Camera Talk

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

The last image is a superb portrait. Well done!

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?

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

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.

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

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

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.