Testing a Bausch & Lomb 6" f/6.3 Metrogon on 8x10

The 6" (~153mm) Metrogon is one of those lenses that often comes up for discussion as it has a bit of a "mythos" about it. It was apparently used by the US Military for aerial photography, and is based off of (or identical to) the "Topogon" lens designed by Carl Zeiss (see my Nikkor 2.5cm f/4 review for more information on that design).

I thought a large-format topogon would be interesting, considering my small-format equivalent, so when I found one on eBay with a built-in shutter and on a lensboard made for my Wista 8x10, I splurged and bought it (though it was really pretty cheap).

The lens is quite a big and heavy beast and is quite striking with its extremely curved fishbowl-esque front and back elements:

I had some film to kill so I went out to try it on 8x10. I was quite pleased with how well the lens performed:

That last one was made with a 100mm Linhof slip-on filter made for my 75mm Biogon, which perfectly slips into the front element "hood" built into the lens. It made the tonality of the sky and trees much more as I envisioned it.

Overall I like the lens and it definitely works well as an in-between focal length longer than my 120mm Nikkor and shorter than my 210mm Kowa.

So how good is it? Well, the basic scans I did on these sheets were 180 megapixels or so total - 1500 DPI for the 8x10 sheet. Here is a crop of the first scan at 100% resolution, which would be equivalent to about a 12-foot print at typical monitor resolutions (96 DPI):

Not bad! Of course this isn't really anything special for an 8x10 negative, but still. Oh, just as an aside, all of these were taken at f/32.

Dead River VLOG

No pictures for this post, but I wanted to share this video that I just uploaded today.

This is the VLOG I mentioned in my previous post. In it you can see the locations where I shot and the actual photos being shot. I hope you enjoy!

Also, a bit of a milestone, this is my 300th blog post!

Dead River, North Florida

Took me a while, but I finally got all my film developed and scanned.

This trip with Dominick was a lot of fun. The "Dead River" may or may not be the official name of this place - it's an offshoot of the Alapaha River. If you Google search Dead River Florida you'll find a different place.

It's a very interesting place with lots of hills and limestone. The river runs to a dead-end where there is a siphon that sucks the water underground - definitely don't want to be swimming here!

There's even a Horseshoe Bend -esque 180 degree turn in the river that I need to photograph.

Anyway, here's a variety of images from the trip - mostly taken with my 58mm XL. B&W film is T-Max 100 developed in FX-39, 1:14, and color film is Velvia 50:

 

At the end of the river there was a swirling eddy near the bank that I took several images of. Here's a few of them, I haven't decided which I like best. First is one with Dominick posing further along the bank:

Here's a horizontal version:

And some color versions:

I'm looking forward to exploring more of this place. I also have some video from this trip I still need to edit - I will post that soon.

Dead River Canoe Trip Preview

Last week Dominick and I went out again along the Alapaha but specifically to what's called the "Dead River."

I shot 26 sheets and have been developing/scanning all weekend. Here's a quick preview. This is an image near the end of the river, where it sinks into the earth after rushing through a series of twists and turns.

Taken on Velvia 50, with my 58mm XL + center filter:

Wacissa River Canoeing

As I mentioned last post, my second canoe trip was along the Wacissa River. We went to the so-called "Slave Canal."

I took a few photos along the way at a large Live Oak that had fallen into the river. Here was the shot I printed and showed last post:

And here is Dominick on top of the same tree:

He was shooting down at the roots, which I shot as well from a different perspective:

While canoeing I shot one image from the front with my Rolleiflex:

At the Slave Canal I wandered a bit in the wilderness and shot a bit as well: