[LargeFormat] Ground glass or etched
Les Newcomer
largeformat@f32.net
Tue Dec 24 12:06:07 2002
On Tuesday, December 24, 2002, at 08:50 AM, Brock Nanson wrote:
>
> When wet, the water fills the tiny scratches and makes the glass appear
> un-etched. Or so I found when I washed 40 years of grime off of mine!
>
>
I recently bought an Ansco 5x7 with "perfect ground glass" when it arrived,
it looked a little odd so I decided to wash it. Low and behold it was
nothing but window glass with matte spray on it!
I was careful enough not to remove it all, just a part in the center, so
now I can compose on the ground glass, and focus on the aerial image!
The one nice thing about etching is that you can mask off a section. The
aerial image is much easier to focus on with a higher powered loupe as you
aren't magnifying the scratches in the glass. When I adjust rangefinders
on my Speed Graphics I use window glass and a 50x hand microscope.