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martin henson

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Pyrocat HD
Solution's A 6mils solution B 4 mils 990 water.
Fuji Acros
Minimal Agitation method (still experimenting) 24 mins 21c
Chamonix 45n-2
64 sec @ f/22
150mm lens
 
Last edited:
Nice shot Martin!

Where do you get your Pyrocat HD?
 
Well first batch from abroad, then we found a chemist in UK that mixes the formula, will post later the contact details, or if Ian sees this post maybe he will.

Regards
Martin
 
That looks great, Martin. It looks like it would be a good negative to use for an alternative process such as a Cyanotype. You probably know this already, but you can enlarge via a scanner onto OHP film to make a larger contact print. This also avoids damage to your original negative during contact with the paper.
Another thing that can be useful for still life is a set of close-up lenses that screw on like filters. I tried these recently, and was pleasantly surprised with the outcome. The 150mm lens I use has a 49mm filter thread which means the close-up lenses were cheap.
Alex


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alexmuir said:
That looks great, Martin. It looks like it would be a good negative to use for an alternative process such as a Cyanotype. You probably know this already, but you can enlarge via a scanner onto OHP film to make a larger contact print. This also avoids damage to your original negative during contact with the paper.
Another thing that can be useful for still life is a set of close-up lenses that screw on like filters. I tried these recently, and was pleasantly surprised with the outcome. The 150mm lens I use has a 49mm filter thread which means the close-up lenses were cheap.
Alex


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Click to expand...

Alex, do you have any examples to show using the close up lens
 
I will have a look this evening. I used one for some images of vegetables. I don't have good equipment to scan LF negatives, but should be able to scan a print instead.
Alex


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Most of the 'cheap' close-up I have seen - borrowed and and bought (and scrapped one set) - have been ordinary, uncorrected Oriental-made magnifying lenses set into filter mounts. If you use a very small f-stop you may get a small sweet spot right in the centre of the frame whilst the rest falls off dramatically - think spherical, chromatic, astigmatism and every other aberration set free and you will have a good idea what your shot will look like - which may be what you looking for of course. :) Frankly I've had better results shooting through a milk bottle bottom and yes, I have done that in a fit of madness many full moons ago. :confused::) There are some passable achromat close-up lenses around but I believe they are expensive and again, they may not give you what you were expecting

Large format lenses are optimised at infinity focus and that quality falls off as distance to subject get shorter - not normally noticable until you get really close and that also affects the use of close-up lenses. I have toyed with the idea of getting a dedicated LF macro lens but the brain over-rode the heart as they are really expensive and I can't justify the cost now.:(
 
I hope you don't mind your thread being hijacked again Martin but I found the only two images I kept from my foray into the supplementary close-up lenses world. Unfortunately they were shot with my Pentax 645 (I didn't keep any of the LF ones) but perhaps that's ok as they are just for example purposes.

Both were shot with the superb Pentax 45mm f2.8 lens and a 1 dioptre CU lens at either f16 or f22.
Tomat0-Dioptre-1.jpg
Cactus-Dioptre-1.jpg
 
I think they look fine, Keith. It really depends what sort of image you are aiming for. I can accept a bit less than overall sharpness when the images are 'artistic' as opposed to 'technical'. The supplementary lenses I have are made by Hoya, and another Japanese manufacturer, so they should be reasonable quality glass. I also thought of a macro lens, until I saw the price!
Alex


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The Hoya CU lenses are certainly better that the cheap Chinese ones Alex, especially the multi-coated ones. I suppose I'm a bit conservative when it comes to close-ups in that if I am going to the trouble to get that up close and personal with an object I want to see it in all it's glory, warts and all. Of course it could also be that I lack the 'vision' to do anything 'arty' with it. :rolleyes:
 
I wanted to check something I recalled reading before adding any more about supplementary lenses. According to Leslie Stroebel, in View Camera Technique (7th edition) at pages 93-95, the use of positive supplementary lenses can improve the close focus performance of standard LF lenses. This seems to be because the lenses are optimised for middle to long distance, rather than close range. Reading this some time ago caused me to dig out the 49mm set which had come with an OM-1 camera. Prior to that, I have to say that I would have left them to gather dust in a cupboard. One advantage is that they don't require extra exposure. They're definitely worth a try if a proper macro lens is not an option. I agree with Keith that a quality set is likely to perform better than cheap and nasty.
Alex


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I've tried supplementary lenses for close-up – Nikon 35mm close-up lens on a Nikkor 150 f5.6, both 52mm dia. I didn't notice any reduction in quality for my modest purposes. I can't recall any effect on DoF but there must have been some, one way or the other. I just stopped down and crossed my fingers while counting the seconds. What I did like is that the bellows extension is smaller for the same magnification, so the screen was a bit brighter. The setup was a bit less wobbly, too.
Please Sir, where can we get LF Acros, and at what price?
 
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