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Photo copy work ...


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One of the specific things I bought the CL to do was be my copy camera for capturing film negatives and instant film prints using my Leica R lenses. While I've tested it a couple of times to be sure that I had the right setup, yesterday I decided it was time to finally do all the instant film print capture and get the 400+ prints that have been stacked precariously on my bookcase edge recorded and put away safely into storage boxes. 

I assembled my setup (Novoflex copy stand, focusing rail, and a pair of LED lights mounted on a small, sturdy rollaway cabinet), and fitted the Macro-Elmarit-R 60mm f/2.8 lens to the CL. I segregated the prints into SX-70, pack film, Instax Wide, Spectra, and Instax Square types as these will require three different magnification settings to capture the whole print. Once I'd gotten the magnification setup for a type set, I taped a piece of wood to the surface to use as a guide, and place a tape mark for the edge to help in speedy placement. These prints don't lay completely flat so I focused on a sample print, set the aperture to f/8, and locked down exposure time with an incident light meter, white balance, etc. I opened Leica FOTOs on my iPad and put the camera into capture/control mode. 

This worked out to be a very efficient and quick setup. I captured 470 prints total. Including setup, re-adjustment for the three magnifications, two battery changes, and post operation tear down to put all the equipment away, it took about four hours max. No funky reflections off the shiny surfaces of these prints, a good clean image for all of the prints, and good focus throughout. I'm very pleased with it! 

Here's one sample I posted to flickr.com: a pack-film exposure made with a Hasselblad 500CM, Makro-Planar 120mm lens, and Polaroid back, cropped and rendered to a very nice 9x9 inch print. The CL plus Macro-Elmarit 60mm was set to ISO 100 @ f/8 @ 1/5 sec. This image is about a 30% crop of the total exposure; I added some grain to help hide some surface blemishes on the print (and because I liked the way it looks... :) ). 

The CL has proven to do just what I wanted for this work and produces output just a nice as the SL did. I'm very pleased. The only thing that would make me happier is if the CL had a dedicated remote that wasn't dependent upon WiFi ... I'm sure the need to run WiFi for the entire capture process is why it exhausted two fully charged batteries, where this would have been a single charge on one battery with a dedicated, wired remote. 

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