Mono Zone Plate images with a Hasselblad 503CW

[Seoirse]

Ok...for those of you will only accept pin-sharp Planar images please look away now!

I have been shooting soft, lo-fi Zone Plate(a type of pinhole) pics with my 503 for the last six months and am posting some examples here for you took at.

Basically a zone plate is put in the place of the lens and because the one I use is F65 the image in the viewfinder is extremely dim and so requires a steady tripod & levels to help with composition and avoid shake because typical exposures with good light can be between 1/15 - 1 sec.

Anyway, here are a few images together with some blurb to give them some context:

Pic 1: I have been shooting with a 75mm f65 zone plate on a Hasselblad 503CW since last October and this is the first shot. The sculpture is in Dublin and is by Linda Brunker.

The neg got a bit mangled in processing due to a sticky reel but I managed to salvage it ok.

Pics 2 & 3: The town I live in has a couple of windmills (one 5-sail and one 4-sail) plus a watermill on an elevated site.

There was a bakery on the site up until the 1980's when it closed. Many people from the locality were employed in the bakery over the last couple of centuries, among them some relatives of mine - the most recent being my uncle Sammy.

Sammy used to deliver the hot baked bread to local shops and houses on a horsedrawn breadcart. I remember it was quite a sight and when I was a small boy he used to toss batch loaves down to me (you know the ones with the 'dimples') as he drove his horse and van by. I will always remember how the warm bread used to smell so delicious. By the time I got as far as the kitchen some pieces of the side of the bread would inevitably have been torn off so great was the temptation!

Well the Bakery was eventually sold and later underwent restoration along with the mills and now is a visitor centre with cafe, exhibition space and of course the mills are fully working. At harvest time the field beside the complex has a crop of oats which is cut with a steam threashing machine for the educational benefit of younger generations.

Pics 4,5,6: These three pics are from a series I took of the only remaining part of a once stately home some miles from my house.

Kenure House which was owned by the Palmer Family of Rush, Co Dublin fell into disrepair by the late sixties and was subsequently purchased by the local authority who required the estate land for development. In what was a very sad and divisive move they elected to demolish 99.9% of the house rather than opt for restoration.

This left just the Portico which now stands as a reminder of an era when style and classic design were celebrated by the gentry here in Ireland.

 

[sperera]

the sculpture shots is the bomb....love it

 

[Seoirse]

the sculpture shots is the bomb....love it

Thanks sperera. I'm glad you like it!

As I said it was my first shot with the zone plate on the 503CW.

I have been very pleasantly surprised at what can be achieved without using a lens on a Hasselblad.

 

[MarkH]

the first one is stunning... very well done!

 

[jotloob]

Mono zone plate

Ok...for those of you will only accept pin-sharp Planar images please look away now!

I have been shooting soft, lo-fi Zone Plate(a type of pinhole) pics with my 503 for the last six months and am posting some examples here for you took at.

Basically a zone plate is put in the place of the lens and because the one I use is F65 the image in the viewfinder is extremely dim and so requires a steady tripod & levels to help with composition and avoid shake because typical exposures with good light can be between 1/15 - 1 sec.

As far as I understand the MONO ZONE PLATE for HASSELBLAD , that device has no shutter .
I can uderstand to use that zone plate with a 201F , 203FE and 205 camera , because you can use the focal plane shutter .
But the 503CW has only the aux shutter available when you use the zone plate .
Please tell more about your setup .

Jürgen

 

[Seoirse]

My set-up

As far as I understand the MONO ZONE PLATE for HASSELBLAD , that device has no shutter .
I can uderstand to use that zone plate with a 201F , 203FE and 205 camera , because you can use the focal plane shutter .
But the 503CW has only the aux shutter available when you use the zone plate .
Please tell more about your setup .

Jürgen

Yes, Jurgen...you are quite correct about this.

The 503CW in common with all V series Hasselblads has only the use of the aux shutter blinds once the lens (with the normal shutter) is removed. This makes timing shutter speeds a bit hit and miss but with negative film (mono or colour) most of the time exposures are well within tolerance. With 400 asa film the typical shutter speed at f65 is between 1/30 - 2 seconds or so, depending on the amount of light.

My set-up is as follows:

1. 75mm zone plate (9 zone version made by Pinhole Resource) in a flange with Hassy bayonet is attached to 503CW body which has an A12 back loaded with film. The flange is a little bit loose in fit but I use some blue tack to make sure that it fits a little tighter to the body.

2. The camera is placed in a Hasselblad Quick Release clamp on a Berlebach wooden tripod made in Mulda, Germany.

3. I meter the subject using sekonic meter with invercone and because the zone plate has a fixed aperture of f65 the only variable is how long I keep the aux shutter blinds open. Typically with 400 asa this could be 1/8 second or so and I approximate this by saying to myself 'clip clop' which approximates the time fairly reasonably (and also approximates the sound usually made by a Hasselblad..ha ha! )

4. Note the small aperture f65 usually means quite a dark focusing screen so I use the wlf with the magnifier popped up to allow me to block out most of the stray light. In reality though this presents few problems and in fact is an aid to composition as I also make use of the excellent spirit levels on the Hasselblad Quick Coupling clamp to make sure my levels are good.

5. I also use a cable shutter release and will usually lock the mirror up to ensure that vibrations are kept to a minimum.

6. I sometimes use a yellow or orange cokin type filter which I place in a cokin filter holfer which I have attached with blue-tack to the front of the zone plate flange. It is crude but works.

7. Finally, I extend the development time in Rodinal 1:50 by about 33% over the normal time and so for 400 asa film it usually works out around 15 mins.

That's about it.

Note...it is easier to time with the aux shutter blinds when using slow film (25 asa) because longer times such as 1-2 seconds are much easier to achieve, but as I say most of the time the exposure latitude of negative film means that a bit of over or under exp[osure is not too critical.

Maybe over the next weekend I will photograph my set-up and it will be much clearer to see.

Regards,
Seoirse (George)

 

[jotloob]

Thank you very much George for your detailed feedback .
I will have a look to the pinhole resource pages .

Jürgen