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Primo Itch
Nov 4, 2006
I confessed a horrible secret for this account!
After messing around with an Holga and a homemade 6x15 pinhole camera, I'm thinking about getting into proper Medium Format. Money is a problem and I'd like to keep as cheap as possible. The thing is, I'll be in Moscow and Kiev for some days in two weeks and have been thinking about getting some soviet MF gear.

Do you guys have opinions on them, like the Kiev 60 or the Kiev 88? They seen to be considerably cheaper than other cameras and I'll probably be able to find some for nice prices while i'm there, but are they worth it?

Otherwise i've been thinking about maybe going the Yashica TLR route...

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Primo Itch
Nov 4, 2006
I confessed a horrible secret for this account!
Thanks, I'll do some research on the moskva.

The thing for me is, I'm in Brazil and anything film related is ridiculously expensive around here (I'm talking 20USD for a roll of 35mm tri-x), so i'm thinking about using the trip to buy a MF camera (and TONS of film). Buying from the US can be done for small things - thank you freestyle - , but on bigger/more expensive things import taxes are completely abusive. I saw your mat on the gear thread, but when I add shipping and taxes the price would go so high that I could probably get a fuji 690 in Europe while i'm there for the same money.

Basically i'm looking for a 200-300 USD solution that I can get in Europe (I'll be in western europe also)... I think i'd enjoy TLR, but i'm quite open to whatever kind of system that can be done on my budget.




God the moskva-5 looks so sexy...

Primo Itch
Nov 4, 2006
I confessed a horrible secret for this account!
Well, first of all thanks :) .This is actually a tourism trip, going to spend 20 some days travelling around and I just thought that since i'll already be there why not use it to buy a Mf camera, since i've wanted one for some time, you know?

I've been trawling ebay.co.uk and found some decent yashicas there, some bronicas too, but the pentax are usually a lit bit out of my price range, but if i could find a good deal they'd be a possibility. Germany eBay also has some yashicas for good prices, and it looks like they're probably going to be my final choice, but I wanted to ask the thread so i'd be sure of exploring all the possibilities. Germany also has many mamiyas RB67 that seen to go out for a good price. The Soviet gear can be found for some better prices, but then if the built quality is sub-par it's not really worth it.

Primo Itch fucked around with this message at 06:26 on Feb 8, 2013

Primo Itch
Nov 4, 2006
I confessed a horrible secret for this account!

QPZIL posted:

ALL THE CAMERAS!

This post came in quite a good time for me.

big scary monsters posted:

If you're going to be in Germany or can order from German eBay you should look into the Pentacon Six, which the Kiev 60 is essentially a less well made rip off of. It's a pretty sweet camera with a great range of lenses including a bunch made by Zeiss' East German division, Zeiss Jena. Germany is still pretty big on film photography and there are plenty of these things kicking about in good condition and often at good prices.

You could also look at the Exact 66, a similar design with some more modern features like TTL metering. I think you can get an adapter so it'll fit P6 lenses and vice versa.

Way more information than you could ever want on Pentacons, Exaktas and Kievs from this awesome website: http://www.pentaconsix.com.

Wow, looks interesting. There's some for nice prices on eBay, and there's some interesting variations and lots of lenses quite on the cheap side. The exacka 66 is west german made and more modern, but i can't find any on german ebay. Definitely some new possibilities. Thanks!


ExecuDork posted:

Slightly off-topic (still about film, but 35mm) - Primo Itch, nobody in South America has said they want to participate in my Camera Around the World goon-project. /showthread.php?threadid=3499036[/url]

You mean the "Camera-around-the-northwest-USA" project? :haw: Yeah, i'd definitely do it, but there's always to consider the fact that any kind of reasonably priced shipping is going to take a lot of time to and from here, so if I were to join in it would take around 2 to 3 months (4-6 weeks shipping time each way) for just my participation...

Primo Itch
Nov 4, 2006
I confessed a horrible secret for this account!

nerdz posted:

Hey, I'm from Brazil. Old post, but let me school you on some poo poo. You're not taking advantage of the fact that nobody in Brazil values old stuff like cameras. I got myself an yashica mat for $150 and a pristine pentax 6x7 for $300. Buy film on ebay from chinese dudes, at $7.50 per roll, free shipping. I buy around $100 of film and it's enough to last until the next package comes (around 1 month). I got my film scanner, HP G4050, for $250 new and it's pretty good and comes with the holders.

Also, you gotta take advantage of the fact that you can develop a roll for $1 in here. In the end, it ends up being cheaper than most places in the world.

EDIT: check this out, a perfectly working Yashica mat for $90: http://produto.mercadolivre.com.br/MLB-466623857-cmera-yashica-mat-124-g-medio-formato-japo-_JM

You're not looking hard enough, bro.

Replying to an old post, but where the hell do you delevop for $1? Around here I can't find anything under U$4.

The 6x7 for 300 would be just the body right? When you add lenses and stuff like that, It goes quite higher. I'll admit I haven't payed much attention to TLRs on Mercadolivre (Brazilian's eBay equivalent), but any mats that looked in decent shape when I looked around where going for U$200 at least, which is too high for one of them.

I don't get your point on film, I'm paying less than that thru freestyle, even when you add shipping. And buying in germany was plain cheap.

I'll take the tip on the scanner, I've been looking for one. Does it do 120?


Anyways, I'm back from europe and those are the spoils

Forgive the lovely dark pic on top of a messy bed but eh, :effort:

europa 254 por primoitcho, no Flickr


Mint Pentacon six with 2.8/80mm Carl Zeiss Jena lenses
Also MINT Zeiss Ikon Nettar 518/16
Film filme film and Rodinal!

Primo Itch
Nov 4, 2006
I confessed a horrible secret for this account!

eggsovereasy posted:

Judging by the quoted post, Brazil.

Yeah. He was replying to one of my posts. I'm from Brazil also, but the cheapest I can find in my town is U$4.

Primo Itch
Nov 4, 2006
I confessed a horrible secret for this account!
That's really cool! How long does it take to take one picture? You do all the moving by hand, right?

Primo Itch fucked around with this message at 20:16 on May 2, 2013

Primo Itch
Nov 4, 2006
I confessed a horrible secret for this account!
I'm seeing your work here and on the film thread and just want to say that it's all amazing spedman. Do you expose for label speed or under/over ?

Primo Itch
Nov 4, 2006
I confessed a horrible secret for this account!
Not sure if this is the right thread:

I'm jerry-rigging (will post pictures of my steel cilinder + silver tape guetto setup) a 6x6 lenses on my 35mm yashica. It's an 80mm 2.8 Zeiss from the Pentacon Six. My question is, what's going to be equivalent focal distance? I know that 80mm on 6x6 is roughly equivalent to 50mm on 35mm, but have no idea on how to do the math backwards. I'm guessing around 110mm?

Primo Itch
Nov 4, 2006
I confessed a horrible secret for this account!
That's actually quite logical. Thanks!

Primo Itch
Nov 4, 2006
I confessed a horrible secret for this account!

GobiasIndustries posted:

I'd love to start shooting medium or large format film, but I live in an apartment with zero options for home development. My next big purchase I was thinking would be a Pentax 6x7, would I be able to get the film developed anywhere locally (I live in Denver, not sure if major places still work with anything other than 35mm) or is this something I'd need to ship out someplace until I can work on developing my own film rolls?

Yeah, plenty of places to develop 120 in C-41 pretty much in any decent-sized city (E-6 not so many but you can probably find). If you're shooting black and white learn to develop at home. I live in an apartment and load the film under three blankets and it all works all right.

Primo Itch
Nov 4, 2006
I confessed a horrible secret for this account!
Yeah. Actual exposition area for 6x6 is ~56mm x 56mm, the film is 60mm wide.

Primo Itch
Nov 4, 2006
I confessed a horrible secret for this account!
Anyone can recomend any alternatives for a large-ish LF shutter? Something around 35mm internal diameter or more, besides the Ilex #3, that's reasonably unexpensive? (flash sync is a great plus). I don't care about being really fast, 1/30 tops should be enough;

Primo Itch
Nov 4, 2006
I confessed a horrible secret for this account!

Pompous Rhombus posted:

Packard shutter is what you want. Cheap, big, ~1/30s.

No flash thought :( That's the only thing that stopped me from bitting the bullet on one. The ones with flash are expensive enough that I could buy a mint Ilex #4 for the same price...

Primo Itch
Nov 4, 2006
I confessed a horrible secret for this account!
Love backlit portraits like the last one. Is that portra?

Primo Itch
Nov 4, 2006
I confessed a horrible secret for this account!

Spedman posted:





Little 4x5 pinhole I knocked up today, has a Mamiya 50mm view finder on top which should match the approximate focal length of the camera. Still need to paint it black and put on the pinhole.

Black cameras are boring. Paint it neon green and cover it with stickers or something...

Primo Itch
Nov 4, 2006
I confessed a horrible secret for this account!

hybr1d posted:

It needs to be black on the inside at least to reduce noise/reflection for the exposures, no?

Pretty much yeah.

Primo Itch
Nov 4, 2006
I confessed a horrible secret for this account!
Couldn't you maybe find another shutter for less on ebay and replace it? Maybe with some cheap LF glass or something and just exchange the glass. Copal shutters are really common... (That's not your camera, right? This one seens to have a Compur shutter).

Primo Itch
Nov 4, 2006
I confessed a horrible secret for this account!

Casu Marzu posted:

Pretty much this. Tri-x and Portra are basically film magic. I've pulled some ridiculous shots out of both pushing like 2-4 stops.

This. This, this and this! Tri-x is magic on film, you can push it up to 5 stops and get useable negatives. Portra 400 has amazing latitude and can be pushed/pulled 2 stops on the same roll, just send it for standard development and you'll have great images. You can expose the same roll from ISO 100 to ISO 1600 and get fairly good image of Portra 400, the holiest of films... Portra 160 is not as flexible but when properly exposed will give you the best skin tones ever.

Primo Itch
Nov 4, 2006
I confessed a horrible secret for this account!
Now, you're traveling with your 4x5 camera. You don't have/want to carry many film holders, so you plan on using a few, shooting and reloading. Where and how would you keep the exposed film until you can get back home for developing?

Primo Itch
Nov 4, 2006
I confessed a horrible secret for this account!

ZippySLC posted:

On the other hand, I also like 6x6 so I'd be okay investing in one that shoots in that format.

You can get an old 6x6 folder for relatively cheap, less than 50 bucks depending on camera, they're compact (my Zeiss Ikon 516 fits on a backpocket) and can take decent pictures if you don't have a problem with manual everything.

Primo Itch
Nov 4, 2006
I confessed a horrible secret for this account!

Spedman posted:

I'm slowly putting another 8x10 together. I made a couple of sliding box cameras, but ended up hating them, such a pain in the arse to focus with.

I purchased the bellows and SLR macro focusing rack from ebay, the back from the LFF, and I'm building the rest. I've pretty much got the front and rear standards done, along with the back, so just need to get the base and arms cut and screwed together. I plan on it being able to fold up into a manageable size. Here it is so far with the back and focus rack:



Very nice. You're planning on having tilt/shift movements?

Primo Itch
Nov 4, 2006
I confessed a horrible secret for this account!

VomitOnLino posted:

6x7 night slide film supremacy!



Very nice, the texture on the pavement looks great. How did you figure exposure out for this? Spot metered some specific point?

Primo Itch
Nov 4, 2006
I confessed a horrible secret for this account!

Im That One Guy posted:

Price drop to $360 shipped

STOP IT! I've just moved and can't shouldn't buy it, please stop!

Primo Itch
Nov 4, 2006
I confessed a horrible secret for this account!

deaders posted:

once you go MF you never go back

I know that so well. I have a Pentacon six that poo poo the bed and can't get anyone to fix it for a reasonable price, and my toyo broke the cheap tripod I had so I can't use it either. I'm going thru negative abstinence right now, 35mm is like trying to smoke weed to stop your heroine addiction, but I just moved to a new house, so I really shouldn't buy anything this month. If he still has it next month and my finances go well maybe, but right now all I can do is lust after that huge dorky camera (and think of ways of making myself a 120 rangefinder from an old pack polaroid and a 4x5 120 film holder....)

Primo Itch
Nov 4, 2006
I confessed a horrible secret for this account!

Nilson posted:

I'm looking at getting back in to larger formats (ideally 4x5) portraits for university next year. I've had a fair bit of play around with this before but anyone had a go with b/w reversal processing sheet film at this size? Seen a few examples/read a few processes around the way, but just curious if anyone's got first hand experience? :)

I've done it a couple of times. Looks amazing, but is quite a pain honestly. You basically get Ilford's guide and try different times until you figure them for the film and exposure rating you want. One thing I did find I liked changing was using paper developer for the second development (I was using Dektol, not Ilford stuff), as the film got more density but not any fogging in my experience.

Primo Itch
Nov 4, 2006
I confessed a horrible secret for this account!
This is not a great picture (and I went wild on the sharpening) but it illustrates the effect of a red #25 + Circular polarizer on a blue (but not really deep blue) sky with clouds. Film is Tri-X, rated 1600. Time of the shot was 2 or 3 hours from sunset (thought it was in patagonia, so the sun position was closer to ~1hour before sunset on any reasonable latitude). I'd meter and overexpose 4 or maybe 5 stops for this combination of filters, so unless you have a tripod or are shooting fast and wide it can be hard to hand-hold. But this is the large format thread so maybe it doesn't matter.

You can see how the sky gets lighter the closer you get to the horizon as someone else has said. You can also see that on the right situations you can get close to a pitch black sky in the middle of the day. The vignetting is thanks to the lovely CPL.

It's also 135 posted on the large format thread, but I'm only showing it to make my point.


DSC08141 by Hernando Rosa, on Flickr

On yellow filters, I find they are very subtle, so I don't really use them, but ymmv. Orange #15 on the other hand is almost glued to my walk-around lens by now.

Not that any of this matters since I only take bad photographies anyways.

Primo Itch fucked around with this message at 22:21 on Oct 27, 2014

Primo Itch
Nov 4, 2006
I confessed a horrible secret for this account!

Quantum of Phallus posted:

Wasn't Ektar also specifically designed as a film to be scanned?

Yep. The thing with ektar isn't the scanning, but how it has crazy colour shifts unless perfectly exposed and how it doesn't handle low-light situations well. It's also supposed to have some insanely small grain, but I've never had the opportunity to scan it at high enough resolutions to figure out if its true.

Primo Itch
Nov 4, 2006
I confessed a horrible secret for this account!

polyfractal posted:

How tricky are non-rangefinder folding cameras? I'm considering something like a Zeiss Ikonta / Ercona or Moskva to take with me on work trips, since my TLR is a bit bulky. I'm a bit worried that my distance estimating ability is poo poo, but maybe it's something you learn quickly? Or do you just stop down enough to give yourself a solid margin of error?

I have A Zeiss Ikonta 512 that I shoot regularly and honestly, it's a pain in the rear end. I use the fastest film I can get, close the aperture down and try to use hyperfocal distance as much as possible. You also shouldn't use colour film on them, since the lens are usually designed for black and white film and will have weird colour casting/fringing/whatever.

Get a Yashica TLR, they're really loving small.

Primo Itch
Nov 4, 2006
I confessed a horrible secret for this account!

voodoorootbeer posted:

Maybe my color vision is complete poo poo but I have not been able to see any color issues with dorkasaurus's stuff and the color corrected versions all look the same to me as the originals.

I can see the with a redish-tint but honestly I think it works with what hes doing and gives it a unique style? Having 100% perfect colour balancing is not always needed for a nice photo.

Primo Itch
Nov 4, 2006
I confessed a horrible secret for this account!
I present you guys, the ugliest 6x7 rangefinder ever



It's a mismatch of pieces from several cameras or accesories. The rangefinder, from a Polaroid, still to be installed and calibrated, thought I plan on doing it this week.

Primo Itch
Nov 4, 2006
I confessed a horrible secret for this account!

8th-snype posted:

Yeah if it was just shoot and dev as normal then cool but if I'm gonna add a reversal step :effort:

This. I've done reversal Black and white slides and while they looked gorgeous it was a pain the rear end. If this was just normal developing I could definetly get behind for some toying around, but extra development is just not worth the hassle...

edit:
From looking in their delevoping guide, you could just use a standard reversal developing process for black and white ... It would take a little bit of experimenting to get the times/dilutions right but it's most likely doable without proprietary chemicals.

Primo Itch fucked around with this message at 19:59 on Apr 14, 2016

Primo Itch
Nov 4, 2006
I confessed a horrible secret for this account!
Opinions on the Mamiya RB67?? There's one locally for a very good price and I'm tired of using improvised or very old medium-format gear... It comes with the 90mm f3.8 lens and one film back. Price in dollars would be around 125. I'm VERY tempted right now and have a lot of 120 film stocked...

Primo Itch
Nov 4, 2006
I confessed a horrible secret for this account!

8th-snype posted:

You should get a Koni Omega Rapid 100 because it has the coolest film transport/ shutter cocking system, a rangefinder, 3 cold shoes, and a dope handle that is actually useful unlike the dumb P67 one.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gnJZT-goAkE

I don't have one but thirding this as it's the hottest medium format camera ever made...


Editing for a question:

You guys turned me off the RB67 as honestly, I don't feel like carrying quilos of camera around anymore. What's the opinion on old mamiya six? There's one locally for a good price... What should I look for, or are those too much of a gamble today?


The ad is in portuguese, but I'll link for the pics...
http://produto.mercadolivre.com.br/MLB-710384655-cmera-mamiya-6-_JM

Primo Itch fucked around with this message at 07:35 on Apr 30, 2016

Primo Itch
Nov 4, 2006
I confessed a horrible secret for this account!

Wild EEPROM posted:

No, that's the old Mamiya 6. That one is 1940-1960.

There's a newer Mamiya 6 made in 1989-1999, that shoots 6x6, retractable lens (ish), and it's closer to $1200. It's also unrepairable if it breaks.

Yeah I realized that and edited my post acordingly, probably as you were making yours, sorry...

Primo Itch
Nov 4, 2006
I confessed a horrible secret for this account!

8th-snype posted:

The hasselblad is an amazing machine and a super good choice, unless you want to buy lots of lenses then whelp. I don't want to beat a dead horse but if a Mamiya is out of your price range and you hate mirrors like I do:
http://www.ebay.com/itm/Nice-Rapid-Omega-200-Camera-w-Lens-2-Film-Backs-/111973423514?hash=item1a1222d99a:g:C1oAAOSw~OVWxg1n

If this guy shipped to Brazil this would already be mine... Hell, anyone willing to reship it to me? I'll paypal you the shipping rates + some extra for film or buy stuff from freestyle and have it shipped to you or whatever...

Primo Itch fucked around with this message at 18:11 on May 1, 2016

Primo Itch
Nov 4, 2006
I confessed a horrible secret for this account!

8th-snype posted:

PM me later on in the week and I'll help out with proxy shipping.

I'll buy plats and PM you thursday or friday then. Thanks mate :)

Primo Itch fucked around with this message at 01:50 on May 2, 2016

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Primo Itch
Nov 4, 2006
I confessed a horrible secret for this account!
A lovely scan of a lovely picture, but I got the frankencamera working



It's a Calumet C2 120 film holder for 4x5, the rail, front stand and bellows from an old 2x3 ICA camera, lens and shutter from ebay (15USD) and the rangefinder of a lovely polaroid, plus some hardware parts I had at home.
It's a coupled 120 6x7 rangefinder with a 135mm f4.5 lens (with dental floss linking the rangefinder and the front stand, but it works!)

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