Due Care and Attention

All in all it wasn't a great day for my large format efforts on Monday. I dropped the lens in the river, more on that shortly. When it fell it ruined one of the four negatives I had with me in two darkslides. And when I developed the remaining three B&W negatives on Monday evening I discovered that two of them had a problem.

The issue was that the "wide" section at the front of the bellows can sometimes fold slightly and cause a vignette with my Schneider 90mm lens. It is the Super Angulon and has a large rear element. I didn't take enough care seating the lens and the fold of the bellows was visible. I hadn't noticed the vignette when I composed, partly because it was so cold and my breath caused the ground glass to be covered in condensation so I had a tough enough job focussing it at all. Also, when I developed, one of the negs had scratches at one that I still can't explain.

All this says is that I need to slow down and pay more attention to the detail.

So I got one decent negative. All I have to do is get it scanned. But my scanner is not working.... and so it goes on.

At least I got some decent shots with the D200. Plus we went to the Highland Folk Museum which offered some great photo opportunities. I took a fair amount with my F3 on HP5 but I haven't developed it yet. Overall it was a good day.

The dropped 210mm lens and shutter seems to be OK. I opened the lens up and removed the shutter. I cleared the few small water drops with cotton buds and left it to dry on a radiator. I'll try it on the camera next weekend.

The housemartins arrived at the house on Monday. Swooping outside, it's good to see them back. Summer is coming.