Wednesday, September 12, 2012

Speed Graphic

IMG_8961.jpg by Bruce Garner
IMG_8961.jpg, a photo by Bruce Garner on Flickr.


I believe this is an Anniversary Speed Graphic. This belongs to a friend of mine. He's a photojournalists with over 20 years experience, but he's never shot this one. He bought it off a veteran that used this in the pacific theater during WW2. This camera has literally been to war. I've given it a light cleaning to make it easier to use, but I'm reluctant to do too much to it. The battle scares give it character.

Tuesday, September 11, 2012

Stitched 4x5

Stitched 4x5 by Bruce Garner
Stitched 4x5, a photo by Bruce Garner on Flickr.
First portrait shot using the borrowed Speed Graphic. The 137mm lens is crazy wide and the ground glass is sort of difficult to frame with. The combination of those two facts explains how miss-framed the paper backdrop.


This one was an experiment. The Speed Graphic I'm borrowing doesn't have a X-sync port on the shutter. So what I did was set the F-stop to 11 and the shutter speed to bulb. I opened the shutter with a cable release in my right hand then tripped my Alien Bee with a Cactus V4 in my left hand, then released the shutter. The Alien Bee is in a small octabox above and left.
This is a 4x5 negative, but my V500 only has a scan window of about 3 1/4" wide. So I scanned it in 2 pieces and stitched it together.
Arista EDU Ultra 4x5 film
Diafine developer (3+3)

I'm developing in trays since I don't have any hangers or daylight tanks for 4x5. I can't even use taco development because my JoBo is too short.