Noblex 6/150 U

sanking · Mar 9, 2010

David A. Goldfarb said:
Yes, shift is a feature that I wish I had on mine. I also pasted a white label on top of the viewfinder so I can write down what kind of film I have in the camera or other notes, and some arrows in a circle reminding me which way to turn the darn barrel for changing filters so I don't loose a frame (counterclockwise, if you haven't read that part of the manual).

Learning to use this camera and the slow speed and exposure models has turned out be a bit more complicated than I expected. I spent most of last evening trying to figure out how to work the slow speed module, and most of this morning with the exposure module. Making negatives with the Noblex may turn out to be as much art as science, literally.

One thing that is really neat about the exposure module is that it actually controls exposure by slowing up or speeding up the travel of the drum to compensate for lighter or darker areas of the image. That could be a very useful feature if it works well.

Sandy

sanking · Mar 10, 2010

Made it out today to test the newly acquired (used) Noblex 6/150 U. I was using ASA 100 film, rated at EI 50, so put the slow time module on the camera, and also exposed with the Panlux meter, which sets the shutter speed after you manually set (and program in) lens aperture.

Good news is that all of the equipment is working perfectly and I made a number of nice well-exposed negatives, with very even tones and no sign of banding. And using the shift was much easier in real time than I anticipated.

Bad news is that I made a bunch of careless mistakes from lack of familiarity with the equipment which resulted in several poorly exposed negatives. But those mistakes sent me back to the instruction manual(s) and next time out I hope to be better prepared. With the slow time module and exposure meter control this camera is fairly complex, certainly not as easy to use as a point and shoot film camera!

In terms of image quality my impression agrees with the comments made by others, i.e. it makes remarkable negatives with wall-to-wall sharpness and excellent contrast. The lens is a 50mm f/4.5 Docteur Optic.

Sandy King

Loris Medici · Mar 11, 2010

Sandy, have fun with your new camera! I'm sure you'll squeeze very nice images out of it...

Regards,
Loris.

jamie young · Mar 11, 2010

Some of the rotating cameras have a built in shift, with the lense shifted up. My roundshot 35 http://www.jamieyoungphoto.com/roundshot 1.html for example. My bigger roundshot 70 mm has the ability to shift a great deal but only upward. When you need to shift down you can turn the camera upside down to shoot, though its a pain. I've been doing some shooting with antique (1900-1910 vintage)"al vista" swing lense cameras, mostly with a 7" by 16" camera. They were very frustrating as the "viewfinders" are basically worthless. I've had some pleasant surprises from the start, kind of enjoying the mystery when shooting now. http://www.jamieyoungphoto.com/AlVista photos 1.html and http://www.jamieyoungphoto.com/alvistacameras1.html When using your noblex, keep that in mind. I'd love to get one of the noblex cameras, but not right now. have fun!

sanking · Mar 15, 2010

Attached is one of my first negatives made with the Noblex 6/150 U. This is straight from the scanner except for the frame.

Fuji Acros, two seconds at f/11. Developed in Pyrocat-HD 1:1:100, 20 minutes at 70F, with minimal agitation. Subject was low contrast so N+ development was required.

The subject was in downtown Greenville, SC, about five minutes by car from my home.

Sandy King

David A. Goldfarb · Mar 15, 2010

Looks like you're off to a good start. Nice pano subject!

Mick Fagan · Mar 15, 2010

I agree with David and it looks particularly good when the extreme right wall and the power pole, are in perfect vertical alignment.

Mick.

mlogue · Mar 16, 2010

Hey, that's a sweet photo from your new Noblex! I took a workshop with Macduff Everton a few years ago, and he shared a tip with the class - if you're using a Noblex, you can buy a small bullseye bubble level and secure it to the top front of the camera with silicone caulk, so it's visible when looking through the viewfinder. The level included in the camera viewfinder itself is only for one axis, and you'll need both axes level in order to have completely level horizons.

Ian Grant · Mar 17, 2010

Thanks for posting that image Sandy, it's interesting to see how the perspective changes which works well in this particular image. Hopefully we'll see some more images shot with it.

Ian

sanking · Mar 18, 2010

mlogue said:
Hey, that's a sweet photo from your new Noblex! I took a workshop with Macduff Everton a few years ago, and he shared a tip with the class - if you're using a Noblex, you can buy a small bullseye bubble level and secure it to the top front of the camera with silicone caulk, so it's visible when looking through the viewfinder. The level included in the camera viewfinder itself is only for one axis, and you'll need both axes level in order to have completely level horizons.

Interesting about the levels. My finder in fact has levels on both axes. Perhaps I misunderstood what you meant? I would have thought that even the earliest finders would have had this feature.

Sandy

David A. Goldfarb · Mar 18, 2010

Mine has a level for the horizon visible in the finder and a very slow fore/aft level visible outside the finder. I usually use the camera on a tripod and just put a bullseye level on top of the finder to adjust it quickly.

Henning Serger · Mar 25, 2010

David A. Goldfarb said:
Distribution has become difficult since KWD has been having financial difficulties, so I don't think there is a current US distributor that can get things reliably for Noblex, and same for Robert White, which used to be a Noblex distributor. Calumet and Photo Habitat were Noblex dealers, so they may have a few odd items. RTS was the US distributor, but I gather that RTS has dropped them....

http://www.flickr.com/photos/davidagoldfarb/tags/noblex/

Hello David,

AFAIK the financial difficulties at Kamerawerke Dresden has been solved in the meantime. There was a critical time in the last year, when the production of the 35mm models were stopped. But last autumn the production was started again.

Distributors are listed here:
Dead Link Removed

@Sandy: Wish you a lot of fun and excellent pictures with your Noblex!
I am still dreaming of one.....

Best regards,
Henning

sanking · Mar 25, 2010

Henning Serger said:
Hello David,

AFAIK the financial difficulties at Kamerawerke Dresden has been solved in the meantime. There was a critical time in the last year, when the production of the 35mm models were stopped. But last autumn the production was started again.

Distributors are listed here:
Dead Link Removed

@Sandy: Wish you a lot of fun and excellent pictures with your Noblex!
I am still dreaming of one.....

Best regards,
Henning

Henning,

Good to hear that the company is over its financial difficulties. Not sure how complicated it is to service these cameras but if that were necessary I would like to have it serviced by the company that made the camera if possible.

I am right now in the process of scanning gallery proofs of some 30+ rolls of film that I shot with the Noblex 1/150U last weekend on Ossabaw Island. I made a few mechanical errors but the camera gave good results when my brain adjusted to its method of working. The biggest difficult for me is to remember to press the shutter release before winding the film since this is not the way most MF cameras work. I have ruined several rolls of film this way. Also, I have been startled at how fast the exposure meter, which actually controls the speed of rotation during exposure, goes through the batteries. I went through two sets of of the small N batteries for about every twenty rolls of film. Course, many of my exposures were long so the battery was working some three or four minutes for each exposure. Interestingly, I was afraid that the weak part of the camera would be the batteries that run the camera itself, but I am still working with the first set of the 1.5 volt Double A batteries that I started with.

Sandy King

David A. Goldfarb · Mar 25, 2010

Thanks for the update, Henning!

sanking · Mar 25, 2010

Here are a few snaps from my use of the Noblex on Ossabaw. These are just quick scans with a minimum of adjustment for showing here. No prints from any of these yet.

Negatives on either Efke 25 or Acros 100, both developed in two-bath Pyrocat-MC 1:10. The Efke negatives have a bit more contrast than I would like but scan OK on the Epson V700.

Sandy King

Mahler_one · Mar 25, 2010

sanking said:
Attached is one of my first negatives made with the Noblex 6/150 U. This is straight from the scanner except for the frame.

Fuji Acros, two seconds at f/11. Developed in Pyrocat-HD 1:1:100, 20 minutes at 70F, with minimal agitation. Subject was low contrast so N+ development was required.

The subject was in downtown Greenville, SC, about five minutes by car from my home.

Sandy King

Really impressive work Sandy...well done...thanks very much for sharing.

Ed

sanking · Mar 28, 2010

One of the continuing problems I have with the Noblex is viewing through the finder. Since there are no bright lines in the finder the view widens and narrows depending on the distance of the eye from the finder. Does anyone know if there is some standard way of viewing that is recommended to assure that what one sees through the finder is very close to what is actually on film?

Sandy King

David A. Goldfarb · Mar 28, 2010

It seems to me, particularly since I wear glasses, that I have to look through the finder at different angles to see the edges of the frame. My experience is that you can't see wider than what you can see in the finder, even if you need to move your head from side to side to see the edges of the frame, and the frame edges are accurate.

My camera doesn't have shift, so I don't know how the finder on your Noblex registers that.

sanking · Mar 29, 2010

David A. Goldfarb said:
It seems to me, particularly since I wear glasses, that I have to look through the finder at different angles to see the edges of the frame. My experience is that you can't see wider than what you can see in the finder, even if you need to move your head from side to side to see the edges of the frame, and the frame edges are accurate.

My camera doesn't have shift, so I don't know how the finder on your Noblex registers that.

Thanks for the information. I will set up the camera this afternoon and try to frame as you suggest by including everything in the frame that I can see by moving my eye from side to side to see the frame edges. It makes sense to me that you are correct about this because my prior efforts to evaluate the field of view by looking at the viewfinde with my eye in the center has resulted in a wider field of view on film than I saw in the finder.

Sandy King

sanking · Mar 29, 2010

Yoshino cherry tree at Clemson University.

I went over to Clemson on Sunday with Jim Shanesy of Maryland, who was down here with his daughter checking out some colleges and universities in South Carolina. Jim like the trees and the weather conditions (overcast and misty but dead still) but had to get on the road back to Maryland and was not able to do any photography. I sent him a copy of this image and he suggested I post it. This is a quick scan of one of my negatives. I put the border around it and resized for APUG and that is that. Film was Efke R25 developed in Pyrocat-MC 1+1+100, 15 minutes at 70F with minimal agitation (once every three minutes).

I made a few other very nice negatives of the Yoshino trees in the same shoot. The wide aspect of the 6X12cm format seems to favor the elegance of the limbs of this lovely tree. This is one of the trees you see around the Washington tidal basin and they are now at about peak as I understand it.

Sandy King

c6h6o3 · Mar 29, 2010

sanking said:
This is one of the trees you see around the Washington tidal basin and they are now at about peak as I understand it.

Not quite at peak. They should peak this weekend, just in time for the Festival.

The ones at Clemson were at absolute peak yesterday.

sanking · Mar 29, 2010

David A. Goldfarb said:
It seems to me, particularly since I wear glasses, that I have to look through the finder at different angles to see the edges of the frame. My experience is that you can't see wider than what you can see in the finder, even if you need to move your head from side to side to see the edges of the frame, and the frame edges are accurate.

My camera doesn't have shift, so I don't know how the finder on your Noblex registers that.

I took careful notes of the exact coverage through the viewfinder today in some tests. You are correct. Even when moving the eye from side to wide to see the edge of the frame the actual recording on the film is slightly more than the eye can see.

There is a rectangular cut out in center of the top of the frame of the viewfinder. With the lens shifted upward the top of the cut out corresponds to the top of the image that will be recorded on film.

Sandy King

sanking · Mar 30, 2010

Here is another one of the Clemson Yoshino cherry trees.

Fuji Acros, Pyrocat-MC 1+1+100, 20 minutes at 70F with agitation every three minutes.

Sandy King

mfohl · May 3, 2010

Hi Sandy, as to your question "Is this a good camera?", I think it's a great camera. I have some Nikon 35 mm stuff and some Mamiya TLR stuff, and the Noblex with the Tessar lens is the sharpest and contrastiest lens of the lot. It will give you super images. There are two caveats. First, be careful how you load the film; follow the instructions to a T. If you don't, you will have overlapping images and won't get the full panoramic view. Although the negatives are still useable. And second, it took me a while to get used to the whole panorama thing. You have to be close to things because they really get smaller in a hurry the farther out they are. And if you are close to something flat, like a wall or a building, horizontal lines will curve. This can be a good technique, but you need some experience to take advantage of it.

If you like to play with cameras, you should love this one.

Cheers,

-- Mark

sanking · May 5, 2010

mfohl said:
Hi Sandy, as to your question "Is this a good camera?", I think it's a great camera. I have some Nikon 35 mm stuff and some Mamiya TLR stuff, and the Noblex with the Tessar lens is the sharpest and contrastiest lens of the lot. It will give you super images. There are two caveats. First, be careful how you load the film; follow the instructions to a T. If you don't, you will have overlapping images and won't get the full panoramic view. Although the negatives are still useable. And second, it took me a while to get used to the whole panorama thing. You have to be close to things because they really get smaller in a hurry the farther out they are. And if you are close to something flat, like a wall or a building, horizontal lines will curve. This can be a good technique, but you need some experience to take advantage of it.

If you like to play with cameras, you should love this one.

Cheers,

-- Mark

I have done enough work with the Noblex 150 U to know that it is capable of outstanding results. But yes, you have to follow the loading instructions to a T and there are a number of other small details that can ruin your work if you don't pay attention to them. And some things just do not seem to work on my camera, even following the instructions, for example the battery check.

As you point out, it can be important to be very close to things unless what you are after is just a big panorama with no foreground information. After all, you are using a 50mm lens that to make an image that is a full 120 cm wide. A 50mm lens even on 6X9 (which is really only about 85 cm wide) gives an extremely wide field so just imagine what adding about 35 cm to the long dimension does for the Noblex.

Sandy King

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