The tribulations continue! Having sorted out the issues with developing the film I have now discovered another problem which is causing me to rethink (again) my approach to this assignment – the new lens.
I have only had the lens that I have chosen for this job, the Schneider 210mm, for about a month and this is the only project that I have used it on so far. Though the lens looks to be in very good condition, with nice clean, clear optics, it is simply not producing good pictures. Image quality is poor, the picture is very grainy and foggy, completely unusable. In contrast, my older Rodenstock 150mm lens, which I used for one picture on the shoot last week (exactly the same film and developed with those taken with the 210mm) has worked perfectly producing a photo with good grain and detail, nice contrast.
In light of this I am going to have to go back and reshoot (for the third time!) using just the 150mm. This is inevitably going to mean rethinking camera angles and positions, and I might have to crop pout some extraneous background in Photoshop, but needs must. Otherwise I would simply have to abandon this part of the project and do something else. Already, as an exercise if nothing else, I have created a set of black and white images in 4×5 format from some of my original colour digital images, which if nothing else offer me something of a fall-back position, to offer an indication of what the more artistically driven and influenced set would look like. I would though rather not have to use them as it feels a bit like cheating so I will persevere with the film. At least I am used to and comfortable with the 150mm lens, and have confidence in it. I just have to find yet more time to get a further shoot done, and put up with still more attention (some unwelcome) that a big camera on a tripod, and the spectacle of me covered by a heavy, dark focusing cloth (under which it can get amazingly hot!) inevitably attracts.
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