Mary. 45cm Red Dot Artar in copal 3.f11

Jon, what a wonderful subject and face to photograph....have been looking for an artar portrait to compare with the Galli portraits on the forum "on Bokeh" using the soft focus glass etc....this should be razor sharp....it is not at all on my monitor..it is possible the 1/4 second exposure caught us here? I'd love to see this one with the eyes and glasses in sharp focus...is it possible to make some more portraits of this lady to post again?....thanks Dave

What a wonderful looking lady. Her smile is just fantastic!!

not sharp on my monitor either

lee\c

The original is not very sharp either. I am not certain if it has to do with the longer exposure (1/4 second and Mary being 79 years young) and/or my poor fine focusing. For comparison purposes, I am going to try more portraits with this lens and will post. I am going to use the studio setup w/ f11 and 1/4 exposure, but with a younger model who can maintain the setting without moving, and possible some with a smaller aperture, e.g., f22 or f32.

thanks Jon,

I think it might be just out of focus...subject moved a bit between the time you focused and loaded the film.....stopping down will give you more depth of field but not necessarily a "sharper focus" the artar lens has great resolution - sharpness- even only one stop down from wide open...is this an f/11 lens? also maybe, if problem continues, the mounting in the copal might be suspect? It would be great to keep the same model if possible, personally I like razor sharp portraits...the artar is certainly capable of that....try a flash even a simple 283 will work.

Yes Dave, the 45cm Artar is f11 and the exposure was taken at f11. I need to double check the focus/proper spacing of the lens in the copal 3 shutter. The first step will be to get Mary to come over for another sitting and see if my fellow LF'er Jay can come by, help double check the focus etc., and we can try several lens, including some veritos, a versar, a veritar, diffused wolly, Ilex Paragon Anastigmat f4.5 Series A w/ diffuser, and/or some sharp lens. Jay & I have been trying to get together in the studio, but this has not the time of the year to get those goals accomplished....

Kinda off track here---I have several Artars that are terrific (aren't they all?) but I had a 480 mm APO Nikkor mounted in a Copal 3 shutter by SK grimes that was the ultimate DUD--couldn't pull a sharp image and was mounted by Steve at SK Grimes about a year or so before his death (I bought it already mounted from another individual--I know why!))--I returned it to SK grimes after his death twice and they said the spacing was correct--I sold it at a pretty good loss and picked up a RD Artar in shutter that simply amazes me--I also lean toward my 420 Fuji L f/8 in Copal 3 as my favorite 8x10 portrait lens and normally shoot at with strobes at around f/16 to 22 or so and it is a fabulously sharp lens -impressive to say the least but that APO Nikkor was a real DUD and I felt something surely was amiss in the mounting/spacing of the cells! I have no other APO Nikkors and will stick to Artars and the like!!

Joe, I have not been able to find the time to give this 45cm artar a real work out. But, the thought has crossed my mind it may be a dud in a shutter. I have not reached the point yet to return it to the person who installed it in my copal 3.

All of my other artars and nikkors are very sharp; in fact, I just picked up a 360mm Nikkor APO which Steve Grimes had installed in a Betax 4 shutter and my first attempt was very sharp, having stopped it down to f32 and used OLD 70+ yrs outdated Hammer 8x10 film.

http://www.apug.org/gallery/showphoto.php?photo=12151&cat=500&ppuser=2399

Thanks for your input.