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First Fruits Pinkham Series II 15"
5 apples
bamboo shoots
These represent image 1 and image 2 with a lens that is considered very difficult to use. I have only scratched the surface here. Both were done wide open at f6. The apple image had 28 inch bellows / 15 inch lens so approached 1:1 on 6.5X8.5 format. The Bamboo image had about 22 inch bellows. Of note I focuses on the near part of the curly bamboo area but the image showed best focus on the 'back' side of the curl. So chemical vs visual focus is a factor indeed. I have much to learn with this lens. Sheer pleasure. Please pardon the quick and VERY dirty scans. It's well past midnight and I'm going to bed.
Jim Galli
5 Comments
Reader Comments (5)
Great start Jim. Do the images look that "sharp" on the GG. Will you be experimenting with the lens stopped down? I would imagine small changes in F stop would create big changes in image character.
Great question Steve. No, the GG did not look as sharp as the image. The result was a surprise and much more detail than I expected. The lens is less soft than I expected. This Series II seems quite different than Jonathans series III. I may stop down a bit in some other tests but ultimately I'll bet 90% will be wide open.
I've got 8 more drying in the dark room. 4 scenes / situations, all studio. 4 at f6 and 4 at f11. Brace yourselves. Turns out I think I assembled the lens into the barrel backwards. I reversed it and got a whole different focal length and more softness.
Congrats on your first 2 attempts Jim, you hit the 'nail on the head' about the diff bet what you see and what you get. Looking through the VF there's a 'dance' between the soft and sharp version of the image. So it's not just issues of Chemical versus eyeball focus, but the actual establishing of the focus itself, or just where is sharp inside all the soft you see in the VF.
Steve is so sharp, he's right on the money w/f-stops, also I'd be willing to bet you if you shot these same shots and busted down your illumination while leaving the iris where it is, that the character of these shots would change, and it would be a distinctive change.
That's what's incredible about these lenses, you can vary the illumination a lot at a particular f-stop and get changes in character as opposed to issues of over/underexposure. Multiply this by what Steve has suggested you can do when you finally get around to changing the f-stop and the Joker is wild.
To reference to my bucket, I've now shot plenty(everything, not just the keepers), and I don't think I've scrached the surface of just F6 let alone any of the other stops. Like everybody's touched on here, I'll be getting to the other stops............If I live that long.
Congratulations Jim
Wonderful photos!!
encourages me to get off my duff.
The point about varying the illumination is most perceptive. It's as if the light particles stay in the glass, bouncing around and getting confused, before emerging out to hit the plate. So, less light from the source, less coma -- more light, more coma.
New things to play with!!