Recent content by MarkS

Technidol was invented as a low-contrast developer, for use with the inherently high-contrast Technical Pan film. Careful use of that film and developer would yield negatives of "normal" contrast for pictorial photography. Using Technidol to develop standard pictorial films is likely to give...

Will the camera actually close with the bag bellows installed? Try it carefully. Don't force it. There's your answer. I say this only because, with my (Vermont) Zone VI 4x5, there is no way you're closing the camera with the bag bellows installed.

They are both rugged cameras meant for hard professional use. Both will require maintenance from time to time. All of them are used and old now... the question is how old? and used how? You can't be in this game without at least considering maintenance. Most camera collectors/photographers are...

In the late '70s I worked as a B&W tech in a custom lab. When a customer brought in Tri-X exposed at EI1600, the procedure was to develop it in Diafine. I followed the instructions on the box (never thinking any different) and the negatives turned out well. At least the customers (who I never...

Emmett Gowin used a 90/6.8 Angulon on 8x10 to make portraits (and other photographs) in the 1960s. A lovely round image.

Professional architecture photographers tended to use 4x5 until digital came along. I would assume that the Mamiya lens is plenty sharp enough, and is distortion-free. But in fact, it's not very wide, and anyone shooting for pay needs to have more than one wide-angle lens. I was in that...

When I was a portrait photographer, from 1979-81, the studio I worked for issued me a Bronica ETR-S. With normal lens, speed grip and plain prism finder. My colleagues and I used them to shoot high school group portraits and "candids"(for the actual portraits we used 70mm long-roll studio...

To add an idea or two... use a camera that is the size of the print you want, Atget used a whole-plate camera, 6-1/2"x8-1/2". Make contact prints. Atget used printing-out paper (PoP) which is no longer manufactured- but I believe you can coat your own these days. Those prints are gold-toned...

2430 is indeed a film for making positives from aerial roll film negatives. (Either space-borne or air-breather imagery.) So it's only sensitive to blue light, and is slow and contrasty (as you've seen). Also capable of quite high resolution, not that you'll be needing that. The practice...

Ask Richard Ritter (www.lg4mat.net). He's forgotten more about building and modifying large-format cameras than most of us will ever learn.

"Serenar" was Canon's brand name for their lenses until about 1954. After 60+ years, how an individual lens has been used and cared for during its life may be more important than its specs when new. Every camera maker wanted to offer a top-quality 50mm lens, as it was by far the most popular...

I have put my 4x5 Norma into the same Tamrac bag that holds my other 4x5, a Zone VI. it did just fit; the bag is 30 years old and has pack-away backpack straps. Its outside dimensions are roughly 14"x12"x19". To do this, I used Abruzzi's second method posted above, and rotated the rail clamp to...

I don't know. I worked for a large corporation, part of a research photo lab, and there were photo-lab engineers, QC experts, and chemists handy to answer such questions. Running the color machines was just one part of my little group's responsibility (and as the photographers, we processed our...

That looks like a very late production can. Is it cardboard with a foil liner? Kodak had stopped offering chemistry in cans by 1975. I was at the very beginning of my photography around then, but remember the metal cans. They were replaced by foil packages at that time, at around the same time...

The RA-4 process, and those machines, are meant to be running at full volume all the time. I operated a 42" Kreonite RA-4 machine for many years, and it was only happy when working flat-out. Under-utilization will cause process-control problems, and you'll be spending a lot more time on...