A few from around Kosci on expired film

John Power
Posts: 94
Joined: 26 May 2021, 10:18

A few from around Kosci on expired film

Postby John Power » 23 Jan 2022, 21:53

I tested some old Agfa Agfapan APX 100 last week, it had expired in the same year that I finished high school, 1997. It was still shooting just fine and I settled on something between iso 50 and 100 and shot a bunch of sheets these past few days. They're each shot on the speed graphic with the 150mm rodenstock with a yellow filter, at F32. With the yellow filter I just metered for iso50 and called it done. I'm very happy with the resulting level of exposure.

Here are three frames from my trip to Guthega this weekend. Various compositions and crops happening, I'm pretty happy with them... but the Mt Tate shot in particular still looks like a snapshot to me... Not really sure how to make these vistas look more... I'm not sure what I mean, but I guess polished? Classy? I dont know :) But anyway, I hope you get some enjoyment, or at least a sense of the place, from these.

ImageRoots on rock with brush by J P, on Flickr

ImageToward Mt Tate by J P, on Flickr

This last one is a solid crop showing just the top half of the frame... there were a lot of bushes in the foreground and it was quite windy so they were a bust. It was a shame because its a bit of work getting downward tilt on the speed graphic (dropping the bed, but that loses focus, and also looses the ability to refocus, so its a bit of to and fro, up and down to nail focus.) and the bits that I tilted for were cropped, and the areas left were compromised slightly... oh well! That was a pretty big lesson from the weekend, the graphic is not that much fun to front tilt!
ImagePorcupine rocks towards Jindy by J P, on Flickr

I whipped through a few more sheets down along a local river here on Friday morning. Those are drying now, but will try to scan them tomorrow.
Hope you had a top weekend!

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Maris
Posts: 882
Joined: 27 Jul 2012, 16:02
Location: Noosa

Re: A few from around Kosci on expired film

Postby Maris » 24 Jan 2022, 10:01

John Power, these are good pictures from my old stamping ground.
For many years I'd take a month at Charlotte Pass just to photograph on 8x10 and 4x5 every day weather permitting.

Mount Tate is a difficult subject and the view from the Kozi Road with Spencers Creek in the foreground is probably the best of it. But a dramatic cloudy sky as a backdrop is still needed and that rarely cooperates. The yellow filter shots have a sky darker than what you would get at sea level. It just goes to show how blue higher altitude skies can get.

Mount Tate beat me when I tried to climb it straight up from the Guthega River along the old T-bar line. Got above the trees but was too worn out to push through the cold and wind with the summit only a couple of hundred metres away.

The Speed Graphic front standard support can be turned around to change the back tilt into a front tilt. That's what I did with mine to get some Scheimpflug control over deep foreground to background landscapes. Here's a video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qAoHIZl9MR0

John Power
Posts: 94
Joined: 26 May 2021, 10:18

Re: A few from around Kosci on expired film

Postby John Power » 24 Jan 2022, 13:58

Maris!! That is triple-A rated, gold plated tip giving mate, thanks so much! I was confused about having only up-tilt... this will make a huge difference.

I shot some 35mm down the valley from Spencers creek last week, but it didnt even occur to me that I was looking toward Tate. I'll go back and have a look and see if I can recognise any of it.
I've been up there a fair few times, there is a creek that has good ice action in winter, dropping to the dam with the main range in the back ground... would be great to get a proper camera up there in those conditions.

But once again, thanks so much for that tip, I'll get onto it tonight. :)

Walter Glover
Posts: 1270
Joined: 31 Jul 2012, 22:31
Location: Leichhardt, NSW

Re: A few from around Kosci on expired film

Postby Walter Glover » 24 Jan 2022, 18:54

"The Speed Graphic front standard support can be turned around to change the back tilt into a front tilt. That's what I did with mine to get some Scheimpflug control over deep foreground to background landscapes."


Maris beat me to it! Main thing is now you know.

Agfapan was a favourite of mine back in the day — I'd be green with envy if I had a way of souping it that I trusted.

"but the Mt Tate shot in particular still looks like a snapshot to me... Not really sure how to make these vistas look more... I'm not sure what I mean, but I guess polished? Classy?"


Long live the snap shot! There are folk like me who eschew entirely the aspects of beauty and the rigorous pursuit of 'artistry', favouring instead direct, descriptive photography. Clear, clean images – with a complete tonal range, with appropriate depths – devoted to a motif. Stephen Shore shot 'Uncommon Places' and 'American Surfaces' on 10x8 in colour and purposefully had straight colour prints done of banal subjects in homage to the snapshot. Bottom line is there are many paths to the top of the mountain — not withstanding getting short of breath.

"They're each shot on the speed graphic with the 150mm Rodenstock with a yellow filter, at F32. "


John, I'd give your lenses a fair chance to shine, paticularly if you're going to vrop and blow up. The resolution in line pairs per millimetre peaks at about f/16 and diffraction gets to working beating the living daylights out of it pretty abruptly.

The figures, according to Kerry Thalman, for a Rodenstock Sironar N 150 mm 1:5.6 are: f/11 76 57 27 f/16 76 76 30 f/22 60 60 43 where the first number is centre, the second is midpoint and the third is corner, all with the lens on axis.
His findings show that f/16 is optimal but f/22 is still fair. What can get confusing is that in a quest for Image Circle many manufacturers cite f/22 on their spec sheets. I used to have a formula in a spread sheet that calculated optimal diffraction-limited f/stop based on lens differential between near and far focus. The point being that image sharpness degrades more by diffraction with excessive stopping down than by reduced depth of field. Sadly, like most things digital the file disappeared into the ether.
Walter Glover

"We see things not as they are. We see them as we are."
Emanuel Kant

John Power
Posts: 94
Joined: 26 May 2021, 10:18

Re: A few from around Kosci on expired film

Postby John Power » 24 Jan 2022, 20:17

Walter, thanks for that!

I've usually been sticking to F22-32, thinking it was some kind of universal sweet spot... I need to read Thalman's stuff! I didnt realise it varied by lens, but thinking now, of course it should.

I've not fired up the large format enlarger yet, but have signed up for a month of Tuesday nights at the local very nice darkroom... When I mention a classy or polished shot, I'm really talking about something that I'd look at and be immediately smitten with, without necessarily being able to say why. I'd love to make prints like that for family and friends to have in a hallway or something. I definitely do take your point though, that the straight shot has its place :)


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