[LargeFormat] RE: Victoria

[Wilkes, Don MSER:EX]

Hi, everyone.  This started out as a reply to Brock off-list, but just
before I sent it, I thought I'd see if the rest of you have any thoughts on
my metering woes.



Dear Brock,

> Dave pretty much invited the list to join him on the Berg 
> Lake hike he's
> planning for this year.  Perhaps some of us should call his 
> bluff and make
> it a LF expedition?


Two small problems: (a) my 4x5 is an old Calumet rail, and packed in its
case it's quite large and heavy; (b) I absolutely loathe camping :}

Apart from that, it's a great idea!

Dragging the gear around has proved quite a stumbling block for me, and as a
consequence I haven't been doing much shooting at all.  Pity.  I've been
toying with converting an old folding golf cart into something that will
carry the gear box (about 25"x12"x14", and at least 25lb), but I'm still
scratching my head a bit over making it stable.  What I really should do, I
suppose, is trade in the beast on a field camera, which I could fold and
stuff into a backpack, and get out there and *shoot*, instead of whining.
But, inertia reigns...

In the meantime, my small format stuff is giving me fits. This actually does
have bearing on my LF stuff, so bear with me for a minute... After a lot of
frustrations with thin/questionable/inconsistent frames of B&W [FP4], I
happened to shoot a roll of Kodachrome recently.  Now, I've been banging
away with this trusty old Nikon F for almost 30 years, and I think I'm
pretty decent at metering, so I was shocked --if possibly enlightened-- by
what I got back. The first bunch of exposures were bang on, just as I'd
envisioned.  Then, during the same session (yer basic fall scenics), things
started coming out underexposed by about two stops. The middle of the roll
was shot another day and was also grossly underexposed.  And the last couple
of frames were back to being fine.  What the heck??  What changed? Lens,
shuttter speed, phase-of-the-moon? Time to lay them all out and grope for
patterns.  I can't imagine it being the lens, because if the leaves were
sticking, it would cause over, not under-exposure, right?  My best clue is
that during shooting one of the bad shots, I recall thinking that it seemed
a slightly high shutter speed for K64.

So, I think there's something seriously, and intermitently, going wrong with
either the shutter, the meter, or [god forbid] both.  Argh.  There was a
Nikon clinic at one of the photo shops about two years ago, and at that time
it checked out just fine.

Until I finally got a spot meter late last summer, I had to use the Nikon as
my only meter for the 4x5, so this could explain a *LOT* about why my LF
negs have been so frustratingly inconsistent, and frequently thin.  It's not
(necessarily) that I'm an idiot at metering, but that some mechanical or
electronic gremlin is rearing its head from time to time.

I wonder if if could just be a dying battery?  Hmm.  A bit of grunge in the
battery contacts?  Double-hmm... Obviously time for some probing and deep
thought.  I really don't wanna drag the old F into the shop for an expensive
bout of diagnostics and CLR if it's not necessary!  If you've got any
thoughts about this, I'd love to hear them, Brock; I'm pretty stumped.

In a weird way, there'll be some symmetry to the whole thing: instead of me
dragging the F around as a light meter for the 4x5, I'll be dragging the
Pentax Spot Meter around to double check the readings for the Nikon. Oh,
won't that be fast and convenient <g>.

Anyways, I'm rambling a bit, so I'd best get on with the day.

Cheers,
\dw