More Polaroids - casual portraits around the Fine Arts Building

I took some portraits for fun today of some friends during my break at the Fine Arts Building at VSU.

These are all handheld, rangefinder focused and composed, with a Nikon SB-800 flash on Fuji C100 film. They came out really well! Of course taken with my converted Polaroid 900 and Schneider Xenotar 135mm f/3.5.

I "scanned" them with my DSLR as my scanner is currently inoperative on my new computer. They are gorgeous in hand; these shots don't do them justice. Oh well.

Short trip to Reed Bingham with 4x5

I took some shots out at Reed Bingham last week but only finally tonight got around to developing them.

I'm having some trouble getting consistent 4x5 results because of problems with my plumbing here. I don't have running water in the darkroom right now, plus the water that I am bringing in from a spigot is too hot.

Only a couple of these sheets came out that great due to these problems but I'm still okay with that, as at least the palmetto photo came out really nice.

I used T-Max 100 and Rodinal 1:50 for these. Lenses used are as noted.

210mm Graphic Kowa:

Nikkor-T 500mm:

Nikkor-M 300mm:

Sunset Cemetery part 2

I shot another roll of film at Sunset Cemetery Thursday to try to improve a shot I had taken the day before. I also took another shot that I had seen the other day.

This is with Ilford FP4+ film, developed in Rodinal 1:50 at 68F for 6:30. I haven't decided which version I like better of the first photo:

Polaroid photos from Dragon*Con 2012

Now it's time for something completely different...

You might remember my posts about the Polaroid conversion I have with a Schneider Xenotar 135mm f/3.5 lens. It takes both 4x5 film and Polaroid holders, which I shoot with 3x4 Fujiroids, the 100C and 3000B varieties.

I went to Dragon*Con over Labor Day weekend and had a ball shooting a bunch of these Fujiroids while roaming the convention. They were all basically wide-open and shot off the cuff. I love how they came out. Here's the best ones from the convention:

Sunset Cemetery at Sunset - 6x12 panoramic images

I'm a little behind in posting things so I'm going to try to post several things by the end of the week.

I just got a Horseman 6x12 back to replace the 6x17 that I had. It was frustrating to use because it was an expansion back, meaning I had to frame the image on a separate ground-glass assembly, then switch in the actual roll-film holder, and finally shoot. The worst part about this was that I could not use any lenses that were shorter than 90mm (a ~75mm might have worked, but I don't own one). Plus, anything longer than 90mm started to clip on the sides and not really be 6x17. A 210mm was already clipped to a 6x12 instead.

The 6x12 back instead requires you to focus on the normal GG, and then you put the back on. It works really nicely and it is really easy to use on the Chamonix 4x5 because it already has frame lines for 6x12 images (as well as 6x7 and 6x9).

Here's three images from Valdosta's historic Sunset Cemetery, appropriately taken as the sun was setting soon after a storm cleared. I am most pleased with the first one, though I wish there was more shadow detail. I'm going back today at the same time to retry it with a different film. I was actually leaving as I came upon that wonderful scene, so I had nothing but some cheap Arista EDU 100 film that I've never shot before. Today I'm bringing some Ilford FP4+ which I've used before, or I might shoot it with Tri-X 400.

The other images were with some HP5+ I had sitting around. I'm trying to shoot a bunch of 120 film that I was given and haven't had the chance to shoot. The roll-film back is especially nice for this.

The first two were with the Nikon 90mm f/8 lens, and the last was with a 210mm f/9 Graphic Kowa:

Stay tuned for some interesting posts in the next couple of days!