The Better Light of Legends

I know I've been prodded for doing more talking about this stuff than actually shooting photos, but I have finally got my hands on the kit, so here's an initial report after about 3 hours of fiddling around.

Well, my second-hand Cambo Legend view camera showed up today. I got home to find three large boxes on my doorstep, one of which contained an old (and huge) tripod, which turns out to be easily solid enough for the Cambo (I suspect it's probably intended for something even heavier, doG only knows what). Another contained some of the old and cheap Bronica stuff I found on LJ (I'll leave that for a future post because it's not really usable yet), and a third, rather heavy box contained the Cambo, in pieces individually wrapped in vast quantities of bubble wrap.

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More playing with new toys

This is a combined effort involving trying out the 150mm Nikkor W, as well as conversion to monochrome and macro photography.

The following image was shot with the Cambo/Betterlight at 6000 x 8000, Nikkor W 150/5.6 at about f16, with the Betterlight set to about 1000ASA and a 1/20th sec line time. The scan took about 2 or 3 minutes. The reproduction was roughly 1:1, that is, the hinge in real life is about the size of the BetterLight's image area. For reference, the Cambo was used at not quite full extension, and the subject was closer to the lens than the lens was to the film plane. The standards were set parallel, but I probably should have use a bit of swing to get the whole thing sharp. OK, you live and learn.

Anyway, I was quite pleased with this:

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