A Portrait of the Firstflex

I've owned both the Arca-Swiss and the Firstflex for many years now. I think I've taken pictures of the Firstflex with the Arca before, but never any which I was really happy with. Last week I gave it another try.

Now I don't have a studio any more, neither anything resembling studio light. This was lighted with a desk lamp. I used a piece of black, thick cardboard to shield the lens from the lamp. There was also some white paper to open up the shadows a bit and give more reflection to the chrome bits and the lenses. It's all done on my dining/breakfast table at home.

Since I had Fuji Acros 100, the exposure time of 16 seconds was no problem. That film is devoid of reciprocity failure at that time range. I developed the next evening and scanned another day later. That the camera (and to a lesser degree the table) has not been cleaned is a very private joke, that I probably understand only myself.

Desklampist Info

(Not having any "strobes", I can't give any "strobist info".) Desk lamp (with yucky, mercury containing eco lamp) to the right of the object. Black cardboard shielding the lens (the one on the Arca, that is). 2 sheets of A4 sized white stationary paper on the left. The desk lamp is actually quite close, which gives softer light (relatively large square area of the light source), but it gives a lot of contrast from the shadow to the light side of the object.

Also I'm quite close with the (taking) camera to the object. This is to emphasize the form of the square camera. Notice those fleeting perspective lines, i.e. the top/front side of the Firstflex goes steep up to the right - while the bottom/front side goes steep down to the right.