Restoring the Crown Graphic! (In bits again..)

Absolute work of art mate. You've done the old girl proud.

Andy
 
It would be interesting to see what the value of it is now compared to what you paid. It really does look stunning. Are you going to try it out now?
 
Thanks guys, I am really chuffed with it. I have been using CNC's the past year working on metals but wood is completely different and I have learnt a lot doing this.

It has rained all afternoon so I am going to have to wait a bit longer before I can use it again :crying: I only have until wednesday to shoot colour as I won't get it back in time before I start uni.

Well I am not sure how much it would be worth now if I were to sell it. I am thinking about importing another one and doing the same but then sell it on ebay...
 
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:clap: Fantastic job you have done there Liam! wish I could do something like that, would love it sitting in my office! ( if you did get another one be sure to advertise on here first, I'm sure there would be a few takers!)
 
Awesome! Looks fantastic Liam. Very good job (y)
 
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Cheers for the comments guys, I still haven't been able to use it yet!!

If I sell it I think I would be happy just to get my money back as I have really enjoyed it :D
 
Judging by the ebay prices at the moment you should easily manage to get your money back.
 
Really enjoyed looking through that thread.

You've done a fantastic job.
 
awesome thread to see it restored, but desperately needs a pic of the results :D
 
Thanks guys, it shoots 5x4 at the moment but you can get backs so that it can use roll film (120)

I finally managed to get out his morning and fired off 6 sheets, 3 are colour so I have sent them off to peak and I am going to develop the b&w in the minute. It was sooooo much nicer to use and I got a few funny comments this morning from the public :D
 
What were the comments like Liam, positive or negative? (I'm effing hilarious me;))
 
Kev M said:
What were the comments like Liam, positive or negative? (I'm effing hilarious me;))
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All positive..

"You look like you know what your doing!"

"Is it ok if I take a photo from the same position?"

"Does it do video?" - I laughed at this one
 


f32 1/25th

Ok, here is an image from this morning taken in Arundel (hence the castle in the background) I walked around for about 30mins but only shot one image :D I think I gave it a bit to much rise as the building doesn't look quite right..
 
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Can I ask why you shot with such a small aperture Liam? Couldn't you have used the lens movement to give you the same DOF at a larger aperture and reduced the chance of camera shake? I'm not saying the photo has signs of shake but I thought one of the points of lens tilt was to give you the DOF at more sensible apertures?
 
Kev M said:
Can I ask why you shot with such a small aperture Liam? Couldn't you have used the lens movement to give you the same DOF at a larger aperture and reduced the chance of camera shake? I'm not saying the photo has signs of shake but I thought one of the points of lens tilt was to give you the DOF at more sensible apertures?
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Hi Kev, you are right that using movements is to get everything in focus but you will only find a large format image shot wide open if you are going for a arty feel.

Because the sharpness and light fall off is ridiculously bad when you are trying to fill 5x4 inches of film. Even at f22 you can see vignetting and a slight lack of sharpness but I am using a very basic/cheap lens so it would be different if you were using something expensive but a lot of users shoot at f22-f64!
 
Cheers for the explanation Liam I hadn't realised the the lens movements caused vingetting at wider apertures. You learn something new everyday here.
 
The movements on a crown Graphic are pretty sparse, as you have no back movements Nor twist on the front of the early ones. They were after all press cameras, not technical cameras. The Optar is not a bad lens Just not up with the best German ones of the day.
As a press camera lens they would have been used mostly at the F5,6 f8 Only when movements were needed would they have been closed more.

The apparent vignetting you see, is far worse than you will get on the film. mostly it is a characteristic of the ground glass. and it seems much the same on all lenses. but gets worse with wide angles.

A Xenar or Tessar lens would be a good choice as they were far more widely used.

An Angulon wide angle must be used very well stopped down, Unlike the later super Angulon, however even that can only be used for focusing wide open.

The wray wide angle used for the early MPP is as good as the angulon but like it, it needs stopping down.

Most shorter focus lenses do not have an image circle much bigger than the 5x4 film. so when you raise the lens you are actually moving out of the area of coverage, rather than normal vignetting. Stopping down will not help in this case as the image extends no further.
 
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Terrywoodenpic said:
The movements on a crown Graphic are pretty sparse, as you have no back movements Nor twist on the front of the early ones. They were after all press cameras, not technical cameras. The Optar is not a bad lens Just not up with the best German ones of the day.
As a press camera lens they would have been used mostly at the F5,6 f8 Only when movements were needed would they have been closed more.

The apparent vignetting you see, is far worse than you will get on the film. mostly it is a characteristic of the ground glass. and it seems much the same on all lenses. but gets worse with wide angles.

A Xenar or Tessar lens would be a good choice as they were far more widely used.

An Angulon wide angle must be used very well stopped down, Unlike the later super Angulon, however even that can only be used for focusing wide open.

The wray wide angle used for the early MPP is as good as the angulon but like it, it needs stopping down.

Most shorter focus lenses do not have an image circle much bigger than the 5x4 film. so when you raise the lens you are actually moving out of the area of coverage, rather than normal vignetting. Stopping down will not help in this case as the image extends no further.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the indepth explanation Terry, I am still learning :D

I assume you used to use LF?
 
Liam said:
Thanks for the indepth explanation Terry, I am still learning :D

I assume you used to use LF?
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I started with Glass plate and moved to cut film for the first ten years of my working life. I have used all sizes up to 10x8. but mostly 5x4.
 
It looks like you didn't have everything parallel in that shot Liam. Diverging verticals are a dead giveaway that something wasn't set up right. Probably the camera was pointing slightly down.

I try and avoid the smaller apertures with my camera, instead going for around f11-16. I'm not sure to what degree your camera has swings (maybe none) but you could have used a wider aperture and set the plane of focus running down the side of the church to get the same depth to the image. You could also have reduced the impact of the rover on right (which is where my eye comes to rest as the whole picture is basically pointing to it) by rendering is slightly out of focus

All in all it's not a bad effort though, it took me ages to get to grips with what is possible, and how to do it (also starting with a press camera)
 
Well I decided that I didn't like the paint job that I spent hours on as it looked to glossy and didn't really match the wood. So I have stripped it all down again / sanded / primed and repainted with some wrinkle paint...

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In the flesh it looks just like leather so I am happy :D
 
all very good work there !

I haven't seen this thread before ... I want LF even more now :D
 
Happy new year everyone!

She is back together now, here are two rubbish images. I think I might be finally happy with it now :D

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Liam,

That appears to be a vast improvement on the previous finish.
Well done.
Can I ask what black paint that is (crackle finish) you used ?

C
 
Looking the business Liam. Clean, professional and undoubtedly retro. Love it..
 
Hi Ceejay, this the paint I used Black Wrinkle Paint, well worth the £10 but its the hardest paint I have ever used.

You have to do a base coat followed by 3 coats of the wrinkle paint leaving 10 minutes between each. You then heat it up for the wrinkles to appear using a heat gun or hairdryer. The problem is that the amount of wrinkles depend on the material/paint thickness/temperature of the room/temperature of the hairdryer...
This is why the front is less wrinkly than the lensboard! I will probably give the lensboard another go to see if I can get it to match.
 
After 3 weeks of cloud the sun came out this morning so I loaded a few holders and headed down to some old ruins. I will develop the negs this afternoon but here are some digital snaps.

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Its a thing of beauty Liam, well done mate.

Andy
 
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