mix

The ground glass from Knighton Optical has finally arrived and has been fitted to the large format camera which is now operational. I have included some video viewing the ground glass which is a bit grainy as I had to use a high gain value on the video camera to keep the shutter to 1/25 to capture movement but it turned out quite beautiful. Looking at the world upside down back to front on a 20 x 24" piece of ground glass is amazing and due to its size a large group can view at the same time which makes the act of capturing a singular moment inclusive and performative.

Standing 3 meters back from the ground glass results in less vignette towards the edges

Standing within 1 meter of the ground glass results in more vignette towards the edges

The ground glassed is finished with ground edges and mitred corners

Top view of the fitted ground glass

Bottom view of the ground glass

Rear view of the camera with the ground glass fitted

Now the ground glass has been fitted to the camera we have tested the large format camera for light leaks and that the focusing plane of the ground glass marches the back of the film holder and with joy I can report everything is correct. We taped a sheet of 10 x 8 Foma 100ASA film into the film holder and you can see the results below. The photographs were taken on the Schneider Fine Art XXL 1100mm lens at f45 with an exposure time of 1 second.

Click on image to see larger version

Click on image to see larger version

Now the ground glass is fitted we have had one issue with one of our Schneider Fine Art XXL lenses, the standard 1100mm lens is covered by the bellows extension but the 550mm lens is more wide angled than we expected and at the moment due to the construction of the front carriage we cannot close the bellows up enough but we have found a simple solution. In the workshop this summer I will redesign the front carriage extension so it can move closer to the camera back and the 550mm lens should focus better.

Over the next two months we will be doing a series of test shoots with 8 x 10 film working up to 20 x 24" film. We have ordered in large trays to hand process the 20 x 24" negatives and reactive paper and we will start posting the results in the near future.