Gum over Palladium ~ "Vicar's Window" continued

The first layer of gum went over the palladium print "Vicar's Window" today. I confess I am more excited about this form of printing than I had anticipated. It is becoming clear how I wish to proceed with the printing in general. I am finding gum over palladium, or gold toned silver (Kallitype) to be be far the most satisfying print making for me. The pure gum printing will also continue at its own pace, as a good gum print takes weeks to make, well.

There are many colors to draw from to 'color' an image. As can be seen in the last post, the palladium print was fairly neutral toned, not the warm, brownish color usually associated with palladium images. This palladium print was made the back door method of the poor man's palladium. A palladium toned silver print, in this case a Kallitype print I developed in sodium citrate, which is the warm toned developer of Kallitype printing. The palladium salts replace the silver salts during toning, leaving the print a true palladium print. I mix my palladium toner in the traditional method; 15% chloropalladite; 5ml/1000ml DH20. That mixture can be reduced to 20 drops (1ml) of palladium (15%) in a liter of distilled water, and that will render the print image being toned much warmer in the diluted form than the 5ml toning solution.

This layer of gum was intended to do one task only. Recreate the warm sunlight flooding in through the window of late afternoon sunlight. The golden glow kind. I used Yellow Ochre this first layer, and will allow that to dry down well before trying to determine if I want to add further layers. Sometimes adding too much detracts, rather of adding anything of value. What has to be weighed in at this point is just how much yellow of that color will be removed when the print is cleared of the dichromate stain? That is the question. I want the image to be something close to where it is now, perhaps a bit deeper. Those are choices the printer makes along the way, shaping the print bit by bit until it becomes the very image pre-visualized and hoped for. That, is the tricky part.

Gum over Palladium
"Vicar's Window" ~ 8x10 ~ 1 layer gum

New Print ~ Gum over Palladium

One of the pains of fine printing is simply that the printer is never, usually, ever satisfied with any given print, realizing there are other ways of printing the image, perhaps so much better than the avenue chosen. You know who you are, and how that affects your printing. The now finished gum print "Jars in the Window" is indeed one of those. If I continued printing that image, each iteration would be a little bit better than the last. Which is exactly why it is supremely important to know when to stop that practice.

The next print will begin a series of such prints, gum over palladium prints. Each of these will be unique, as any print I make now is, that has anything to do with gum printing partial or otherwise. Gum printing is not something that is copied faithfully from one print to the next. Each is absolutely unique, if you are doing it correctly. This image is one  I have been wanting to get to, but up until now I hadn't resolved how I was going to treat it, or even which medium to use. Part of the ceiling time the other evening was spent on just that question. What came of that was a hybrid, printing gum over a warm toned palladium print. This print will begin a series of such 8x10 gum over palladium prints to come. Each will be unique.

Palladium toned Kallitype
"Vicar's Window" ~ 8x10 ~ Base layer for gum layers to come

"Jars in the Window" ~ Finished

This third print iteration of Jars in the Window is now finished.  Truly done. As I have mentioned ad nauseum about gum printing, there is no boundary, no standard for which to determine when a print is finished, outside of the printer staring at it long enough to determine if there is anything, at all, that can be added to the print to improve it. If the answer comes back that it is the image that was pre-visualized, and best effort that can be made at the time of the printing, it's done. I had done some testing with the sizing, including this print. I altered the gelatin sizing from 2 1/2% to 2%.

It is obvious from seeing the differences between the three printed versions of this image that each one is quite a bit different from the rest. What would also be seen is that each print is iteration is an improvement from the last. The colors are whatever they may be in a final print, of course derived from the very colors stacked during the printing. Getting a finished image is one thing when printing a gum. A capable gum printer can do that. That is capturing the likeness of a subject or scene. Good as that can be. For me, it is capturing the "essence" of the subject or scene's lighting, which should reflect the lighting as it was. It is capturing the light that for me, makes the gum print. I am still learning the subtle character of that task.

This gum print was eight effective print layers, with two partial layering mostly affecting shadow color. The effect I was after in this image was the light coming through the window, reflecting off the walls of the room, as well as capture the brilliance of the direct sunlight outside the window. The densities outside the window are three times that of the interior. That had to be bridged, and printed to just the edge of the light to have it remaining after floating. Each new gum print is a little bit better than the last. That is all one can hope for.

Gum  Dichromate Print
"Jars in the Window" ~ 8x10 ~ Unique

Finishing the gum print of "Jars in the Window"

Technically, the gum dichromate print of "Jars in the Window" is now completed. The only difference between completed and finished is personally signing off on the image as done. This final print layer was restricted to the open window and most things outside.  I chose this route for a couple of reasons. The density range between the two areas of light, inside & outside, were sufficient to warrant separate treatment. If a full image coating on each print layer were printed for the higher densities outside the window, then all of the color coating the interior will have been printed in permanently, during floating, otherwise, anything density range above that would have already floated off to reach said lower density ranges. That's just how it works.

The print is drying at this time. After having made an idiot's move on the test print of this image, lifting off a chunk of gum, all the way to the paper, before the print was dry. Not a lot different from sticking your finger on a red hot iron to see if it was hot. From such antics derives the thought... "What was I thinking!?" As confessions go, I have been known to make an idiot's move for reasons I am unable to fathom. Just not the same one twice. When the print is truly dried a final evaluation will be made about strengthening the two potential dMax black areas, or not. When you work on one print for weeks, decisions are made with dead seriousness.

Tomorrow should show the final results of the print. For that, stay tuned.

Jars in the Window ~ 5th Print Layer

The printing progresses on this new gum print. Today was the sixth print layer. I didn't post yesterday's print layer as it was the final CYMK color layer constructing what I refer to as the visual framework of the image. The work begins now in shaping the final image color(s). The straight forward CYMK layers tend to end up on the very cool side, as in steely blue/gray overall color, and that is mostly because of the stacking order I tend to employ; KMYC: black, magenta, yellow, cyan. Why of that. That is what I began asking myself on this sixth interpretation of the same scene. Each iteration is better than the last. Better detail, better color arrangements and much more natural light quality. What I am after is capturing the light in the scene. In printing, that means knowing the density relationship of the highlights of the image with the lower tonal range, and how to relate that to the print/float time relationship, respectively. Printing to the light.

As noted in the last post of this image, the image was made of the four basic print layers; a smidgen of black, first coat, followed by quinacridone magenta, then a ultra sheer Yellow layer, and finally the Cyan (Phthalo Blue) layer, which brought that orange(ish) color back to a cool(ish) color. Where I broke off from traditional additions of color layering, I've begun mixing colors to arrive at better color combinations that arrive at the optimal color effect for each image. The final two colors added to the image were a mixture of Red Permanent with a tiny amount of Yellow Ochre, for a soft orange, that neutralized the overall color scheme as well as add depth and detail to the image.  The final layer was a fairly sheer mix of Yellow Ochre, to keep the warmth of the scene as well as add some detail without obscuring it. The focal point of this print layer is the window pane, which is white, and which I want to remain at zone 7. The Yellow Ochre was the optimal choice for both tasks. What remains important apart from color combinations is capturing and holding the ambient light.

The final focus is outside the window. I've left those densities to be printed separately, each area with its own color mixture. Hooker's Green on the foliage, and, lightly on the window glass reflection of foliage, Cadmium Blue for the house siding, and black on the dripping tar on the roof, and broken pane area. Printing that area has to be a bit different from printing the interior with different densities and different lighting conditions. I have been able to accomplish in this print what it took twenty-one print layers to accomplish printing The Flute Player.

Sixth Print Layer
Jars in the Window

The printing of the final version of Jars in the Window continues. No errors after four print layers, technically five, with the last run showing signs of gum pulling away in ways it just should not be doing. This is the fifth iteration of this printing attempt. I have been testing out two elements of my normal gum printing process. I've reduced the sizing from 2 1/2% gelatin sizing to 2%. The image as noted before, will tend to fall into the paper a bit more. I mix my own gum solution at about twice the viscosity of the commercially available liquid gum at 14 baume. I mix to 50% solution. There is no known conversion for baume I can find but a guesstimate would be at approximately 25%-30% solution at best. That would require a bit more sizing to keep the pigments, suspended in the gum, from getting past the sizing, staining the paper directly. That, doesn't float off.

Why begin altering the process at this stage. I would have to confess that I had just never done so before. I learned of the gum process through "The Keepers of Light" book (1979) a couple years after it came out. No need to tell you how deeply satisfying that was at the time, having a guideline to follow for hand coating processes, something that drew me in without much effort. It was just so personal, what scratch cooking is to a chef. I was never much into Bisquick developing to begin with and began early on, learning and using the base chemicals for mixing developers and related solutions. I followed the starting point for gum printing as offered up in the book. Why not? It's supposed to work, it's in the book. The results were immediately satisfying. How it was I knew printing times & float times/water temperature variables sufficient to arrive at a decent image I'm unable to say beyond instinct.

The driving reason I have backed off the sizing is to leave the paper a bit softer, less wrinkled stiff in between printings. The reduced sizing has indeed done that, and with the thicker gum mixture I can get away with it, without the image falling into the paper more than desirable. What is slowly returning is the printing instincts. What I am beginning to be able to accomplish is printing to the light. That is, finding the ambient, and more direct light in a scene, and capture it, hold it right at zone 6 or zone 7, depending on how it is to affect the scene. In this image, I have been working to capture the brilliance of the light coming through the window, how that affects the interior walls and counter top, as well as how it plays on the white windowpane, and the even brighter objects outside the window, which is several stops difference than the interior.

This image shows four color layers on the print thus far. This sets up the framework for the image. The yellow dichromate stain is still in the print, which shifts the overall color to a sort of yellowish color with cool tones underneath. That is mostly because the last print layer was a medium mixture of Phthalo Blue, which I normally use to represent the Cyan of CYMK. To shift the primary color back to a warm neutral color the next layer will be a thin mix of Rose Madder. The final print layer will have three split colors applied, in three different areas, all outside the window. The next color layer will be printed to leave the white windowpane zone 7 on the part opened, and zone 7-8 on the window frame area the windowpane is hinged to. That white is the dividing line between inside and  out. The overall scene is a bit wider than the first print, as well as having much better textural detail, and light ambience.

Gum Dichromate Print ~ 8x10
4th color print layer ~ with yellow dichromate stain

Building New Gum ~ "Jars in the Window"

The testing for an optimal platinum/palladium (Na2) print is pretty much complete now, with enough test comparisons to show me that the best print out of all the testing, was the original. The whole point of this was to be able to use the Solar Printer (UV) for printing, for obvious reasons, today be a perfect example. The final test strips were printed outside in sunlight. First off in full sun, then moved to north light printing, when the dark clouds obscured the sun, dropping the north sky reading from 500 lumens to 200 lumens in a matter of minutes. Relying on such light for printing exhibition work is not optimal. Not only was the printing time using the printer consistent, but using the same negative I use for Kallitype printing, with the platinum solution at 2.5% (2 drops), with a 20 minute print time. That digital negative got a <curve> adjustment I created for the Kallitype. it's a fairly dense curve adjustment.

The print times today in north light were 17 minutes, to leave a good zone seven on the white picket fence boards, and zone 6 on the concrete slab just underneath. That's the objective of that print image. The printer version also leaves much better tonal separation in the middle tones, showing on the wood of the wagon. The tonal separation mentioned is even a bit better than in the print image below, a palladium toned Kallitype. With said toning that print is now a palladium print. This print is the baseline image I'll be using for the Pt/Pd Na2 prints to come. The image has to be at least as good as the toned Kallitype version. The next posting of this image will be a Na2 platinum/palladium print.

Palladium toned Kallitype
"Wyatt Earp's Wagon" ~ 8x10 ~ 1/5

Testing and Printing

The printing of the new gum is coming along well, with an unexpected outcome from which I was able to divert into a usable one. The fourth print layer is to be the cyan run, which for me has always been phthalo blue, about as close to the aqua tone of cyan as I've been able to find. More recently I began employing ultramarine blue, which is more sheer than the phthalo, as well as more towards the purple hue. I mixed the two for today's coating, but apparently didn't fulling brush the new gum in tight bond with the existing layer, with the result of gum coming off in patches in places or thin strips, during floating. That forced me to brush off the entire layer of what was left, which wasn't printed down hard. That only left a small amount and only in dark places representing zone 1, and that actually enhanced the image, giving it depth, deepening the shadows slightly.

The testing for the Na2 process using the UV Solar Printer continues, with me closing in now on how I want the final image structure to turn out. The testing is between using the 2.5% platinum (2 drps) or, a 5% solution (2-3) drops, and that of course depends on the density range of the negative. It is easier to leave the images without any density enhancement using <curves>, or boosting the density range using <curves> but finding the right density curve for a printer time no longer than 15 minutes. There is the sunshine, which I have used extensively, mostly north sky, but then there are the variations to map out, and working around the sun's schedule. I want to be able to use the printer with a known value for a known print time. The denser negatives create very nice tonal separation in the print image but the print times are well into twenty minutes. The standard negative using the 5% platinum (Na2) prints down much faster, but with a bit less tonal separation in the mid tones. This is where the testing continues. Posting a test strip isn't forthcoming though. Such is life, as my uncle was so fond of saying. Soon though, I'll have some nice platinum/palladium images to show.

New Platinum/Palladium Print ~ Digital Negative

 The second color layer for the (final) gum print of "Jars in the Window" was printed this morning. I had intended on following the same printing path as the test run that turned out so well, but I  didn't. Instead, I dropped out the standard watercolors I have always used, for quinacridone magenta, and a ultra-sheer Yellow and Ultramarine Blue, which also is very sheer. I am going to work those colors the same way I did the original, as they are very close to being the same colors representing CYMK, just far more sheer than the watercolors I used.

There is a trade off with this current approach. This paper was treated as the test sheet, using 2% gelatin sizing instead of the original 2 1/2%. There is some effect of the image falling into the paper, more so with the first few layers, before building textural detail. Using these very sheer pigmented watercolors on more porous paper means adding much more color from the tube than I ever would with standard colors. What I am finding, thus far, is the the textural detail is coming in as expected, but with more visible ambient light of the subject. I won't be photographing each color layer on this print as it adds much time to the process. The gum print takes a long time to fully dry down.

What I will post today is a new platinum/palladium print (Na2) printed from a digital negative. As I have mentioned, I am working on a density range for the digital negative that will fit the Pt/Pd printing using the UV Solar Printer. I ran tests on this print for that reason and got well over twenty  minute print times. I've been wanting to test the Hahnemuhle paper my friend sent me to see if I liked it. I have to say I like it very much. A very easy paper to work with, and the prints results are also very nice. What is lacking is the digital negative I used. The original 5x7 negative was one of the last negatives I developed of the Oregon scenic portfolio; Pyro/hydroxide 18min. Those negatives pretty much only print in direct sunlight, with a density range will up to Log 1.8.

I will need to save the printable tiff file at 600dpi to see if it smooths out the continuous tone elements of the image. The last printing using the original negative was done before the silver was fully dry, thereby transferring little spots of silver halide on the negative from the damp silver on the paper. It was a salted paper print. That transfer of silver leaves a little spotted trail on the finished print now, dozens of tiny white spots, so, I scanned the negative using a Plustek ST64, and the Silver Fast German software that makes that setup work better than can be imagined. Using the special ICE part of that software it removes specs on the image as it scans, thereby removing the spots. Now, the task is making it look as good as a film negative.

The interpretation of the image, originally, was leaving the bright highlights of the foreground at or just  under zone 7, to leave that brilliant sunlight effect of that day. Printing it down another 2 minutes to bring the zone 7 highlights down to zone 6 texture may be more appreciable, just not as dynamic, for me.

Platinum/Palladium Print ~ Na2 process
"Overlook Reservoir" ~ 8x10 Not finished

New ~ Old Gum Prints

To be fair, the gum print for which I  speak was a test print, begun to find out if the gelatin sizing could be reduced just a smidgen without having the image fall into the paper enough to begin falling apart. Turns out, it can be done with sufficient viscosity and number of layers to build up enough thickness for detail. That was a success. The print is proof, in spite of the error of touching it before it was fully dry. The gum I'm posting is probably the second gum print I ever made, now thirty five years ago. At the time I was making the gum prints from paper negatives.

Being I didn't keep detailed printing records of each print I made back when I was first printing, I am unable to say just how many print layers there are for certain. Most likely this print is made from four print layers, using the standard CYMK colors, although, again, I can't say in which order. Making gum prints is so different from any other kind of printing, for me, it's like painting an image on canvas. It's unique. Not something that will every be copied, although truth be told I had contemplated perhaps editions of 5 in the beginning. After several prints, however, unique printing was the standard.

Gum Dichromate Print
"View from Studio Window" ~ 6"x9" ~ Unique

I was able to get some detail in the image. The lighting comes from outside, so the interior is dark and hanging plant is silhouetted due to the back lighting. The image was meant to give the dark, rainy day in Oregon that it was when I took the shot.

Printing Pains

I have been working on a new gum print for the past two weeks. It began as a test, reducing the sizing of the paper slightly, from 2 1/2% gelatin sizing to 2%. The reason being to soften the paper in between coatings with less sizing. The downside of that is as the sizing diminishes the print image, reciprocally, to fall into the paper more. At some point this becomes obviously undesirable for image quality. I mix my own gum to 50% solution, which is approximately twice the density/viscosity of the 14 Baum premix gum sold commercially. That allows me a bit more leeway with the level of sizing needed to keep the image near the surface.

I just finished the 10th print layer of that image this morning. It has been hanging to dry for the past couple hours, so I wanted to know how wet the print still might be, before I immerse it in the sodium bisulfite clearing bath, to clear the dichromate stain. I know better than to ever actually touch the not yet dry part of the image because it is very likely the gum will simply pull off the print with the offending finger. As confessions go, I touched the image. I can say that true to known wisdom's it did pull the gum right off that area, turning two weeks of work into junk. I'm mostly past weeping at my age, although something pretty close to that is unfolding inside my head. Just too dumb to think about.

In two weeks, I will have a finished gum of Jars in the Window to show. For now, just some ugly noises coming from a dark corner.

New Kallitype ~ Portfolio II

I am doing something I have never done before. Making a gum print, a second time. The "Jars in the Window gum I recently finished was not fully to my liking, and that was before I came to realize I had a much better digital negative prepared, and had forgotten about. Hence the second run. And, being I am in a new mode, I also decided to alter the sizing of the paper to see if I like that. Reducing the sizing of course allows the image to fall into the paper more. Being I mix my gum Arabic about twice the viscosity of store bought I can get away with a bit more. Less  sizing also means the paper doesn't get as stiff to work with, with more hard to press wrinkles. Ergo, less sizing softer paper. That's the theory.

What I can say of that at this time and six layers already applied I am liking quite a bit, as the paper is easier to work with between print layers and I don't see a noticeable difference between the last print of this same image and this one. What I do notice is more textural detail. I will confess to one more variable I've added in this print run. Quinacridone water colors. Back in the day I could afford the four tubes of student grade pigment watercolors. Now I use the highest artist's grade. There is an amazing difference between the two. These new colors won't replace all others. They are amazing for adding depth and textural detail to the image, without darkening down the image or covering over detail. What remains is the brilliance and ambient light of the scene. This opens up even more options for me. I won't be posting a shot of each layer, as the one time is for demonstration. This one is probably one or two more layers short of being finished.

What I have printed, outside the gum print, is a new Kallitype for Portfolio II. I am gold toning most of these images to keep them the traditional rich black and white image. It is one of my earliest images during the years in Eugene. I have the original silver gelatin print copy I exhibited in 1982 at the Dickens Fair that year. My first public exhibition. I am fairly happy with it as a Kallitype. For time constraints of allowing full dry down, and hence a bit of darkening of the print image, I shot this while it was still wet. The one area I will be working on is the cobweb in the middle. Perhaps after dry down it will have settled closer to a zone 7 value. But then, I'm not fully certain that would make me change it. I might also be an added value, with the eye finding it and comparing it to the blacks, the Chiaroscuro effect. Perhaps, if it was zone 7 it would be dull.

Gold toned Kallitype
"Bottle in the Window" ~ 8x10 ~ 1/5

New Vintage Cameras ~ Different perspective

Strange things are unfolding for me, things I  would normally say just wouldn't be something all that likely, that just happened, as unlikely as it  might have been. I just bought two vintage twin lens reflex cameras off eBay. Film cameras. I was so certain that was something in the distant past, but there it is. A position very likely stimulated and massaged after reading a rather wonderful historical biography of Dorothea Lange. I haven't gone forth street shooting in thirty years, but interestingly enough, I used a twins lens most effectively back then. There are reasons for that.

A photographer in public draws attention. Just putting a camera to your face alters the scene with the subjects reacting in variant ways to different degrees when seeing said camera pointed at them. A twin lens sort of hangs about solar plexus high, and someone looking down, fidgeting with something draws so much less attention and scrutiny. That isn't the reason for going back to film. As I've noted numerous times, I have little talent with digital manipulation, beyond density range & tonal structure adjustments. Thirty years ago, I didn't  like a lot of shadows in my images. I pushed the negative densities up towards the shoulder, to eliminate shadow and increase detail. Now, I'm finding myself seeing my images in the opposition direction, moving the densities down to the toe, adding lots of shadows, and blacks. That takes a few alterations to the ISO setting, developer and development time.

My choice for a camera was simple, buy something that works and is cheap. I want a small, light camera that doesn't draw attention. If it has shutter speeds and apertures that's all I need. The best street shot I ever got was the image I printed in The Flute Player. I stalked that mime for several minutes before everything came together. Being at a Renaissance Fair stalking is pretty easy to get away with, when dealing with characters in costume. The don't mine, usually. With the right angle shot identity becomes obscure and an image of an unidentified person can be printed for personal use.

The camera I used for that shot was an old Argus Argoflex, probably made in the forties. The camera that crossed my path recently was an Argus Argoflex E, a bit newer model, with more advanced lens movements & settings. That set me back $25. The first camera I found was a RICOHFLEX Model VI, made in 1959. That one set me back $26. Not sure which iteration it is, yet, as it's on its way as I write this. It was very clean and apparently functions. Both of course will need a roll for testing, for light leaks and mechanical functioning. If all works, then I'm on to various areas of the city for a walkabout.

New vintage camera #1; RICOHFLEX VI ~ Vintage 1959

Argus Argoflex E; probably Vintage 1959

New Addition to Filming

The printing momentum has taken an alternative route recently. I haven't stopped printing as I have been, just making adjustments and additions. One such adjustment is altering the sizing of the paper I use for gum printing, reducing it from my standard 2 1/2% gelatin, to 2%, for the sake of a less stiff paper. The downside of this is having the image fall into the paper more, just how much is the point of the testing I'm doing now. Being I came across a of Jars in the Window that had been prepared to take care of the density range disparities of the negative I used for the gum print posted here.

I have never reprinted a gum image for the sake of knowing if I had the best possible finished image. The print negative I have of it now is far superior than the earlier one, hence, worth reprinting. At the same time it is worth testing for optimal sizing. I have already tested in the other direction, sizing to 5% gelatin, which is not equivalent to two coats of sizing at 2 1/2%, and, which keeps the image absolutely on the surface, leaving little detail. Gum printing is truly a personalized art form with unlimited options available for shaping the finished print. Part of this test is using quinacridone colors, on layered of standard cadmium pigments. First such layer of magenta, over four color layers (CYMK) of standard cadmium watercolor pigments. The difference is fairly amazing, not only in the sheerness of of the color but also the brilliance.

A second front unfolding is some renewed Jones for getting back to street shooting again, using film. Thirty years ago I used an $18 Argoflex twin lens camera, and with that captured my most iconic street image of The Flute Player, which I've posted on here in the finished gum image, with 21 print layers and over 35 color mixtures. That was six weeks of work. My newly acquired camera is a bump up from that. I've been perusing the internet for a suitable twin lens for such shooting again, without putting out a lot of cash in the bargain. My prudence for patience paid off handsomely with a click on a "You might also like" image of a twin lens camera. Turns out to be a 1959 RICOHFLEX twin lens for $26, in very clean shape. It is on its way.

The end result of anything I shoot today will be printed most likely in palladium or platinum/palladium, so the images I shoot from this camera in film will be digitally copied to be made into an 8"x8" negative for contact printing. The developing will be either using Beutler 105 or D23, standard development. I would have been eleven when that camera was made, thus it seems a befitting piece of equipment for my project. Any street shooters out there know the difficulties in getting natural shots of a street scene without people acting defensively when they see a camera in front of someone's face, aiming at them. Stalking with a twin lens is so much easier, and can be accomplished without most people even knowing they've been captured. The task, of course, is capturing said person at such perspective as to not single them out or make them recognizable. Looking down fumbling with something draws much less attention.

I am now finding the square format desirable. Thirty years ago, not so much. I used a mat frame insert for the upper view screen, in an 8x10 format. Not now. For whatever reason I'm finding the square format a new way of seeing and will work that out well. Being there is also an outlet for very inexpensive pre-cut mat windows at 8"x8" it won't be difficult to find means of displaying the final images. I will be posting images captured with this camera, likely as palladium prints. Time will tell.

RICOHFLEX geared lenses f:1:3:5