Langdale Park - first 4x5 images

On Inner Perimeter Road, near Exit 22 on I-75, is little-known Langdale Park. This park is a massive preserve that straddles the banks of the Withlacoochee River. I discovered this park about two years ago, but due to rain it was mostly flooded for quite a while. I have finally started exploring it more recently and have a couple images to share.

The first image was shot with a Schneider 150mm APO Symmar f/5.6 lens on my Zone VI Wista field camera. This lens is similar to a 40mm lens on 35mm and is one of my favorite focal lengths. The camera was set to f/16 and the exposure was 1 second. The highlights were tamed by a circular polarizing filter. I used T-Max 100 film and developed normally in T-Max RS:

This next image was heavily back-lit from the sun reflecting off the water. Again using a CPL filter I was able to tame the high-contrast scene and get a usable negative. This image was shot with a Nikon 360mm f/8 telephoto lens. This lens is the longest I can focus on my field camera due to the limited bellows draw. The lens can also be used as a 500mm and 720mm by changing the rear element. The exposure was at f/32 for 2 seconds.

As you can tell I am a fan of "warm-toned" images. I feel the slight coloration enhances the image.


I decided to print the first image in my darkroom. After a few tests and such I was able to print it satisfactorily. It was still a very high-contrast negative so I ended up using a #0 filter on it as well as overexposing it and shortening the development to decrease the contrast. I was using up the last bit of some expired Ilford VC Fiber paper so it is a little curled. Here is the result (an 8x10):

Langdale Park is quite big so I look forward to further exploration in the future.