Monocacy Creek, 2025

When medium format isn't big enough: 4x5, 5x7, 9x12, 8x10 and even larger.
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scott
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Monocacy Creek, 2025

Post by scott »

'Morning, all -

Took the B&J to Monocacy Hill yesterday for some shooting. Yes - it was time for the every-few-years shots of the local waterfall. Still recovering from last year's surgeries, and something close and familiar is better than nothing at all. A scout a couple years back cut in a new connector trail from a closer parking lot to the creek trail as an Eagle scout project (helluva project, too - he did a great job); this makes it MUCH easier.

Anyway, shot four sheets. Happy enough with three. All fairly long exposures for Arista out in the woods - ~4:15 after reciprocity.

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Beautiful day out in the woods for early fall in PA. Camera is working nicely, if a bit on the heavy-ish side. Comes with the old tailboards. The trail is smooth, easy to negotiate, and beautiful this time of year. Have lived here 25 years; thee are still trails there we haven't hit. My wife joined me after her meeting, which was nice. And she sherpa'd on the way back to the truck, which is great.

The camera may be my favorite LF one of all time. Wonderful to use. The ground glass (which I made...) is too coarse for my liking. When I ground it, I could only find my 120 grit lapidary grit; have found my 400 since then. Bought two 5x7 pieces of glass, serendipitously, so will be doing that soon. Also going to add a Fresnel to it. Notably, though, my 150/5.6 Nikkor-W (which is what was used in the first two images above) covered fine. Both were stopped way down, but for landscape and macro, this lens should work just fine. About to pull the trigger on a 5" lens for this, which should be all I need as a kit for a long time. Used some of my new-to-me old wood holders, too - some wax and new tape and they worked great.

Have more local trips, and some not so local, in the works. Very happy with getting back into LF!

Have a great week, everyone.
Scott


Brazile
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Re: Monocacy Creek, 2025

Post by Brazile »

Those came out well! Good to see you out and about again.

Robert


Julio1fer
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Re: Monocacy Creek, 2025

Post by Julio1fer »

Your LF rig is working fine! Hope that you can get that 5” lens.

That place looks very interesting as a subject, with those roots and the trees behind and the little pond in front. Of course no way to get the water reflections with those exposure times, almost like pinhole photography!

Good to know that you are on the trail again; great selfie with the rig and the environment.


P C Headland
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Re: Monocacy Creek, 2025

Post by P C Headland »

The restored camera's looking good, the shots are looking good, the restored you, well....:lol:

I imagine that second shot would be interesting in colour too, though that would undoubtedly come at a cost!

Look forward to seeing some more of your LF shots.


scott
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Re: Monocacy Creek, 2025

Post by scott »

Brazile wrote:
Wed Sep 17, 2025 12:13 pm
Those came out well! Good to see you out and about again.

Robert
Thanks! Glad to be shooting again; need to dedicate more time to it. Too many fires, not enough irons.


scott
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Re: Monocacy Creek, 2025

Post by scott »

Julio1fer wrote:
Sat Sep 20, 2025 2:57 pm
Your LF rig is working fine! Hope that you can get that 5” lens.

That place looks very interesting as a subject, with those roots and the trees behind and the little pond in front. Of course no way to get the water reflections with those exposure times, almost like pinhole photography!

Good to know that you are on the trail again; great selfie with the rig and the environment.
Thanks! I ended up getting the lens - it's a Ross 5" f/4 "Wide Angle 5x7". Aerial lens, likely WWII era, but this one is NOT an XPRESS, and seems a bit unusual relative to everything I find online. Not marked the same, not XPRESS, and has a minimum aperture of f/32 (most are f/11 or less). Plasmat design, will need some cleaning, but the seller dropped the price generally, then made me an offer specifically, so I feel good about it. Will be here Thursday. Need to find a new tube for my Packard bulb...

Image


scott
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Re: Monocacy Creek, 2025

Post by scott »

P C Headland wrote:
Tue Sep 23, 2025 3:13 am
The restored camera's looking good, the shots are looking good, the restored you, well....:lol:

I imagine that second shot would be interesting in colour too, though that would undoubtedly come at a cost!

Look forward to seeing some more of your LF shots.
Thank you. The camera's aces, I'm happy with the shots (for now). Restored me is likely not done going in for shop work.

Yes - the second shot very much looked like something in LOTR. Didn't translate like I'd hoped into B&W, though I liked the contrast. I have some 4x5 Provia somewhere, may go back and shoot it at some point.


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