Two more images from my 'early days' experiences with a cranky old Graflex RB 5x4 that I recently acquired.
The first is part of the series I took for the collaboration theme,
Argument, and the second photo is of my Dad, John Wenn, posing for a snap next to the painting he's doing for us on the ceiling of our new downstairs loo. It's almost done and it's excellent. The snap is another story however, because although it's come out OK, it was actually the first of three attempts. The other two were composed much better because Dad was on the left of the shot, the artwork didn't look like it was sprouting from his head and I was closer in, but because the camera was angled upwards slightly and it's so creaky and old, the bloody lens wouldn't stay focussed without me holding it still with my hand. If the camera's pointing upwards and you let go of the lens to take a photo....the lens rolls back into the camera slightly and hey presto - at f4.5 the shallow DOF delivers a very out of focus snap every time
...and before you ask, yeah I definitely need both hands to operate the shutter on this camera. One of its quirks (and the reason it was so cheap) is that you have to lift the mirror out of the way of the negative with your left hand and then release the shutter with your right. If the lens is slowly rolling back into its cave while all this is going on then that's just too bad.
Despite this I'm enjoying using the Graflex, but I really need to get outside and take a photo or two during the daylight. Using the high speed Polaroid 57 film works fine for the end image, but composing and focussing through the viewfinder in low light is a pain in the butt, especially if you lift the lens up a little at the front for a bit of tilt/shift action.
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