Sinar games

A new guy at the Club is into his film work and asked me about the 4x5 Sinar I don't play with very often.  I promised to bring it into the next Practical at the Club and so with that in mind I set up a little demo at home.  I thought it would be fun to show off the swing on the front (and, as it turned out, rear) standards and how that changes the plane of focus.  Here's the basic setup, lit by natural light coming in the window on the left of the shot:

Obviously I just threw the canisters on the table and they fell neatly into the pattern you see.  I know - incredible, isn't it?  Or Not remotely credible, might be closer to the truth.

As you can see, the first print is a straight shot - the line of focus cutting across the middle row of canisters. The plan was to now change the plane of focus so that only the HP5 canisters were in focus, running diagonally front to back.  I fiddled with the front standard a bit, focussed, inserted the dark slide and took the shot.  Here's what I got:

Not quite right.  The back 3 HP5 canisters are in acceptable focus but then it drifts off and the front two definitely aren't in focus.  F for Fail, Michael.  I failed to check the focus over all the ground glass.  So...back to the 'studio' for another attempt.  What I found was that it was a lot easier to get the focus the way I wanted it by using a bit of rear standard swing as well.  That nailed it - exactly the effect I was after:

All good fun.  All taken at f/5.6 with my one-and-only lens for this camera, a 210mm (equivalent to about 60mm in 35mm terms).  The online depth-of-field calculator told me that I had about 4cm of focus to play with, by the way.  Printed on old Barclay paper that someone gifted me - it's a graded paper, (grade 3) and comes in RC form with a lustre finish.  And it's a really lovely paper to work with - almost feels like a fibre paper in the hand.  The finish is rather nice, too - not glossy, but there's a sheen to it.  Pity it's not made any more (to my knowledge, anyway).  I'd like to find a modern equivalent.