Sunday morning I was washing dishes when I heard sirens approaching - and stopping just outside my apartment. I ran to a window and saw firefighters breaking into an old, empty beach house across the street. I grabbed the 4x5 Anniversary Speed Graphic and went outside to play Weegee. I came away with a great deal of admiration for him.

For one thing, focusing a Speed in a fast moving situation is harder than a 35mm. You must shift the eye from the rangefinder on the side of the camera to the viewfinder on the top. By the, the subject has moved. Thus the soft focus on this firefighter. I must learn more about zone focusing with this camera. There are not easy depth of field marks on it as there are on 35mm.

 

 

 

 

 

I also tried minimum agitation development with Pyrocat HD on these negatives. The developer was mixed at 1:1:150 and the negatives (HP5+) were developed in vertical tubes for 30-minutes. There was strange banding on a couple of the negatives as you can see between the two policemen on the left. I'm also not very satisfied with this procedure's contrast, at least for scanning. I have not yet made prints.