I went to the San Luis Rey mission in Oceanside, CA, this past Sunday, January 3rd, and had a disastrous outing, if judged solely by the terrible 8x10 negatives I obtained. I know, an outing cannot and should not be judged only on the basis of the photos taken, but I went there to take photos, and also, to remember my aunt.
Arriving at 3 p.m. as the bells were ringing at the nearby church (not the mission church) and people were arriving to attend mass, I had to load my film holders. That took a long, long time, and the precious light was fading because, well, it is winter and darkness falls quickly. I loaded the Catlabs 80 film and finally managed to make it out, but there were a group of maskless people standing in front of the church chatting, so I couldn't take that shot. I wander around and, lo and behold, I felt something fall off. It was the ball head from my tripod. It gave me a sinking feeling, because now I knew why the ball head was wobbling and why I couldn't lock it in place when trying to take photos with the 8x10. I was very, very lucky it did not fall off when I had my camera mounted on it. That is another episode in which my camera was in extreme risk. I really do not know how to handle the mechanics of using an 8x10 camera.
Here are the last two shots I took. I developed them yesterday and scanned them in this morning. They are terrible, both have massive light leaks. I know that the film holder is not flush with the back of the camera, so light is getting in. Since I was tilting the camera up, I think that is why, the bungee cords could not hold the film holder in place. Also, I must have moved the holders when I was removing and re-inserting film slides. The photos are terrible. I still have not taken a good photo of San Luis Rey in the 8x10 format.
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