, I think it’s perfect, but for group shots, I don’t think this will be too functional. Nevertheless, I am super happy with the result and it’s only $25USD! What a lucky find!
