I found the problem

 I was having a problem with my Willtravel 8x10 printed camera. I purchased it back in October, and was looking forward so much to using it, but there are so, so many details to take note of when trying to move up to 8x10 photography. It has been a series of problems, one after the other.

Well, a few days after getting the camera, sent all the way from Norway, I had a major problem. I was having way too much difficulty attaching a tripod release plate to it. Now, it is essential to use a tripod with one of these big cameras. They are big and unwieldy, and as much as I was hoping to try to learn how to use it as a point-and-shoot camera, it is not a cellphone. It is big. So, a tripod is a must, but as I said, I could not mount it successfully. It always felt as if it was about to fall off, but I was lucky the first few days. 

On Nov. 1st, I went to a university campus to photograph a Japanese Garden. I took a few photos, but I could feel that I was having problems, and I was worried. My instincts told me that something was not right, but I insisted. When I moved to take photos of the rose garden, disaster struck. It (the camera) fell off the tripod as I was relocating, and I heard a sound of broken glass. This is what I saw, my camera in pieces.

                                       

The problem was, the tripod release plate had not attached properly to the camera. I knew it at the time, but couldn't tighten it. I trusted the expertise of the camera maker, when I should have trusted the evidence I had in front of me. The tripod could not be mounted using the bolts. So, I gathered up the pieces, put them in a green bag and trudged home, thinking I had just lost $750 dollars ($350 for the 3D printed camera body, another $330 for the big lens and about $80 for the film holder.) I shelved the bag somewhere at home and decided to lick my wounds and try to forget about it.

Then, last week, I decided to go back and take a look at the camera. Maybe I could salvage something? These were the broken parts:

There was also a giant crack in the main camera cone. Well, I replaced the helical and verified that my lens was still working. It was! I could cock the shutter, but I first had to bend the lever which was bent at a funny angle and would not move the shutter release mechanism. Then, I verified that the glass was unbroken. Then, I verified that I could change shutter speeds, and that the speeds sounded approximately correct. They did! I was very fortunate. Maybe it wasn't a total loss.

I taped over the crack with black electrical tape, a la the taped camera I saw pictured in Eric Constantineau's account of his making of his Dorothea camera, which was a similar 8x10 portable camera with not bellow, just a lens cone. He made it work, why couldn't I?

Looking over the camera carefully I tried to pull the pieces I could together. The viewfinder is a lost cause, I will have to order a replacement. I will also order another helical, but luckily, the camera creator had sent me a spare. So, this is what I had:

It looked like it might be salvageable. I really dreaded the alternative, which was to buy another camera body in another year or so, when I had the funds. I am insistent, I want to obtain those big 8x10 negatives that look like such works of art, and then, move on up to 8x10 color slides and see if I could photograph something that approaches the gorgeous slides taken by Youtube sensation Ben Horne. An option was to look at an Intrepid MKii 8x10, but that would be an expense of at least another $1,000, and I would have to buy another lens since my Schneider 121mm would be too wide angle for it, and of course, if I submitted my order, I would have to wait for months for it to be fulfilled. Plus, there are rumors on the net about the lack of quality control with Intrepid Cameras, and Justin Lowery in one of his videos complained about the Intrepid camera he was using, and blamed a few failed shots on the craftsmanship. So, I had no wish to sink more money in what might turn out to be a sinkhole for my very limited funds.

I took the patched up camera with me when I went to explore the Riverwalk Parkway in La Sierra last week. I think it was Thursday. It was a dark and stormy night, as Snoopy used to write. No, it wasn't, it was a gloomy day with the sun peaking out for a few minutes at a time before hiding once again. I walked up and down the parkway, and even saw La Sierra university, which serves the 7th Day Adventist community. (The campus, from what I could see from far away since I was not permitted to enter the grounds of the university, has a very impressive layout, but of course, a university is more than buildings, it is the community which it serves.) I then went back to the principal section of the Riverwalk to try to take 8x10 photos.

Walking to the main area where the gazebo was located, I saw an elderly "white" man sailing a small toy sailboat via remote control. No, I didn't want to intrude on him, but I found another option, a view of a small bridge covered with vines which could be viewed from a gazebo located on a wood pathway. It was a terrible composition, but I wanted to shoot something quickly. My objective, as I told myself, was not to play at being Ansel Adams, it was to get a few shots so that I could take them home and develop them and see if my camera was working again.

After fiddling around with the setup for the tripod, I went ahead and ventured to take a shot. The camera was perched clumsily on my tripod, and I was very afraid that it would crash to the ground again. Luckily I was standing on wood planks this time, not on concrete as I had been at the rose garden at a place that will not be named. Still, I was very uneasy because I knew that the camera was not securely attached to the tripod socket. The plate will not screw into the female bolts on the camera. Take the shot already!

I then moved down the path, skirting the man and his sailboat, and found another scene. I took off my windbreaker and focused. I thought I had an adequate composition, not a great shot, but adequate, and my main purpose was to test if the camera was functioning. I took the shot, then trudged back to my car and retreated home, anxious to develop the two sheets. 

Well, I published the results a few posts ago. They were terrible. I had horrendous light leaks. I did not want to give in to despair, however. I took out the camera to take a closer look at it, to see if I could find the source of the problem.

It didn't take long to locate it. Looking at the corner where the main crack had been taped over, I saw that one surface of the camera bulged outward. Thus, the film holder is not held flush with the camera body. I needed to find a solution, and I tried forcing it in, but the two parts would not, as the Beatles song goes, "come together, right now, over me". So I came up with what I thought was a solution: buy a small clamp. There were several options, all I had to do was go to the hardware store, I would find the one I needed.

I went, as I recall, on Friday, and exchanged a pie for a few simple clamps. A pie, you ask? Yes, I paid $3.14. So, I bought a clamp and fixed it to the edge of the camera, orienting it in a way so that I could still insert a film holder. This is what I came up with:

Then, I was ready to test it. I went and tried a shot at the Civic Center, a rather run-down building that I foresee will be razed in the near future. I struggled to attach the release plate for the tripod. Once again it would not fit! Still, I insisted.

I managed to get the release plate connected, but just barely, just barely, and I was taking a big, big chance at utterly ruining my camera because I was standing, once again, on concrete asphalt. But I mounted it on the tripod, aimed it at the facade of the building and took a photo. I was very, very, very fortunate that I didn't lose my camera again. As I went to unscrew it from the tripod it just came off, with no turning of the screws, it just came off. By all accounts, it should have crashed down on the concrete once again. I mumbled thank you over and over as I walked back to my car.

At home I put the negative in a reel and came up with this:

I was so overjoyed! I thought I had resurrected my camera. I sincerely thought my Willtravel was back in action, if I could fix the tripod problem. Maybe it was the wrong size? No, it is a 1/4-20, I checked, but my release plates are not long enough to engage. The female bolts that are installed in the camera do not have thread that leads to the edge, and so, my male bolts will not properly insert. It is a matter of penile envy, er, getting a longer bolt. (I have ordered them from B&H, by the way.)

Well, I wanted to confirm that my Willtravel was back, so I went back to the Riverwalk Parkway. It was a Sunday, as I recall, and I tried to take two shots. Well, I composed quickly for my first one, trying to get a small bridge with vines, but this was different from my first compositions. When I inserted my film holder again, it jammed, it would not go back in. The center, as they say, would not hold. I was firm, though, not too firm, but firm, thinking, if I can just jam in the film holder at least part of the way back, I might be able to salvage at least part of the image. The film holder slide did go back in, and I thought I had pulled a rabbit out of a hat (like in the Rocky and Bullwinkle cartoons). But no, it was not to be, as I was to find out later.

I walked a little north and found another quick composition. It was well lit, and the river had features that would provide interesting details. I didn't bother to check the focus, I relied on what I had set before, and I didn't bother to even use the tripod, because I knew I was just risking having the Willtravel fall into the water. I handheld it and took a shot.

There was a desire for more, there always is, but there were too many people on a weekend walking around without facemasks, so I didn't bother. I went home and decided to see what I had. When I took out the film holder and was preparing to loading into the 20th Century Camera reel, I steeled myself for the worst. Feeling around int he bad, I found out that there was no film on one side of my holder! The other side did have a sheet of film. I loaded that, then loaded a sheet with an 8x10 image from the Alta Vista garden. Lo and behold, only that Alta Vista shot came out, the other was blank. What had I done wrong? Was the shutter not working? Did I forget to take out the dark slide? Was there another problem I didn't know about? I was very upset.

So, today, I went BACK to the Riverwalk. If you are counting, this is my third try, but I am determined to get those shots with my camera. I need to see if I have a functioning camera. What I should have done was to inspect it again. I didn't, even though I noticed some faint rustling sounds inside the camera when I held it in different orientation. Today it was blazing hot. It was in the mid 80s, even reaching up tentatively into the 90s, I would venture to say. Such crazy weather. I showed up and composed my two shots, thinking, when I go home, I will sit down and carefully inspect my camera. I was also anxious to develop my shots, hoping I would get some image on them. I also took my Travelwide 4x5 and took six images as well. I was determined to come away with at least some successful large format photos of this location, since I have not been successful up to now except with my cellphone.

(I should add, it was very pleasant again. The old man, who I will call Gilligan, was sailing his remote-control sailboat on the river again.)

When I got home, and before loading my sheets into the developing reels, I decided to look at my camera. What I saw sank my stomach again. It meant, once again, failure to obtain an 8x10 image from this location. I am making all the mistakes anyone can make when moving into large format photography.

What was the problem? Well, there was a stuck sheet of film that was blocking the light coming from the lens! It was that sheet of film that had disappeared on me last week. It turned out, it had come out of the film holder and stuck to the inside of the camera, and since it is dark, it blocks all light, so my other sheet that was exposed was blank. No wonder. And it all comes down to the fact that I was not using the focusing screen, since I can't clamp the camera to a tripod, I was just "winging it". So, my two sheets would be blank.

No, I refuse to accept this. So I got back in my car and went local, I went to the Metrolink station and climbed to the highest level, walked to the edge and took a photo looking in the direction of the San Gabriel mountains. I needed a yellow or red filter to darken the sky, and I really should have tried to focus at infinity, but I was fearful that Metrolink security would come storming up there to try to harass me, like that scene in the Matrix where the agents come after Neo on the roof and he engages in these crazy moves to dodge the bullets. What was I doing with a bag of equipment on the top level that had been blocked off to traffic, although it could be reached by climbing up stairs, as I had done? Was I another Latino just wanting to "tag" the structure? So I took a quick shot then walked back to my car. This is what I obtained:

As you can see, there is a small ovoid section to the right-center which, apparently, is part of the image at the Riverwalk Parkway that was not blocked by the lost piece of film. But I was overjoyed! The camera does work! It is a little too wide angle for me, but that also means that I can handhold at 1/30th of a second, as I did, using Catlabs 80 film. Why such a slow shutter speed? Well, I set the aperture to f22, wanting to maximize focus without having to actually turn the helicoid. The important thing is, it works, and I used the sheets that I thought I had exposed at Riverwalk. 

Here is my second shot, I drove a short distance away to a lumber mill location and stood close to the train tracks. Once again, no tripod, just me hand-holding the camera. You can see my shadow. I wish I cut a more svelte figure.

Once again, I need to work on composition, but I will wait until I have found a solution for the tripod release plate problem. For now, I just need to see that it works. And it does! It does!

So that was my adventure today as we await the holiday on the 25th. Oh, and I did see the conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn today to the southwest. I guess I count that as a stellar conjunction, two 8x10 images in my developing tank and in the night sky.