How can I get started in Large Format?

[dave lackey]

Yeah, that's right...you may guess that I am a long-term 35mm/digital Nikon user and that I am interested in large format.

The problem is, I know nothing about this format and I do not know of any classes/mentors in the Atlanta area.:bang:

I am attracted to LF for portrait work and possibly some landscapes. But, how do I get there from here?

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated!

Thanks in advance,

Dave

 

[dave lackey]

There are good books on large format photography...I don't have a list at hand, I'm at my office, but you can find them on Amazon.com. I assume you are talking 4x5 and up. There is a lot to learn and it's a pretty expensive learning process with the cost of film. But that huge negative on a light box is seductive!

I use my Crown Graphic mostly with a 120 back these days, and that may be a good way to get into large format. You can still work with the tilts and shifts, while having a film format that's easier to deal with.

Now that is a thought...

Actually, I admit to liking the Wista Cherrywood/Rosewood cameras but they seem expensive. What equipment would be the best bet for getting started?

Thanks,

Dave

 

[dagabel]

Hi Dave,

First off, try the http://www.largeformatphotography.info and http://graflex.org/ sites. For books, I'd look at:

Using the View Camera, Steve Simmons
A User's Guide to the View Camera, Jim Stone
The Camera & The Negative, Ansel Adams
Larger Format Nature Photography, Jack Dykinga

Most of these should be available through your library or inter-library loan, if you want to try before you buy.

You'll probably want to decide between a monorail-type (generally heavier and less mobile, but more movements) and a field-type of view camera (lighter but fewer movements). I decided on the former, and got a used Graphic View II (4 x 5) with a 203mm Ektar last year. I had to have the shutter serviced, and I also replaced the ground glass with one from Dave Parker/Satin Snow. I (with my wife's direction) sewed my own darkcloth, and I use an old 50mm lens for a loupe. I develop my own B&W film, and use Arista EDU Ultra, which is about $.40 per sheet. If you go with color, the cost goes up quite a bit. Oh, and you'll also need a tripod which can support your heavier camera, if you don't already have one - I am doing well with an old used Tiltall. So, not including film, my to-date equipment outlay is about $400 - just to give you an idea of the low-end entry into large format.

Good luck and have fun!
Duane

 

[kmack]

Steve Simmon's "Using the View Camera" is a good starting reference with info on the use of the view camera, lenses and larger format film.

LargeFormatPhotography.info is a fairly comprehensive web resource.

Large format film is readily available but labs that still do processing can be hard to find, so resign yourself to developing your own, or sending it out.

If you want to do hand held LF you're pretty much limited to the older press cameras, the Linhof Technika, or a custom camera like a converted Polaroid (like a Razzle) or Gaoersi.

If you keep it on a tripod then you have a choice of many different field or monorail cameras. The Wista would be a good choice for a field camera for landscape and some portrait work, A monorail would be better if you are doing architectural photography.

 

[feenej]

My question is what enlarger to use to make prints? That could be a significant cost. I don't think the typical enlarger takes a real big negative. I could be wrong.

 

[Finder]

When you say "portraits", what do you mean? These are studio portraits? Environmental in the vein of Arnold Newman? Documentary type work?

The flat bed camera may be your best choice. A Speed or Crown Graphic may be your most economical entrance into 4x5. While 210mm lens is thought of as a portrait lens (150mm is normal), I would recommend a 135mm lens as more flexible both in terms of angle of view and bellows extention, which is going to be important if you are going to do tight head shots.

 

[dagabel]

Oh, and I forgot to mention - I scan all my B&W negatives (35mm, 120 and 4x5), so I haven't done any of my own printing yet.

Duane

 

[Finder]

My question is what enlarger to use to make prints? That could be a significant cost. I don't think the typical enlarger takes a real big negative. I could be wrong.

It is not that expensive. Durst, Omaga, Besseler, Saunders LPL, and others all have 4x5 models. I have an Omega D5XL with a color head at home. It cost less than my flatbed Epson scanner - check ebay. Flatbed scanners from Epson do a good job with 4x5 film as well.

 

[jbf]

What about SCAD in Atlanta?

I'm living in Savannah attending SCAD and I know 100% that we have large format photography here, and I'm almost certain they would have it in Atlanta.


Granted, it would be expensive as hell for a class I bet.


But even so, I bet you can find a photographer there who can give you some tips... especially from the photog department.

 

[Anupam]

4x5 is about the largest size you can eaily find enlargers for. For larger, it gets more difficult.

A press camera is okay but if you are looking to get the most out of movements and plan to shoot on a tripod, I'd skip those and get one of the field cameras - ShenHao, Tachihara, Wista etc. Expect to pay between $400-600 for one of these.

 

[Finder]

4x5 is about the largest size you can eaily find enlargers for. For larger, it gets more difficult.

A press camera is okay but if you are looking to get the most out of movements and plan to shoot on a tripod, I'd skip those and get one of the field cameras - ShenHao, Tachihara, Wista etc. Expect to pay between $400-600 for one of these.

That is an interesting thing to say. The movements on my Wista are not much different than a Graphic. I am not sure the value of movements for portraits. And a Graphic has a tripod socket. Which Graphic did you use?

 

[MartinP]

The enlarger is going to be relatively easy to find second-hand. There are different choices of gear here in Europe, compared to North America - but a Jobo 25-series tank will be fine for doing your own film developing, and uses relatively little developer when used with constant agitation (eg. rolling along a level table-top on a couple of strips of wood, you don't really need an entire Jobo processor-unit for room-temperature chemistry like black-and-white neg).

It is years (unfortunately) since I have done any 4"x5", but don't forget a good roomy changing-bag and "enough" double-dark-slides - five or six would do you for an entire afternoon proably. The cheaper sheet films here are Fomapan, but I think that is the same stuff as Arista and is very adequate.

 

[venchka]

You live in Atlanta. Toddle over to KEH. Peruse their 4x5 inventory.

There's no magic or mystery about large format. Large format is still photography. Only bigger. You need the same things: light tight box, lens, shutter and film.

As for portraits, there is a large body of work being produced now with very old lenses. Some with shutters. Some without. Some don't even have an iris. The "look" of these old lenses is wonderful. Join the Large Format Photography Forum and have a look around.

Good luck.

 

[keithwms]

Dave, my first LF camera was a crown graphic. Typically, for $250-$350 you get a RF-coupled 4x5" camera and decent normal lens. For a bit more you can probably find a speed graphic, then you can use the fp shutter and inexpensive (but good) barrel lenses. A few of the shots my little the RFF gallery are from my crown graphic, but I haven't been posting much here of late.

There are many 4x5 film options- you can shoot 4x5 quickloads or readyloads or polaroid type 55 pos/neg, these are all very easy options apart from the usual sheet film options. There are also some marvellous fuji instant films in 4x5 format that are perfect for beginners- fuji fp100b, fp100c, 400, and 3000. They are superb. You can also get, for about $400, a 6x12cm rollfilm holder. Of course there are also 6x9 and 6x7 holders.

I wouldn't worry about an enlarger at this stage, just check out the format and see if it appeals. I personally prefer 5x7, and I got a ~$300 king poco for field stuff and otherwise use an 8x10 cambo monorail with reducing back for 5x7 and 4x5. Since starting 5x7 in earnest, I rarely enlarge except medium format stuff. But I will attest that shooting quick/readyloads in 4x5 is a hoot. Very fast, and no film handling concerns, no need for a changing bag, and you can get by with only one film holder.

I'll just throw in one other piece of food for thought. In my opinion, there is almost no net advantage, at standard enlargements like 11x14, to shooting 4x5 versus one of the larger medium formats such as 6x8cm... as long as you use slide film or fine-grained b&w or xp2 or such and Scheimpflug wasn't playing a major role in the composition. The main thing for many people is the movements that you get with some LF systems. But if you aren't going to use substantial movements or make contact prints then I'd say forget LF, the gain in resolution versus MF is much less than one might think (again assuming that you are working with fine-grained film or slide). Sorry to sound preachy but I would simply advise you to meditate on your final output before launching into 4x5, because there are some great bargains in MF right now and the roll film options are still very large, plus MF digital backs are slowly becoming a reality....

 

[BillBingham2]

Let me second Keith's suggestion of a Crown Graphic, it's a great place to start. Enough stuff (swings and tillts and things) to make it fun, but not too fancy or expensive.

Take a look at:

graflex.org/

as a place to start.

apug.org

also I think has a LF group that might be good.

B2 (;->

 

[shadowfox]

Cool, thanks Dave for asking this question, I've been wondering (read: fantasizing) about formats beyond 120.

So according to some of you, Crown Graphics will give me a chance to play with movements (albeit limited)? I think besides the massive film area, the ability to manipulate the focus plane is the prime reason people do large format, isn't it?

Next question, where can I send 4x5 slides to be processed? and for how much? any experiences?

 

[venchka]

I was very lucky. I got my Speed Graphic and 2 lenses from the original owner for $100. That seemed cheap enough. The camera and lenses is only the tip of the iceberg. If you expect to process your own sheet film in daylight tanks, the developing hardware adds up pretty quickly. Add a couple backs for Polaroid/Quick/Ready loads. My Grafmatic back cost as much as the original camera & lens purchase. All together, it's not a lot of money. BUT! A camera and lens is only a small percentage of what you need.

 

[keithwms]

So according to some of you, Crown Graphics will give me a chance to play with movements (albeit limited)? I think besides the massive film area, the ability to manipulate the focus plane is the prime reason people do large format, isn't it?

A crown will give you a nice taste. If you do want liberal movements then a crown graphic or even a super probably isn't the right choice; the crown doesn't even have the movements you typically get from a typical field camera. Of course, the ultimate control is had from a monorail view camera. They are wonderful instruments... but usually unwieldy in the field. For 4x5 work with a lot of movement, I use an 8x10 rail camera so that I can clearly see how the movements are affecting my image circle on larger ground glass. But a sturdy monorail view camera is a beast and overkill for most uses... for travel and hiking I'd much rather have the old crown. On my most recent trip I had a 1903 King Poco field camera and it was perfect for the task, a rail camera would have hindered me. Actually a crown is fine for just about any landscape I can think of, and obviously it is well suited to street work too, that's what it was designed for. Not everybody does architecture.

Something to keep in mind is that the effective depth of field with LF is shockingly small compared to what you see in 35mm, so a lot of times I find myself using movements simply to bring a non-planar subject into sharp focus at f/32 or whatever.

DOF aside, the exposure rules are of course just the same in LF and 35mm, so if you adopt the strategy of simply stopping down to make everything sharp, you quickly find yourself looking at very long exposures. So you manipulate the DOF effectively, by doing various standard movements. The obvious situation is when you have a lot of very close foreground leading into a background, that is something that LF can do exquisitely well, and you don't have to stop down like nuts to achieve it.

Diffraction softening is still a consideration in LF; even though you will find LF people posting f/64 shots in or pinhole and reporting sharp images, bear in mind that most LF lenses are still sharpest at f/11 or so... the main thing to keep in mind is enlargement factor; I have plenty of LF shots that aren't super sharp by loupe but in a contact print they look very sharp. 35mm shots have to be tack sharp because the enlargement factor is enormous, even for a simple 8x10. After doing LF for a while I am ac tually quite astounded at how good 35mm lenses are and need to be to yield good results. I think I have a much better appreciation for the importance of MTF etc. now.

Overall I would say that for me the biggest reason to do LF is because of the reduced enlargement factor. Yes, you do now see quite a few people using wild tilt and swing to throw the focus and so forth, that is now the trendy thing to do, but I wouldn't say it's the reason to shoot LF. The real reasons are the much smaller enlargement factor, the tonality, and the level of detail. And you can see all of those things very clearly with a ~$300, 50 year old press camera.

For portrait work, a modern LF lens can actually be way too sharp! Some portraiteers favour old barrel lenses for this reason. Funny, I never thought about diffusing the print until I got into MF and LF. Anyway, bokeh lovers will adore LF, you can control the OOF elements much better in LF than in 35mm format.

Next question, where can I send 4x5 slides to be processed? and for how much? any experiences?

There is a lab in my town that does same day E6 processing up to 8x10. The charge is something like $4 per 4x5 sheet. Not everybody has this luxury any more, that's too bad. But I gather that there are quite a few mail-in services. Even if you have to wait a week, it's well worth it: everyone's first LF transparency is usually described in spiritual terms. N.b. you can do E6 processing yourself but it's not exactly enjoyable and requires good temp controls.

c41 is also an option, and a very good one, there are some great colour print films from fuji and kodak and you can do c41 yourself. The latest c41 options almost press slide film in terms of detail, but of course the main advantage of the c41 films is how they can handle contrastier scenes, and they are quite easy to scan.

If you shoot b&w polaroid type 55, all ya need is a clearing tank and some sodium sulfite. That stuff is sh*t expensive but it is one of the best b&w films, period, and the negatives you get from it are just spectacular- ask St. Ansel.

Normal b&w sheet developing is easy-peasy. It's very hard to screw up, if you develop in a tray. When I was doing 120 and 35mm myself I had problems with streaks and spots here and there, but with sheet film I have literally never had one single problem and I've been at it fairly seriously for about 2 years. It's so easy that I think it's a waste to have someone else do it for you.

 

[shadowfox]

Keith, a BIG thank you for taking the time to write a wonderful crash-course on LF. Your writing is very balanced and it's just the right level for where I am in my decision making process.

I'm kicking myself because I let go of an auction on the bay for a Crown Graphics with two packets of film for $125

I definitely will try the slide just because they are so beautiful without even having to scan. And I can only imagine 4x5 or 8x10 slides.

 

[dave lackey]

This is all VERY helpful!
A big THANKS for all who responded....it gives me something to contemplate whilst recovering from surgery over the next week.

Best regards,


Dave