[LargeFormat] Reptiles on the bus

[rstein]

Dear John,

     Do not overrate the Dugite. It is a legless wussy compared to some of
the things they get out in Central Australia or Queensland. King Brown
snakes and Taipans come to mind. It is not uncommon to read stories in
newspapers of bush people who run foul of them. Of course when a tourist
gets the bite you get it splashed all over the European papers but it is the
locals who generally bear the brunt.

    Myself - well, I've stopped chasing Tiger snakes with fish spears as was
my wont in earlier days. I have decided to do my swimming in the local
heated pool since I noticed the river fills up with big old brown jellyfish
occasionally - and I have sworn never to go swimming in the ocean since one
of my patients was taken by a shark up in Broome. I daresay it is just as
dangerous annoying the traffic on the local freeway, but it don't give me
the creeps as much.

     All this said, there are some local fauna that are charming. We get a
fat lizard around the place that eats insects and waddles across the road
occasionally. Its official name is a Bob-tail Goanna but I like to think of
it as Liz, after one of my wife's neices. Then there are the magpies that
stride the street in packs. I noticed the other day that they go to the
homes that are not occupied and eat the sisal door mats. I wondered why ours
was looking ratty - these feathered pests hop over and beak it to death. I
am hoping they take an equal interest in the little barking dog that lives
over the back fence.

    NOW on to large format.

    The Shen got its first official job on Wednesday with two cheery girls.
Mostly clothed, and mostly clothed in 40's coctail dresses. Hurrell
lighting, which was probably a pretty severe test for the Tit X film. The
backs have been masked off with black plastic frames to let me approximate 4
x 5 and 8 x 10. It gives me a sort of built-in margin of error for framing.
The Shen is reasonably tight now and I can have some confidence that the
back will stay in register.

    On a sidepoint - the book-form wooden film holders are a daunting
prospect to someone used to Lisco or Riteways. Let's face it, we don't trust
our double darks at the best of times, or at least we don't if we are wise,
and the idea of getting light tightness with little strips of wood and
sliding ply sheets is asking a lot. The Shen holders do seem to deliver - I
can detect no light leaks. I even had a pleasant surprise when I
inadvertantly turned the light on after processing one side of a holder but
neglected to close the holder. I figured the exposed but undeveloped film on
the underside was a write-off. Not so. The metal swinging divider and the
mat-board film backer occluded enough of the room light to allow most of the
image to survive undisturbed. Now, how long wooden holders survive is
another matter, but they were cheap enough and I daresay replacements would
be possible from the factory.

    The Tit X negatives at 3-5 minutes have small pinholes but not too bad.
I will try another dilution to the Rodinal that I have bee using for
development and if not that, then another liquid developer like T Max to
avoid the pinholes. Tonality is quite nice - no blown out highlights. Of
course the 8 x 10 i a contact print, but the 4 x 5 will be enlarged.

     Uncle Dick