Some may have read elsewhere on here that I have this mad idea of taking a panorama on a 6x6 folder camera by controlling the wind-on and angle of turn (link
here and
here). So yesterday I thought I would try it out. I've wanted to for a while, but the light has been dismal and murky when it's not actually been wet.
First I had to get the Ikonta onto the pano head on my tripod. It's actually a Manfrotto fairly cheap head, but I've done a conversion from the Manfrotto QR clamp to an Arca-Swiss one, and this came with a pano facility. It's a bit of a pain in general use, actually, because the knob that tightens up to stop the clamp rotating doesn't work too well (you'll see a bit of a theme developing here). Anyway, I had to get an Arca plate onto the Ikonta. This also turned out to be a pain; the "tripod socket" on the Ikonta is normally used to hold the half case on, and it's raised above the base of the camera on a slightly dome-shaped bit of metal. This meant that it was very difficult to screw the plate on tightly. In practice in the field, the darn thing kept coming loose!
Anyway, I thought I'd take a sequence of 3 shots first, to remind myself how the camera works. Set up the camera on the "near side" of Kenilworth Castle:
View attachment 283013
(There's a dire amount of chromatic aberration there!) So that seemed to go well enough. I then went round to the far side, and set up at a point where the whole castle would fit in the viewfinder vertically, but with the option of taking 3 overlapping shots to make an approximate 6x17 panorama.
View attachment 283014
I figured I had to take the first shot, then wind on to the last circle on the backing paper (ie before the next frame number), then rotate the camera about 39 degrees, and take the next shot. The wind on should be enough to overcome the multi-exposure prevention.
So I took the first shot, and wound on. I could hear the noise as the anti-ME thing was disabled, which was good. Then I had to wind on. Because the sun was over my left shoulder, I had to turn the camera before exposing the red window. Darn it, I'd left the little red torch thingo behind.
Assuming that FP4 backing paper was the same as HP5, I had to wind on to the 4th circle. Wind, wind, wind... darn it, the next frame number!
OK, maybe FP4 only has 3 circles on the backing paper (or the first circle is too hard to see). Anyway, that's the first attempt gone. Back to the original position, re-take the first shot, spin so the red window is in the shade, wind on to the 3rd circle... darn it, the clamp has come loose and the body is turning freely relative to the clamp!
Take it off, tighten up, wind on to the frame number, back first position.
Next time I was too gentle on the shutter release, managed to set the anti-ME thingy but not fire the shutter. Now the normal button wouldn't fire, I had to go round to the front and work out how to defeat the anti-ME thingy, which I did, except I was standing in front of the lens!
Next time, the first shot worked perfectly, and so did the wind-on. I'd already spotted that the pano head thingy was not marked in degrees, but actually in 2.5 degree steps. But still, I figured 40 degrees would be close enough to 39 degrees. By this time, I was beginning to lose the will, but I had to give it a try. I managed to get 3 (hopefully overlapping) shots... and then went back and did it again!
Finally I was left with one frame to take, so moved back to the top of the field where I could get the whole castle in the viewfinder:
View attachment 283016
So, we'll see. At this stage I must say it appears those who were sceptical of this idea were right. On the other hand, a 6x17 camera must be a couple of grand, so it's worth a try.
My father's Zeiss Ikonta 524/16 (with the cheaper 75mm lens), and FP4+ film. Mostly 1/125 and f/11.