Tag: folder camera

A Touch of Autumn

I just had to put this photo out there today.

I recently acquired a new-to-me Certo 6 camera, It has the legendary Carl Zeiss Tessar 80mm f2.8 lens.  The camera and lens date from around 1953 (give or take).  I shot this at f2.8 to check out the DOF and sharpness of the lens.  I’m amazed.  The Ektar 100 came through, too, with beautiful colors.

The Certo 6 is an odd folder in the sense that it has many features that other folding cameras (bellows cameras) of the same time era do not have.  Also, because current 120 film is thinner than that of the 50s, there is a potential for overlap of images – which I did not experience – and other quirks that need to be worked out.  I really like folders because they force you to slow down and think, as well as consider what you want to see on your film.

Square format is a compositional challenge as well.  As this is part of my first roll through the camera, composition was not of any real importance for me, but using the camera was.  For some reason I got only 9 out of 12 exposures on the film, but that is something I think I have figured out, and will run another roll of play film through the camera to check out my ideas . . . like I said, ya gotta think sometimes!

More to come.

Whaler’s Cove with a 1937 Welta Weltur

There is something so different in the quality of a photo taken with a film camera, rather than a digital camera.  It is apparent even more so when it is done with an uncoated lens from 1937.  The lens in question is a lovely Schneider Kreuznach Xenar 2.8, 75mm, taken using 1937 Welta Weltur camera.  It is a folding camera that takes the still-available 120mm film.  I used Ektar 100 by Kodak, and applied the Sunny 16 rule for manual exposures.

I have a 6×6 version with a 6×4.5 reduction mask.  I thought I had removed the mask – but hadn’t.  All my supposedly square images came out rectangular!  I stitched two images together in PS6 and then tediously removed threads and dots of dust that were apparent even after scanning with Digital Ice on the Epson V600.

This photo makes me think of landscape paintings of the 1700s and 1800s – especially that turquoise sky.  Mayhap a painting will follow.

For the Vernal Equinox

Sycamore-3

This has been a crazy several weeks . . . primarily, car problems leading to searching for a new one to replace the one which died, and finally taking the plunge.  I got what I wanted.

However, the fact is, life came to a halt.  No time for photography, only time to take a quick peek at what I have already done.  Today, I got out and about, but this is from a roll I did a couple of weeks ago.

A sycamore tree with new leaves!  How glorious is that?  Taken with Portra 400, Voigtlander RF, Heliar 105mm, 6×9 folder.