Issues with results from my Yashica Mat 124G - help?

[walliswizard]

Hello all

I have recently purchased a Yashica Mat 124G.

I've shot a few rolls of film through it and to be honest my results are very hit an miss right now. I'm shooting Ilford HP5, developing with D76, and scanning at 2400dpi on an Epson V500.

To give you an idea, here is a pic I took today:

which looks OK enough, but the eyes of my son are like this:

which are, well, smudgy, lacking sharpness and detail. And although I hate to be a pixel peeper, I have to say I expected more from a 6x6 piece of modern film. I do come from a digital background, so this is my first year of shooting film, but should I be expecting better than this? This is rather indicative of the results I'm getting. I dunno, maybe I expected more.

I've cleaned the mirror and lenses (unscrewed and removed back and front elements and given them a good clean), the above image was shot (from memory) at ISO400, 1/500sec at around f10.

I have ordered a hood for the camera as this is supposed to help matters, but what else can you tell me? Or am I just awful at focussing (it's a damned hard camera to focus in my opinion). In all three or four films I've shot to date I can't say I've managed to get a single photo that made me go "wow, that's sharp" or "look at that detail".

Do I have a poor version of the camera? Needs a new lens? Needs a new photographer? Help?

Thank you!

 

[DWThomas]

That's a pretty small portion of the negative, and ISO 400 film is more grainy than some slower stuff. But this could also be a scanning issue -- have you had better results from other film from another camera? I have a 124g I'm pretty happy with, but although I do scan for a quick look, I do optical prints for display and think the negs are quite sharp, but my enlargements are usually down around the 5x range (10x10 inch prints).

 

[walliswizard]

I have a Pentax MX with a 50mm 1.4, and again I use HP5+ through this and scanned and processed the same way. No issues at all. As an example:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/glennsmithphotography/17641901859/

I know this is probably not the best example but it's still fairly indicative (I REALLY struggle to spell that word!!) of the grainy mushiness I'm getting. The lens itself looks fairly scratched, if only lightly, though no indication of any mould.

I shall persevere, but I'm a little down about the thing right now. I really expected something special from the hallowed medium format, and right now this isn't it /

 

[ic-racer]

Is the negative sharp? How are the prints?

 

[DWThomas]

You might want to check some focus calibration of the camera. The traditional approach is a ground glass -- or Scotch frosted mending tape -- across the film plane, usually at infinity. Although doing it at 15 feet or so might be better for your present concern. Without the ground glass, one can take a yard (meter!) stick and set it up at 45º to a line from the camera. Focus on a major division and take a shot, then examine the negative (with a loupe or camera lens to eliminate scanning from the process) and see whether the graduations on the scale center around what you thought was in focus.

With a TLR, the mirror, ground glass or viewing lens could be displaced a little and screw up focus; e.g., not match the taking lens setup.

Oh -- and was this on a tripod? Even a bit of hand tremor or twitch on tripping the shutter could invoke some smear too.

(Just thinking out loud here -- {notice it's pretty quiet!} )

 

[walliswizard]

Not printed from it yet. I know that prints may come out different to what's on the screen. Also I guess optical prints will be different to scan print. I'm not at the optical-printing-stage get in my film journey!

I guess it's possible focussing is out. I could look into that/

And this was handheld, but at 1/250s I would have thought I'd have got away with it (like in scooby doo!!)

Maybe I should try a tripod, give that a go. It does seem quite a tricky camera though if this is "normal", I mean - I was in fairly good light, at ISO 400 with a DOF of, I dunno, a fair bit!

 

[Cybertrash]

I'd wager it's the scanner that's the problem. It's basically impossible to get sharp scans from a flatbed scanner such as the Epson V500, but we're not allowed to talk about scanning around these parts. Try making some darkroom prints from the negatives if you can and see if you experience the same issue.

 

[walliswizard]

I did wonder about the scanner. I am going to have a look at the negatives through a loupe (ok I'm lying, I don't own a loupe, I'll use a lens) and see if I can make out what they look like.

 

[outwest]

Even though you are rating the film at 400 you got enough exposure because the 500 setting is probably more like 250. Try some Delta 100 at f/8 on a tripod and see what it will really do - after you have checked the focus;-) I should add that I had the first model, Yashica Mat, and it was superbly sharp.

 

[paul ron]

id check the viewfinder to film plane for sharpness. id bet since you took it appart to clean, it may be slightly out. the ground glass on the film plane with a loupe is the best method. scotch tape can buckle, velum is good but same problem.

just a thought.... perhaps your cleaning left some residue on the surfaces? clean them with denatured alcohol? di you remove the edge blackening of the elements?

 

[summicron1]

I'd wager it's the scanner that's the problem. It's basically impossible to get sharp scans from a flatbed scanner such as the Epson V500, but we're not allowed to talk about scanning around these parts. Try making some darkroom prints from the negatives if you can and see if you experience the same issue.

ditto. i have a canoscan 9000 and while it does a lovely job, it is limited -- it is designed to make sharp scans of printed documents, negatives are an add-on and the system in it simply lacks the resolving power to make fine detail in a scan of a negative.

what you are showing us is a detail shot that is a lot smaller than a regular 35mm frame, not even a half frame, and if I were to scan something like that with mine, even at very high resolution, it would look no better than yours and perhaps worse. I know this because i've scanned minox negatives (9.2 mm wide) and they are about like this, but the prints are razor sharp.

make a print. I bet you will be impressed.

 

[Jim Jones]

Close examination or a large print from the Yashica negative will show more detail than you can likely see in the camera's viewfinder. This means you have to focus very carefully. the example shows more detail in the film's grain than in the eye and hair. This suggests that the scan is not the limiting factor. One often used test for focusing error is to draw a vertical line on a large sheet of print, such as a newspaper. Photograph it a few times with a fairly wide aperture at a distance of several feet from an oblique angle, maybe 45 degrees, while carefully focusing on the line. If the results show a consistant focus error, you probably have an equipment problem. If the actual focus point seems to vary, it is probably a human error. The WOW effect you've seen in some other photographs usually comes from careful attention to every step in the photographic process from setting up the shot to the darkroom work.

 

[Ko.Fe.]

You don't have to pixel zoom it, provided image is nowhere near to typical 124G scan which is very sharp and contrasty. Doubt it is scanner, maybe something to improve with developing. Probably someone did same as it was done with one of my recently come and go Mat's. He took-off hood for glass cleaning, removed mirror for cleaning as well, but didn't installed it properly.
Check yours and check taking lens with ground glass as well.

 

[JPD]

Lens or focus problem. I once had a Rolleicord III which gave results like that, and in my case it was a bad example of a Xenar lens, a lens that should be extremely sharp.

 

[shutterfinger]

http://www.butkus.org/chinon/yashica/yashica_mat124g/yashica_mat_124g.pdf
Focus normally then pop the critical focusing magnifier, page 7 of the linked pdf, up and recheck your focus.
How far are you off, a few seconds of arc or a degree or more?

 

[Kirks518]

It seems that here the answer to every problem is that the scanner is at fault...

I have the 124G as well, and I don't even attempt to focus without using the magnifier. My eyes just aren't what they used to be. So if you're not using the magnifier, I'd say suspect #1 is user error.

During your cleaning, did you remover the ground glass? If you did, did you put it back correctly (smooth side up)? Looking at the full sized image, it looks like it's slightly back-focused. Was your son's eyes your point of focus?

Did you focus and re-compose? That could slightly throw off focus, but (usually) dof takes care of this.

As said before, Taking and Viewing lenses may be out of calibration/synch. Have fun with that if that's what it is.

Subject movement (your son) after you focused but before you hit the shutter may be a cause. But, camera movement/shake is not what you have here. A tripod wouldn't have made a difference here. Besides, would the 124 series have been so popular if it needed a tripod everywhere? Nothing I can see in the image has the look of camera shake/movement. If someone sees it, please point it out to me.

YES, there are an equal number of possible causes directly related to your scanning, but that can not be discussed here....

The below photo was done at a little further distance then yours (about 20-25 feet I'd guess), hand-held. Film was Arista EDU 100ASA, shutter speed and f-stop I don't remember, but it was definitely slower than 1/250, possibly lower than 1/125. F stop was most likely in the f/3.5-5.6 range. Scanned (Gasp!!!) on a Canon 9000II F at 2400 dpi (or maybe 1200 dpi). The crop is at 100% of my daughter's eyes, and I think it's closer to what you were expecting from yours.

If I were you, I'd probably burn a roll doing nothing but focus tests. Hang a newspaper (an ancient news distributing system used before the internet, but after town criers, and still available at your local convenience store), and do the test mentioned above. I'd probably do it both with the magnifier and without, as somewhat of an eye test. Really scrutinize the negatives with a loupe/lens, and compare what you see through the loupe with what you see on you computer screen after scanning.

 

[gzhuang]

I agree. Please use the magnifier and do the scanning with at least 3200dpi resolution.

 

[sagai]

One more thing may be.
Emulsion side should be up for that scanner, do not know how it was matted.

 

[ToddB]

I would agree with others that maybe your negative is not setting flat enough on glass. I have the V600 version and it came with plastic card piece that you put on the bottom edge of the negative, to keep the neg flat. Does your have the piece? Use it for 120, it's a big surface to scan.

 

[250swb]

I suspect the film/developer/scanner settings combination may not be the best and something is going on there, but even so looking at your attached image it doesn't look like you have sharpened it at all?

Steve

 

[Mike Bates]

The magnifier is a built-in 3X loupe. Nobody's eyes are good enough to critical focus without the magnifier.

At the risk of overstating the obvious, the common technique for TLRs is to focus with the magnifier, then flip it up and use the overall ground glass to compose.

 

[gzhuang]

I think an unusual way is to focus with the magnifier flipped out permanently and use an inverted medium format viewfinder to compose. Works for me.

 

[ic-racer]

Scanning questions should not clutter up the Medium Format section. Perhaps this thread can be deleted or moved.