Nettar on the snow

[alexvaras]

Test roll with Nettar II 518/16 with Novar 4.5 and Velio shutter (Apr 53 - Jul 58)

This camera was in a local auction and the state of the camera is superb, amazingly well conserved (shutter accurate, bellows ok and the only thing I did is to open the viewfinder to clean its glasses).

I did not clean anything, it was as you see when I opened.

Thanks to Julio and his recent pics I finally decided to take the camera out.

Some samples at f8 outside and f4.5 inside. Fomapan 400.

Infinity focus

3 meters

1.3 meters

3 meters

3 meters

About the light, I have a goshen digisix and I never did pics on the snow, I measure ambient light and because the snow I read some stops could be done, to avoid this I also read that putting the hand or whatever bellow the light-meter would get the correct light. So I did it this way, I got good results as you can see in the first picture (200 at f8), I took two other more pics using lower speeds (100/f8 and 50/f8) and the pics are too washed (dunno if this expression is correct).
But anyway the snow is no white as it should.

As final conclusion is, yes this camera is a keeper, I like a lot how it went, it easy and straight forward, zone focus and shoot.

Ideas about a whiter snow are welcome

Full album:
https://flic.kr/s/aHsmecJmGT

[GrahamS]

The last image is a superb portrait. Well done!

[Julio1fer]

Excellent portraits there! The OOF areas of that lens are quite nice, and you nailed the focus very well!

As for whiter snow, I believe that you are measuring light correctly. If you want whiter snow, you could underexpose the meter indication by 1 stop or so; depending on your development you might get less detail in the snow.

But I believe that you could also correct levels in scanning, to get the results that you want. This is similar to what one used to do in enlarging, with exposure / development control on the print. The idea is to get white in the result what was white in the scene (or, better said, what one wants to be white).

I copied your first image to GIMP and got the following histogram in Colors / Levels. You have plenty of room to correct in the highlights, on the right side:



This is why your snow looks grey. If you correct levels to move your lighter highlights to the right end, you'll get whiter snow.

What was that song, a whiter shade of pale?

[PFMcFarland]

For whiter snow, move away from the power plant.

At least you have one medium format camera that will focus correctly. Good compositions with the portraits.

PF

[alexvaras]

Gracias Julio! But still I dont control the develop and scan process, I can do it in LR but I try to keep it as its at the moment and try to get better film exposure.

Thx Phil, but I have more than one MF focusing correctly!!! Hehehe
I should forget about the Bessa for a month and come back to it with new ideas...

Thx all for the compliments about the portraits, its them, not me who do the job.

[Julio1fer]

Alex, my previous post is in error. To get whiter snow you should overexpose (not underexpose) with respect to the meter lecture.

[alexvaras]

So if exponometer says 200 f8, I should go for 100 f8 or 200 f5.6 or ...

[Julio1fer]

That is correct. Alex. You may try 1 or 2 stops overexposure, and determine what works best.

I still believe that you might need corrections in scanning for best results. This usually happens with sand or snow scenes. The auto-scanning gives sand / snow a light gray tone.