Here in NJ, we have the Delaware Water Gap Recreational Area, aka the Tocks Island Dam project, which absent the shrieks of the people who lived there, would have flooded a gigantic swath of wonderful natural area. Some people let the state take over their property, and some did not. The project died a gruesome death and left behind whole farms, houses and a small town to just rot away. The whole thing was later declared a national preserve and there it sits. This is one such left-behind farm. Following are two frames of one of the sheds.  One taken with a Voigtlander brass cannon, and the other with a Wolly Verito. 

Voigtlander:  It definitely imparts an old-world look.  I placed the shed dead center in the frame -- max focus for a petzval, and then did lift and shift to reposition the shed so as to not be dead center. There's flare in the frame -- probably from a hole in the ND filter I was using, blah, blah. about 10-11" on 4x5

Verito:  The focus is definitely on the shed, in fact, you can see the weaving in the window screening.  BUT, the wild flowers at the bottom of the frame appear to be better focused.  I attribute this to the Verito having a curved focal plane. 14.5" on 4x5

These are taken with a Verito 14.5" open to f/6. It will open all the way to f/4.5, but my cable release has too short a throw for the studio shutter, so f/6 is all I can get for now.  It turns out that is enough. What a difference. Compare f/6 to f/8. Now it looks on purpose.

"In the car"  This time I stepped into the car to get more of the interior. As well, I didn't give a hoot if the light from the window got blown out -- wanted more of the interior. Note that the shopping cart in front appears to be more in focus than the door in the rear -- an interesting effect since the focus was on the vines just in front of the door. I attribute this to two things.  One is that there is less points of light to 'glow' so it looks sharper. The second is that the Verito probably has a curved focal plane, and since the camera was level and I shifted to get more of the floor, the cart fell into "sharper" or less aberrant part of the curve.  Dunno -- perhaps better minds can chime in. BUT -- the effect is that the cart seems to be floating and coming towards you -- almost menacing. Hah!  now to see if I can do it again with a different subject (i.e. on purpose).

And, as it turns out, the same thing happened with this one. This time the focus is on the steps leading into the darker of the two cars.  And, it is indeed focused --  "WATCH YOUR STEP" painted on the 2nd step is sharp.  BUT the tracks in front "appear" to be more in focus. Again I attribute this to front shift and the Verito's having a curved plane.

This is an abandoned commuter train coach. The idea was to get the effect of looking in the doorway into something otherworldy.  Efke 25 8x10, 14.5 inch Verito at f/8. At this size it just looks out of focus, so the next one is a tighter crop. I think I like the crop better. 

Next time, I'm going to open it more.

8x10

Crop

Jonathan's 12" Wolly pictures inspired me to try my hand at something. It's also a 12" with the fuzzulator's stop shaved off. This was shot with the fuzzer unscrewed about 2.5 times and the iris shut down to f/11. No swing, and noattempt to get everything focused in the frame. The subject is some abandoned commuter train coaches. The focus is on the lamp-like thing just in front of the second train car. Film is Efke 25 8x10. It doesnt look like much in this resized presentation, so the follow on is a 4x5 crop. In the latter, you can see the effect better.

Full 8x10:

 Cropped 4x5

I was introduced to this site by Stephan Dietrtich when I was looking for Wollensak Verito examples.  Wow!  Finally found a site that reflects my interest. By way of introduction, I'm a computer architect working at nothing really important. 'Nuff said about that. I started off in the music biz as a composer. Got tired of that. Then I found film photography with LF equipment. Much more interesting and rewarding. Although I have sharp lenses in the kit, I've found that the classic lenses work better for me here in the east coast rain forest. Especially in winter when there's less clutter. The challenge of east coast landscape photography is that there's just so much stuff in the way. Grand west-coast visions just aren't available here. Yes, we have mountains (what the west-coasters call foothills), but you need to be in a balloon or a cherry-picker to see them through the brush. Thus, I'm left with pointing into the forest instead of around it and that's where the classic lenses shine. IN the forest, it's all about shape and pattern -- seeing the forest instead of all those trees. Sure, you can get the effect by shaking the camera or just blurring things with bad focus, but it's not the same. Classic lenses, especially portrait lenses, allow one to narrow down the plane of sharp focus just so much better and with more control. Within that plane, petzval formulas will even allow selective focus on the same plane. And, that's just what's needed in the forest. 

Add to that the glow that can be obtained with an old rapid-rectilinear shot wide open, or the graphics effect that happen with a single meniscus and on and on, and the possibilities sometimes become overwhelming. 

And so, I offer some efforts that show where I am in the journey. What I love about this site is that I no longer need to feel cowed by what the 'contemporary' world is doing. Very gratifying to find wide-open to be a more interesting direction.

George

This is in Watchung Reservation, NJ in March 2008. I used a Voigtlander Heliar 300mm at around f/6 with the focus on the lit up tree. It was evening and the sun was just above the horizion.

Light Source