Hi Folks

 I'd picked up one of the most interestingly shaped glass curios I've seen, and of course I had to shoot it.  This is the shot, and I named the it 'T', for triangle.   The glass was reflecting some fairly intense highlights(for this lens), so I closed down the lens to bet. F6-F8.  The makers of this lens were I believe possibly trying to tell us something by the way the F-stops are engraved on the lens,  it's  engraved F4.5.........F5...........F6.........Then F8.  

So far in my very limited experience w/the the Ser. III, F6 has in fact, seemed a 'sweet spot' for me,  so maybe the other marks are 'benchmarks' as far as what starts and what trails off at these stops.   I'm sure I'm going to find out.

I shot this w/a very old Polaroid, and it still turned out despite being from a box that's about 6 yrs old. 

I angled this thing at a fairly sharp angle toward the lens and the Ser. III reacted by rendering the front of it w/a still fairly crisp image over a soft one, and then merging the back end into PURE SMOKE. 

I loaded up this image in my office w/the lights out last night, it looks too dark now when compared to the original Polaroid this morning so I've taken the time to match the jpeg to exactly what the Polaroid looks like and reloaded.  Nothing else has been done to the shot.

Happy 4th of July Everybody

 While I was at the drugstore, I saw some clear ligtbulbs and this translucent/transparent set of goggles that screamed 'take me home and shoot me', so I bought 'em and strarted brainstorming a shot.  This is the result.

 The goggles begged to be illuminated from below, so I busted out my transparency lightbox, got a straw, sprayed that w/black paint, and slipped it over my thermometer so its metal stem  wouldn't 'blare out'  and distract, and used it with the base/dial sitting on the lightbox to hold up the goggles. 

I'm getting a little better at focusing this thing, and maybe that was because I was shooting these goggles and not a round globe.  I didn't get a headache focusing this shot, but it was still work.  

I think this shot shows how crisp one image can be while being inside of a very soft version of that same image.  

When it came to my portrait/soft focus lenses, I was going to save experimenting w/my Ser. III for last figuring that the practice from stretching out the other ones would get me in shape for Ser. III, but I guess there's been a change in plans.

A word about the very old Polaroid 804-809 film I'm lucky to still have, much of it gets better at it ages, because of  the creation of  patina and texture from partial exhaustion of the chemicals in the receptor pod which spreads unevenly after it's gotten so old.  I didn't do anything to this image, the area above the googles was just how it came out, and I like it.   It's gonna be a sad day when I run out of this stuff.

Ilumination of the goggles was from the lighbox below it, I had fainter ilumination on the background.  Exposure was at F6, which seems to be a 'sweet spot' for this lens.  Going from F6 in the direction of F4.5 gradually dials in more glow/the soft part of the image, and dials out the sharp part.  

Whether by intent or by accident, and I'm sure it was by intent, you open up or close down to emphasize/de-emphaisize either the soft or sharp part of the image while they are superimposed over each other, which is a very diff proposition than a lens that produces one image that goes from sharp to soft.  Incredible from a lens created so long ago.

I've been humbled by this lens, and feel very lucky to be able to find a way forward with it.

    I've been looking through my viewfinder at different subject matter w/this lens since I bought and restored it, a restoration which took about 7 months.  The Ser. III is the softest lens I've ever had on a camera, when looking at something illuminated by bright light, and pointing it in certain directions, I wasn't able to make out anything I was looking at but a garish/blown up/blown out mess.    There are lighting scenarios where using this lens isn't going to work, and the challenge of using this lens is matching a lighting scheme to this lens where the lens can perform its best.

    Over the course of having the lens, I started playing around w/lighting schemes and I gradually started to think of  subdued light as the way forward for me and this lens, and while juggling around low light schemes and checking 'em out w/this lens on my Toyo, l began to see whiffs of this lens potential. 

    The Ser. III is the most extreme example of how lenses like these are really 2 lenses, they're one type of lens giving a soft dreamy rendering w/a lot of pop around the highlights in scenes w/very bright lighting, they become a more subtle type of lens capable of more nuance in more subdued lighting situations w/more subdued highlights.   

     The lens is very difficult to focus under the best of circumstances, and you really have to fish for where the focus is.    Since the lens is so soft you can be looking through the groundglass and not realize you've passed by that 'sweet spot' where there's a sharp image overlaid w/a soft one.  The plane of focus is ever so thin, as it was on this shot, where I'm at 4 feet away from the Subject Matter w/a 16 inch lens.

     I shot this w/some very old Polaroid 804(8x10 instant) using natural light and a single modeling light from one of my strobes.  I went through about 7-8 Polaroids, until coming onto the lighting scheme you see here.  Shutter time for this shot  was 'one thousand one, one thousand two, and then since the light  coming through the windows wouldn't wait, I immediately shot a sheet of both FP4 and Porta 160 color to see what that would look like.

    What I believe you can see in this image is the sharp image overlaid with a soft one, particularly on camera right as you look at the edge of the glass globe, either that or I'm seeing things.  You tell me.

    Focusing this damn thing for the better part of 15 minutes straight before taking this shot gave me a headache, but I think I learned some things about the lens. 

I am blessed with 3 of Mr. Pinkham's lenses.  2 Series IV and a single 9" Series V Synthetic.  I have not done the Synthetic justice before now.  Last weekend I got to do 2 shots with it.  A case of being perfectly happy doing something else, seeing light interacting with a possible subject, and acting on that by setting up the equipment to get the shot.  This is on 8X10 with a good long bellows extension.  Wide open, I calculated and equivalent f9.  This has whetted my appetite for this lens, it is simply marvelous!

oil decanters #1

Eight new paper negatives of this set up today.  But I happen to know my friend Jonathan is just a wee bit partial to Pinkham & Smith lenses.  This one is I believe the first image my new-2-me Pinkham Bi-Quality 14" lens has made for me.  I used good old Kodak RC Polycontrast paper with an Aerial Recon yellow filter in the light path.  That cuts the contrast to about half.  Paper negs usually suffer from too much contrast.  These have luscious tones.  I would urge you to click on the link for a larger version of this scan.  It's trite to say you can't see it all in a 90kb .jpg, but in this case the Bi-Quality has packed a powerful punch that may only be seen in a print held in your hand.

apricot blossums 

A larger version of this may be seen here;

I hope that while I'm lucky enough to be the current steward of this lens I can tap just a small portion of it's capacity.