- Details
- Written by: Henrik Petersson
- Category: The Camera
Bronica ETRS-i
A Bronica ETRS-i was my first medium-format camera. The camera has been my No 1. work-horse for a number of years; it is relatively convenient to bring along and it produces very sharp and crisp negatives. I very much enjoy using this one. Unfortunately, it has been sitting for a while now in favor to my other cameras.
Pentax 67ii
The second medium-format camera to come into my possession was a Pentax 67ii. I could not resist to get me this one since P67ii have such a reputation for being a great camera for landscape photography. Also, I was excited working with 6x7 cm negatives. Nowdays, this is the camera I use most.
Zeiss Ikon - Ikonta M
I bought an Ikonta M for two reasons: I was charmed by the simplicity of a vintage range-finder such as this one, and I wanted to have a compact camera to bring on trips. It is great fun to use this one, everything is so basic and completely manual.
Wista Field 45 DX
Trying to convince myself for years that I should not get into large format, an offer eventually came up that I could not resists. The Wista Field 45DX is a 4x5" cherry wood filed camera that is very nice to look at and very fun to operate. Certainly, nothing is for free operating this camera and it is very slow to make a photograph, but I like it.
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- Details
- Written by: Henrik Petersson
- Category: Darkroom
For darkroom enthusiasts that wishes to experiment a little bit, mixing their own chemicals is perhaps one route to explore.
To begin with, the No 1 resource of information on this topic is 'The Darkroom Cookbook' by Stephen G. Anchell. A short review of this book (in Swedish) can be found here and on many other places on Internet. To find general information on a chemical, I have found that Wikipedia is an excellent choice, or perhaps http://webapps.kemi.se/amnesregistret/.
However, getting hold on the chemicals that is needed is not as easy (any longer).
And if you are living in Sweden...
From my experience, getting hold on raw chemicals is not straight forward if you are living in Sweden. There are some major providers such as e.g. Sigma-Aldrich and Merck, but they only accept orders from organizations. There are also companies such as Sagitta, but they also do not sell chemicals to private persons (Although they do have other nice lab equipments which you can buy from there) .
The best option seems to be to buy from e-bay. There are several traders within EU that sell chemicals in small amount and to private persons. Some e-bay stores even specialize in chemistry for photography. Be aware though, there might be import- or other restrictions on the chemical you are looking for. Swedish official sources to find more information on this include www.tullverket.se and www.kemi.se (Kemikalieinspektionen). Kemikalieinspektionen also provide a list of usefull databases, see http://www.kemi.se/hitta-direkt/databaser.
Depending on the chemical you are looking for, I have found that your ordinary grocery- or hardware- store might be an option. Through some detective work I have been able to identify the following chemicals (in "pure" form") in ordinary daily use products.
| Name (EN) | Name (SE) | CAS | Trade Name | Where to find | For use in |
| Acetic acid | Ättika | Perstorps ättika | grocery stores | Stop bath | |
| Sodium thiosulfate | Natriumtiosulfat | 7772-98-7 | Nitor sänker klor (#226844) | hardware store | Plain hypo (i.e. fixer) |
| Sodium bisulfate | Natriumvätesulfat (=natriumbisulfat, NaHSO_4) | 7681-38-1 | Nitor sänker pH (#290205) | hardware store | e.g. in stop baths |
| Sodium carbonate | Natriumkarbonat | 497-19-8 | Nitor höjer pH (#290208), also as ordinary washing soda (SE "målarsoda") |
hardware store | Accelerator for use in developer |
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- Details
- Written by: Henrik Petersson
- Category: The Print
This article is about the construction of a 'Do It Youself' (DIY) f-stop darkroom timer.
Introduction
Some time ago I decided to find a replacement for my old mechanical darkroom timer. I was immidiately suprized by the cost of buying a new one, so I decided to build my own instead. Of course, one seldoms earn any great money on such decision, but it is a creative process and one ends up with a device tailored for ones needs.
Some criterions that were important for me while sketching on the design were:
- a nice price for value
- feature rich
- easily upgradeable
- easy to operate
- compact in size
At the time of writing this article, my timer has the following features:
- f-stop timer mode
- test strip mode
- burn mode
- manual exposure mode
- foot-pedal switch
- metronome
The main unit can be seen in Figure 1 below:
Figure 1: The f-stop timer main unit
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- Details
- Written by: Henrik Petersson
- Category: The Print
The 'SP-445' is a compact 4x5 sheet film processing system from 'Stearman Press LLC'.
https://shop.stearmanpress.com/products/sp-445-compact-4x5-film-processing-system
The tank can develop 4 sheets at a time and after development and fixation, the films can be washed inside the SP-445 tank.
To accompanion this tank development system, I decided to make a DIY force film washer. The washer allow me to conveniently transfer the SP-445 sheet film holders directly from the dev tank and into the film washer. Assuming you have spare film holders, the dev tank can then be given a quick rinse in order to be ready for developing a next batch of films (while the first batch is still in the film washing tank).
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