Re: red bellows

[Clive Warren <Clive.Warren@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

At 4:09 pm +0000 8/6/00, rod sage wrote:

>I just came across a bellows on ebay with this quote:
>"This is an infrared bellows made for me by Ron Wisner about six years
>ago after I discovered the hard way that his beautiful red kid leather
>bellows do not stop infrared fogging. "
>The bellows for sale was black.
>It this a concern with all red bellows. The reason I ask is that I just
>purchased a Graflex Century Graphic with red bellows and was planning to
>use some Konica 750 120 in a roll film holder on it. Will this be a
>mistake? How about if I remove the dark-slide just before and replace
>just after taking the picture?
>What about IR film in cameras with a red film counter window?
>Rod S.


Rod,

The best way to find out if your belllows are safe is to test your kit
thoroughly - that way you will have no unpleasant surprises.

I would imagine that there are more problems with synthetic materials than
there are with leather bellows, however would be happy to be proved wrong.
The replacement infrared bellows made by Ron Wisner are fairly expensive
but necessary if you have one of his cameras and want to shoot HIE.

It is always good practice to remove the dark slide for only as long as it
takes to fire the shutter.  I often leave the tip of the darkslide in the
holder just in case the light felt is a bit IR leaky. The only time that
the darkslide comes all the way out is in windy conditions when out in the
field.

The darkslide can do one of two things in these situations - it acts like a
sail and causes the camera to move whilst the shutter is open, or it falls
on the dusty ground and makes you irritable :-)  Oh yes the third scenario
is that it gets blown over the edge of the 1000ft drop just in front of the
camera :-)

Managed to loose a couple of tripod spacers this way a couple of weeks ago
- the whole experience of taking the photos was a little unnerving due to
the gusty wind and the camera being about 2ft from the edge of the 1000ft
precipice.  Will put a couple of photos up on www.f32.net of the situation
soon.  Was shooting Konica 120 using a roll film back on a 4x5 camera.

The leather (?) bellows on Speed Graphic and MPP cameras are fine to use
with Konica IR750.  Have not tested them with HIE but would be happy to do
so ......



All the best,

             Clive   http://www.cocam.co.uk
                     Photographic Services, Filters and Equipment, Infrared FAQ


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