question about view cameras and focusing

BetterSense · Jun 18, 2009

thanks for the drawings. I always considered the image to be flipped, but now I understand that it's actually the very same image that will appear on the print...just rotated 180 degrees.

dpurdy · Jun 18, 2009

Well I am thinking of the plane as a 2 D plane. If a child shows you a drawing and you tell him to try looking at it upside down, I think only the very rare child would turn the drawing over and look at the back. If I show my friend a photo with unclear gravity and he orients it bottom up and I tell him he is looking at it upside down, he would be a joker to turn it over and look at the back of the print and say, Ah you are right it does look better.

To me upside down is to spin a flat object around and look at it upside down. If you were to take a famous flower painting to a dealer and have it upside down you would have it like drawing number 3. IF it was instead like drawing number 2, when the dealer turned it round the right way he would exclaim "But it is backwards! It must be fake"

So that I think is how my head sees upside down. Now if you are talking about turning a coffee cup upside down that is a different matter. Or if my wife says I would prefer you have me upside down tonight honey I would be confused. You mean like yen yang or like canines?
Dennis

BrianShaw · Jun 18, 2009

dpurdy said:
Or if my wife says I would prefer you have me upside down tonight honey I would be confused. You mean like yen yang or like canines?

I understand what your wife means.

I've more often heard the term "laterally reversed" rather than 'backward' It might not make any difference in this conversations... so I'll just go back to my private fantasy.

dpurdy · Jun 18, 2009

Being from Los Angeles would give you more insight in these matters. Now if she said she was wanting upside down and backwards. I think I would be in real trouble.
Dennis

BetterSense · Jun 18, 2009

Since this is now my thread about anything to do with view cameras (although I do like the turn it's taken recently); a question about film.

Do people shoot color negative film in large-format cameras? Is it common? It seems to me that the big landscapy/'calendar photo' genre photos would be shot on something like Velvia. But unless you have a 4x5 projector, it would seem printing would have to be done digitally for the most part, wheras you could put a sheet of color negative film in a 4x5 enlarger.

BrianShaw · Jun 18, 2009

I shoot B&W and E-6. No C-41 for me because I only know one place left to process it and not willing to travel to that lab.

David William White · Jun 18, 2009

I occasionally shoot Ektachrome 4x5 (because I scored a pile cheap ($1/sheet)) and make 8x10 contact negatives for various alt processes.

mwdake · Jun 18, 2009

"Why is the camera upside down?", to which I sometimes tell them that they have to stand on their head.

When I rotate the back on my Super Graphic they ask why does the image not rotate with it.

BrianShaw · Jun 18, 2009

mwdake said:
When I rotate the back on my Super Graphic they ask why does the image not rotate with it.

That's because the Graphic is a press camera. The image will probably rotate with the back on a real view camera.

ic-racer · Jun 19, 2009

mwdake said:
When I rotate the back on my Super Graphic they ask why does the image not rotate with it.

You need to tell them that one needs to rotate the LENS to do that

colrehogan · Jun 19, 2009

BetterSense said:
Since this is now my thread about anything to do with view cameras (although I do like the turn it's taken recently); a question about film.

Do people shoot color negative film in large-format cameras? Is it common? It seems to me that the big landscapy/'calendar photo' genre photos would be shot on something like Velvia. But unless you have a 4x5 projector, it would seem printing would have to be done digitally for the most part, wheras you could put a sheet of color negative film in a 4x5 enlarger.

Yes, people do shoot color negative film in large format cameras. Is it common? I don't know. I shoot 8x10 color negative and color transparency. I have fun with taking the transparencies to work and projecting them on the wall with an overhead projector. It's really nice to see them projected. You could do the same with the 4x5 and a mask of some sort.

As for printing from a transparency I have had internegatives made from several of my 8x10 transparencies and gotten prints made that way.

2F/2F · Jun 19, 2009

BetterSense said:
I don't know anything about view cameras and have never even seen one used. I understand that you can look at the back of the camera and see the image upside-down on the ground glass, and then you use that to focus the camera.

So that means the lens is focused on the ground-glass surface. So how, when you put in a film holder and retract the darkslide, is the lens focused on the film then? It would seem that due to the thickness of the film holder, it would be in front of the ground glass surface. Do you remove the ground glass before inserting the film holder?

The frame that holds the glass is movable. You move it out of the way to put the film holder in, and the film in the holder ends up where the ground glass was (you hope). There are springs that connect the ground glass frame to the rest of the back. These springs both hold the film holder tightly against the back and make it so you don't have to totally remove the frame when inserting a film holder.

David A. Goldfarb · Jun 19, 2009

It's still possible to print Ilfochromes by projection from LF transparencies.

Joe VanCleave · Jun 19, 2009

This upside down/backwards conundrum is even worse when you're shooting paper negatives, and can't look through a transparent film base to see the image the way you did on the ground glass, but rather you have to imagine the front side of the ground glass and how the projected image thereon appears.

Regarding the whole issue of left/right reversal of images in mirrors, I've often wondered why mirrors also don't reverse things up/down; that is, why is there a preferential axis of reversing in the horizontal direction? One resource that helped me understand that question better was the late Martin Gardner's book "The Ambidextrous Universe."

~Joe

John Koehrer · Jun 19, 2009

I suspect the difference between C41 & transparency is the printing industry was able to get a better result by using the transparency film as the original. To the client it also looks REAL impressive when you put it on a light box and a negative looks kinda orange & blah and it's a much harder sell.

David A. Goldfarb · Jun 19, 2009

Transparencies are also convenient, because you don't need to print them to see what they look like, and if the transparency is done right, it's the standard for the printer to match. A negative leaves more room for interpretation at every stage.

question about view cameras and focusing

BetterSense

dpurdy

BrianShaw

dpurdy

BetterSense

BrianShaw

David William White

mwdake

BrianShaw

ic-racer

colrehogan

2F/2F

David A. Goldfarb

Moderator

Joe VanCleave

John Koehrer

David A. Goldfarb

Moderator

question about view cameras and focusing

Moderator

Moderator

Privacy & Transparency

Privacy & Transparency