[matthew]

Here are a few photos from my second roll of film. (The first was pretty much a write-off, with accidental exposures, bad metering, focusing errors, and poor subject choices writing off all nine frames.) I hope to get a couple more rolls run through the camera tomorrow, so I should have a chance to redeem myself soon. As usual, I'm posting this in the critique section because I welcome and appreciate all comments, but because these are all experimental, they're not really worth an in-depth review. All of these were taken on Kodak Ektar 100 with the 80mm (roughly 40mm-e) lens.

1: Candid

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Penny calls the Fuji 680 my "spy camera", and in a way she's right. It's such a ridiculously large rig that it's the exact opposite of surreptitious - I feel like if I had a high-viz reflective vest, some orange pylons, and a heavy wooden tripod, I'd disappear from view completely. I took two photos of this scene, and doubt that anyone even noticed me. This photo is a reprise of one I had taken with my ZI, and I've used both rise and swing to get the building where I want it.

2: No Parking

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My favourite colour film for the Zeiss Ikon is Ektar 100, but I already know that it's not going to work for the GX680. Its saturation and colour response is more like slide film, making it very picky about having the right exposure. That's great for the ZI, which meters in thirds of a stop, but bad for the 680, which only has whole-stop control. This photo was taken wide open, using shifts and swing to try to align the focal plane, with only partial success. But check out the perspective on the two protruding bolts: the camera's standard-wide lens was just inches away from the sign.

3: Storage

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This one had some metering issues, with strong side light fooling me into a bad exposure, but I still really like the feel of it and might try again for a better scan. I'm using a cheap Canon 9000F scanner, set to 4800dpi with a film holder, and then reducing the output from Vuescan by a factor of 5. That means that each linear dimension is only 20% of the original, making the file size much more reasonable, but still big enough for my printer. A standard tiff is about 140mb, while a full-sized scan at 9600dpi is about a gigabyte of mostly superfluous information. Someone's tested this scanner as having about 1800dpi of usable resolution, which is plenty for my proofing and web use but far below the potential of the 56x77mm negative area. I also find that the scans are quite a bit softer than the results from my 35mm-only Nikon LS-50, so I'll be ordering a better film adapter soon. For this photo, I've dropped the front of the lens - you can see that the ribs of the crates are at camera-level at around the top third of the photo instead of in the middle.

4: Parking Ramp

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For this photo I've gone backwards, and raised the front as high as I can to let me pitch the nose of the camera down at an even more severe angle. I've also swung the lens down to bring the plane of focus into line with the ramp - and to quote Maxwell Smart, I missed it by that much. It's also a test of the lens coverage, with the falloff at the top being from the extreme combination of lens movements. A proper technical camera probably would have gotten away with it, but I was specifically looking for the camera's limits, so I can't complain that I've found them.

[Toad]

Interesting discussion and photos. Do you always use a tripod with the 680?

The last shot's dropoff is quite noticeable - but quite acceptable considering that the lens must be at quite a severe angle to the focal plane - easily croppable if required. If that is as bad as it gets with the 680 at full tilt, you should be able to live with that quite nicely.

The photo of the sign - particularly the perspective on the bolt heads is pretty cool. I could see how using that tilty lens could become addictive.

How long do you usually spend setting up a shot? How many shots to a roll?

[matthew]

Interesting discussion and photos. Do you always use a tripod with the 680?

A tripod really helps, but isn't strictly necessary. For quality and control the tripod is a huge advantage, especially since I use it with a geared head for precise positioning. But I did take a couple of photos hand-held today - cradled in my left arm, braced against my chest, looking down into the finder - and the weight really isn't an issue. The inverted viewfinder is the problem. I must have looked like a bit of a fool as I swayed and bobbed to try to get my subject lined up.

How long do you usually spend setting up a shot? How many shots to a roll?

I timed myself today, and I average between five and eight minutes per exposure. A complicated setup could be ten minutes, and a follow-on photo with a similar camera position can be taken in as little as three minutes.

Roughly:

- choose tripod position, adjust height, and level tripod.
- orient and level camera.
- rotate back for horizontal or vertical framing.
- refine composition, focus, adjust lens movements.
- repeat.
- repeat.
- reposition tripod if needed, and start again.
- with composition and focus locked, take an incident meter reading.
- transfer metered settings to the camera, erring on the side of over-exposure.
- close viewfinder, turn camera on, wait for self-check.
- lock mirror up.
- three deep breaths.
- gently release shutter.
- flip mirror down, turn camera off.
- zero out camera movements and focus.
- collapse tripod and move on.

I learned very quickly to work with the camera off as much as possible. The shutter release is on the side and is easy to hit as I fumble for other controls.

A roll of 120 film will get 9 6x8 exposures. I also have a mask to convert to 6x7, which would give me ten exposures per roll. There are also masks out there (I don't own them) for 6x6, which is a bit of a 'hassel', or even 645 for sixteen images per roll. It seems silly to use this big a camera to be miserly with film - if I wanted a smaller negative, I'd use my Ikon. A roll of 120 film, purchased and processed, works out to about $10. That makes my price-per-exposure just slightly higher than burning chromes in one of my 135 format cameras.

[Toad]

Interesting discussion and photos. Do you always use a tripod with the 680?

A tripod really helps, but isn't strictly necessary. For quality and control the tripod is a huge advantage, especially since I use it with a geared head for precise positioning. But I did take a couple of photos hand-held today - cradled in my left arm, braced against my chest, looking down into the finder - and the weight really isn't an issue. The inverted viewfinder is the problem. I must have looked like a bit of a fool as I swayed and bobbed to try to get my subject lined up.

How long do you usually spend setting up a shot? How many shots to a roll?

I timed myself today, and I average between five and eight minutes per exposure. A complicated setup could be ten minutes, and a follow-on photo with a similar camera position can be taken in as little as three minutes.

Roughly:

- choose tripod position, adjust height, and level tripod.
- orient and level camera.
- rotate back for horizontal or vertical framing.
- refine composition, focus, adjust lens movements.
- repeat.
- repeat.
- reposition tripod if needed, and start again.
- with composition and focus locked, take an incident meter reading.
- transfer metered settings to the camera, erring on the side of over-exposure.
- close viewfinder, turn camera on, wait for self-check.
- lock mirror up.
- three deep breaths.
- gently release shutter.
- flip mirror down, turn camera off.
- zero out camera movements and focus.
- collapse tripod and move on.

I learned very quickly to work with the camera off as much as possible. The shutter release is on the side and is easy to hit as I fumble for other controls.

A roll of 120 film will get 9 6x8 exposures. I also have a mask to convert to 6x7, which would give me ten exposures per roll. There are also masks out there (I don't own them) for 6x6, which is a bit of a 'hassel', or even 645 for sixteen images per roll. It seems silly to use this big a camera to be miserly with film - if I wanted a smaller negative, I'd use my Ikon. A roll of 120 film, purchased and processed, works out to about $10. That makes my price-per-exposure just slightly higher than burning chromes in one of my 135 format cameras.

I respect this workflow. Too many years have I banged away blind with autofocus and everything done for me. Bravo! Photographers don't get any respect because it is thought to be *easy* - this should put paid to that...