{"id":17681,"date":"2023-01-10T18:29:02","date_gmt":"2023-01-10T17:29:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.hyam.net\/blog\/?p=17681"},"modified":"2023-01-17T14:57:18","modified_gmt":"2023-01-17T13:57:18","slug":"the-victo-a-new-year-project","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.hyam.net\/blog\/archives\/17681","title":{"rendered":"The Victo – a New Year Project"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

I had a few days off after the Christmas and New Year and couldn’t resit another renovation project. I’d been wanting to have a go at a half plate camera as a smaller and lighter alternative to my whole plate. Half plate is slightly smaller than the ‘modern’ 5×7 inch format at 4\u00be \u00d7 6\u00bd inches (120 \u00d7 165mm). Before Christmas I spent some time at Camera Base<\/a> here in Edinburgh picking a derelict from their storage room and matching it to some plate holders. Book-form plate holders were not standardised between makers like modern film holders are.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Ready for first light.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

I wanted to create a usable camera rather than a perfect restoration so replaced the tripod base with a plywood one with a regular tripod thread and spirit level. I also adapted the front standard to take Linhof style lens boards so I can switch lenses between a bunch of different cameras.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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As it came<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Unsurprisingly the bellows were rotting so I ordered replacement, synthetic bellows from a supplier in China (You can find them on eBay). The bellows arrived the first week in January and I was really pleased with them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Measuring up for new bellows<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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The Victo is double extension so can handle lenses up to about 300mm <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Gluing the bellows<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Advert from about 1910<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

I have two period appropriate lenses to try out that I’ll maybe write more about in the future. I have poured some half plates and am just waiting for a reasonably bright day to go and try the thing out.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Update:<\/strong> Finally got a chance to a plate. The first few I poured were terrible as I didn’t level the cooling slab in both directions so they are thicker on one side than the other – OK for testing though.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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First half plate in the Victo. Rough and ready test shot as always. Positive is Multigrade print on Grade 2 layed on the light box next to the negative. Development was two bath which controls the highlights well.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I had a few days off after the Christmas and New Year and couldn’t resit another renovation project. I’d been wanting to have a go at a half plate camera as a smaller and lighter alternative to my whole plate. Half plate is slightly smaller than the ‘modern’ 5×7 inch…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":17682,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-17681","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-photography"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hyam.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17681","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hyam.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hyam.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hyam.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hyam.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17681"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.hyam.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17681\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17822,"href":"https:\/\/www.hyam.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17681\/revisions\/17822"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hyam.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/17682"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hyam.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17681"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hyam.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17681"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hyam.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17681"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}