Unless I have a terrific brainstorm between now and when I return this gem back to Santa Claus, these will be my first and last images from the Semi Achromatic Series I.  The Semi Achromatic are/have been very hard on my now 60yr old eyes.  I'm just now snapping out of about a 4 day headache from doing the last of these shots.  It's strange, I don't get headaches right after I shoot, they wait a day and then go crazy on me.  All in all though, Jim having the kindness to loan this lens to me was a blessing.  Again, thanks Jim.

My observations are that the Series I gives an image a sparkle and excitement that's the best of what the Pinkhams are all about.

The first of the 3 shots 'Apothecary' refers to the Apothecary type jars that pharmicists used to use to stockpile and separate their chemicals/various sundries.  This was shot @F11 because shooting wideopen produced nothing but detailess white.   A point of interest is that I used a beauty light from behind to illuminate the jar, but what you're seeing behind the jar is an almost perfectly formed disc of flare produced by the lens which obscures the light.

Metal Bowl was exposed between F6-8. and this was shot w/Ilford FP4.

Ever hear the phrase 'A light went on in my head' when somebody refers to the seemingly spontaneous generation of an idea?   This is what I was thinking of when I did this shot.   This is a 25 watt lightbulb.  exp. was also halfway bet. F6-8.   I used up my last 2 sheets of Polaroid doing this shot.  I sick about running out of Polaroid, but happy it was used up on this shot.

     Santa Claus came back to my house for a second time just after Christmas, and this time he was disquised as Jim Galli.  After showing me some of his wonderful toys including one of the nicest 5x7 wooden Graflexes I've ever seen, I was presented w/his 12" Pinkham Smith Semi-Achromatic Ser I which he has loaned me for a brief while to play with, and for that, I'm eternally grateful.  I never thought I'd be able to shoot with all three of the major lenses from Pinkham Smith line.

     I'm going to shoot as much as I can in my fashion and see what happens.   I've shot enough to notice the difference in personalities between my bucket, the SA Series III, and the SA Series I.   Jim's Series I is 'SPARKLING', w/a lot of 'POP/FIZZ' kind of boldness.   The glow/flare hangs closer/tends to produce a narrower band of flare around whatever SM is producing the glow.   The Series III is naunced and crisp and cerebral, the Series I is visceral and bold, it's got 'Panache'.  

    Take these as generalizations that may not hold true for every shot, because each shot I've ever shot w/the Ser. III, is different and sometimes way different and I'm sure Jim would say the same thing, and in terms of what I've said about these lenses and their 'personalities', depending on the shot, they could very 'switch places' in what they produce.   Unpredictability is their ultimate charm anyway.

   This is my first shot w/the Ser I.   Picking up on what I've learned from the Ser. III, I decided to go straight 'down the pike' into one of my beauty dishes w/the modeling light on, and see if I could come up w/something.   This is very similar to a beauty dish, its a mid-grey coated 18" refector that's no longer sold by White Lightning.  I can't fathom why they quit producing this reflector, because I've always considered its light very beautiful because of it's grey tone texture instead of the white coating most reflectors/beauty dishes tend to have.     Being mid-grey instead of white, I used this reflector to shoot into because I thought I'd have more of a chance of getting detail/nuance instead of garish/detailess white when shooting at a light source like this w/this type of lens.

   I took several shots to approach getting something I liked, since wideopen F6 shooting at this produced nothing but a white garish, detailess nightmare.   Around F11 brought in some detail and nuance w/Polaroid 804(the last of my 804 will be expended on my work w/Jims Ser I.).

   Thanks again to Jim, I'm taking care of the lens, nobody else goes near it.  After this project is over I get to say I had my hands on a Semi-Achromatic Ser. I  from 'Santa Claus' long enough experience this great lens close-up.

Firts off, I'm down to maybe 10-15 sheets left of my old Polaroid 804 film, these sheets are at least 10yrs old and probably older since the date on the box this film came from has long since faded.  I'm so amazed that the old Polaroid film came through for this shot.   I'm probably done w/Polaroid 804 when I run out of what I have left since boxes of this film are going for an insane price of $300-$500 a box.   I've done a lot of crazy things in my life, but buying film in excess of $30.00 a sheet isn't going to be one of 'em.

This is called 'Ring' for obvious reasons,  this thing started out life as a candle holder which I thought was novel.   I love the curios/'doo dads'/nic nacs/novelties and all of the out of the way stuff I get from Michaels art store and some of the discount stores that come cheap at bet. 99cents and $2.00.

     This image is 'Contre Jour', French for 'backlight', yeah, it sounded better to me in French.  This is the last shot I've done with the SA and I think it reflects what this lens can do when the operator has gone a bit up the learning curve.   These are called 'portrait'  or  'soft focus' lenses  but depending on the lighting scheme you can change the character/intensity of whatever softness the lens conveys to a particular subject matter.

     I don't pretend to know every lighting scheme that will work w/this lens, I'm still scratching the surface w/F6, but in terms of me personally going forward w/this particular lens, I've gone forward w/the premise that frontal lighting results in halation everywhere.   I've stayed away from frontal lighting, and used primarily three-quarter/sidelight/backlight and mostly but not all the time, at about a stop in illumination below the stop marked on the lens.

    This lens flares out the light it sees, said another way, it does more w/less or at least that's the illusion.  With illumination coming from the side or back things are more contrasty and with less illumination, less halation.  You can control the halation(the intensity of the glow), and the character of the lens w/your illumination.    Check out my 'Goggles' shot here, there's strong halation on either end of the goggles, I liked it, and felt it did something for the shot, now coming back to this shot, there's just a smattering of light, and the character of the glow is much more subtle. 

    I layed a Prototo 7" reflector on its side on a middle grey matt board on top of a stool so the front and back ends ended up sagging down, so I could line up the lens down low where the lens was.   The matt board was sagging down and luckily for me it help force the perspective. 

    Illumination was by my strobes modeling ligh through a snoot which had a disc shaped grid inside to knock down the light and smooth it out so there was no harsh outline projected onto the matt board.  I metered the light pattern left on either side of the reflector with globe of my meter half in light, half in shadow giving me a reading of F4.  The lens was opened to F6 and the shutter time was roughly 4 seconds.   This is what has worked for me on several of these shots, knocking down the illumination, and/or using it smaller areas which is what this amounts to w/side or backlight, and increasing the shutter time.

     The Pinkham Smiths have a feel to the glow that cannot be fully described.  

     OMT, there was no frontal illumination used on this shot, all the light came from the snoot which above and behind the reflector, I adjusted the snoots light so that it came through the center hole of the reflector resulting in the photons you see bouncing around the dappled(or whatever you call it) reflector surfaces.  It was interesting how the reflector took light exclusively from behind and bounced it around in the patterns you see.

     Actually two more things, this lens focuses from the back forward, my focus point was the crescent shaped highlight at rear bottom central hole in the reflector, and the combination of eyeball focus and chemical focus carried forward to the front.   With of my other lenses particularly when doing a portrait, I'll select a point knowing the focus will carry mostly backwards, not so w/this lens.  

    I've still got a lot to learn, but I think I'm getting a handle on the focus.

    Take care

Some of you will be shocked by what this lens did to this image.  Well............ Jim Galli won't be shocked, because he knows which lens it is, hopefully he'll stay 'mum' until everybody guesses.  Which lens it it???   I give you some hints:  It isn't a Pinkham & Smith, not a Verito, not a Universal Heliar, not a Taylor-Hobson-Cooke 'knuckler'.

Besides me, Jim Galli has one, Steve Nichols has one, and the lens is very common, very cheap,  a different brand of the same lens formula as this lens usually sells for up to TEN TIMES what this lens sells for. 

I took this shot w/the lens slightly modified, a modification I did a number of years ago when I first got this lens which was my first 'Classic Lens', and they've talked of this modification on the other forums as if it were a new discovery, 'ah well', so be it.

I uploaded this image to show that this lens under certain conditions/lighting set-ups, can rival anything the Pinkhams and all the other high priced classics can do.  It would be the first lens I'd recommend for someone starting out w/classic lenses, which as everybody here knows have a learning curve.  

After doing the shot '3 Glasses' w/my P&S Semi-Achromatic, I left the light set-up in place, and placed 3 shot glasses(shot glasses for measuring out alcohol for mixed drinks) on the brushed aluminum, and changed to this lens.  I was both pleasantly surprised and but also shocked at what I saw on the groundglass which is what you see here.

I'm sure you folks will guess the answer fairly quickly, and hopefully, folks who peruse this from outside the site, will be intrigued by, and find renewed interest in this lens. 

Take care