Whitby Abbey

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Flack

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I took a trip to Whitby last week, I shot this with my newly acquired 5x4 Intrepid Black, using my 90mm Super Angulon, Ilford Hp4 plus shot at 100, F16 I think the shutter was 1/60th.

Still learning the pit falls of Large format, there is a lot to remember, I cocked up somewhere as I had two blank sheets. I also had a total failure of my cable release, first the button end fell off and disappeared in the long grass, then on the next shot the outer sheath came off the threaded end, and that was the end of that..

I am on the look out for another lense, but not sure what to go for, a 135, or a 150, or 240mm, any advise from the more knowledgeable .
 

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HP4 wasn't around very long, most people hated it :D You mean HP5 Plus.

Getting the tilt right takes practice, you'll get there. My choice would be to add a 150mm it's my most used lens, then I go to a 210mm.

Ian
 
Ian no I meant Fp4 plus, this getting old just gets worse :(
 
Everybody makes similar mistakes, so don’t worry. It’s a good thing to make them early on. Always have a spare cable release with you, preferably two. They can break of course, but if you drop them, they immediately switch on their built-in cloak of invisibility.

Whitby Abbey has been in the news recently for the greatest numbat of people dressed as Dracula gathered in one place. Over 1,300 in total. Remarkable.
 
On lenses, I'm with Ian. My most used lenses are 150mm and 210mm, with a slight preference for the latter.
 
I love that photograph!
Did you get inside the area for this, or have you made it from the stonewalls?
 
If you’re thinking of another lens, you might consider what the one after that might be. You’ll be a person of quite remarkable self-discipline if you stop at two.
Consider what might make a useful and sensible spacing of focal lengths.
If you choose 135mm, that’s closer to 90mm than 150mm and it suggests,a close spacing of (say) …75, 90, 135, 180, 240, 300… Doubling focal lengths would give 90mm, 180mm, and 360mm, if your bellows can take it.
It depends partially on your photographic ambitions and partly (perhaps mostly) on how strong your back is.
Personally, I’d suggest 150mm too, but I’m not the one under your dark cloth.
 
Stephen Batey said:
On lenses, I'm with Ian. My most used lenses are 150mm and 210mm, with a slight preference for the latter.
Click to expand...

While the difference in Focal length might appear quite slight, in practice a 210mm is quite different in approach to a 150mm.

In theory I can go 65mm, 75mm, 90mm, 120mm, 135mm, 150mm, 210mm, 240mm, 300mm, 360mm with my Wista or Super Graphic. I have longer FL lenses but for larger formats.

However, in practice I usually carry a 90mm Angulon, 135mm Symmar S, and a 203mm Ektar in my lightweight Super Graphic kit.

My main kit though has a 65mm SA, 75mm SA, 90mm Grandagon N, 150mm Sironar N, 210mm Symmar, and 360mm Tele Xenar. I might leave out the 65mm SA, or the Tele Xenar depending on where I'm planning to shoot.

While I have a 300mm Nikkor M I don't use it for 5x4 it's not a practical FL needing full bellows extension, making the Wista quite unstable even in a slight breeze, the 360mm Tele Xemar is quite different and very much easier to use as it requires less bellows extension at Infinity than a 210mm lens.

Ian
 
martin-f5 said:
I love that photograph!
Did you get inside the area for this, or have you made it from the stonewalls?
Click to expand...

Martin I bought a day ticket, it was early morning and the crowds had not landed so I could take my time, I used the view app on phone to look for a composition I was happy with.
 
Its a beautiful Abbey, not the best composition of the Abbey, I think its a little over edited and the angles on each end look a little awkward
 
I always think a little vertical distortion makes the image look correct to our eye, with this image the ends seem to be over corrected making it look unnatural, (leaning outward)at least it does to me. The correction you made to keep the verticals straight maybe not use as much and allow just a tiny amount of vertical convergence
 
Martin I did not use any movement in this shot, this was my first time out with this setup, so I tried to keep it all simple..maybe I did not have the front and the back parallel to each other?. No adjustment to them in post.
I did shoot some Portra about 5 shots but have not developed them yet, would be good to see how those shots turned out when I get them processed. As again no movement in those either.
This is good feed back when you are just learning 5x4, there is a lot more to it than you think.
 
I agree that sometimes a very small amount of convergance looks better, but you need to decide ona case-by-case basis. My own eye doesn't find any problem with this one. With very old buildings, there's the problem that the upright lines may not be truly vertical and that gives you another thing to think about. Two kinds of truth, perhaps?
I can't see that you needed any front tilt here, but if you'd included more foreground, it might have been useful. While on the subject, it's only the parallelism of the rear standard that affects perspective, not the realtionship between the two standards. That relationship affects the plane of focus and the distribution of sharpness.
It may be the result of uploading, but there seems to be evidence of some very enthusiastic sharpening.
Don't be discouraged. You are doing well and you seem to know what questions to ask.
 
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