Do you long to transition from MFD to LF?

[MGrayson]

Every time I get the LF film itch, I just spray some dust on my sensor, shoot at f/16, and spend four hours cleaning up the final image.



Matt (who loved his Pentax 67, but never took a single decent 4x5 or 8x10 image in his life)

 

[cunim]

Every time I get the LF film itch, I just spray some dust on my sensor, shoot at f/16, and spend four hours cleaning up the final image.

I think the secret with LF is to lie convincingly. When you make garbage shots like this, just say "Yep, I meant to do that". Everyone assumes that, if you are strong enough to carry that stuff around, they better not contradict you.
Sinar, Grandagon 200

 

[vieri]

Nice one! The Chamonix is a fine camera, I have one too. My film/ developer choice: Delta100+ DD-X. Also nice is the Rollei RPX25 + DD-X, but the very thin base of the film make it tricky to handle.

Hey thanks! To get me started, I ordered some Delta 100, some FP4+ and some Ados CHS 100 II, and as developers I got FX-39 II, Rodinal (just to try some standing dev with it) and chemicals to mix D23, plus I got some 510 Pyro in the house. I will do some testing with all combinations of film & dev in various light conditions and see if I can standardise things a bit in the ISO 100 range (ideally, one film, one or two developers). I will then so a little test with 400 ISO films as well, just to have the option.

I overlooked DD-X, for whatever reason I thought it would not work well with low ISO, T-emulsions - I will get a bottle and add it to my little test, thank you for the recommendation!

Rollei RPX 25 was on my radar, I'd love to have a lower than 100 ISO option, but 1. the store I use was out of it and 2. the thinness of the base did worry me a bit. I might get a box later on when it's back in stock and see what I can do with it. Thanks again!

Best regards,

Vieri

 

[scho]

I shot a lot of 4x5 for awhile and ended up taking the convenience route shooting only Polaroid Type 55 P/N just for the negative. Those thin but highly detailed B&W negs were beautiful and easy to scan.

 

[Pieter 12]

Type 55 is wonderful, delicate and no longer available. Pity.

 

[daz7]

What i miss the most is ability to shoot at f32 or even f64 practically with no penalty on sharpness, and amazing highlights on film.
With digital it is really difficult to get as much depth of the field and highlights get overblown easily.

 

[scho]

Type 55 is wonderful, delicate and no longer available. Pity.

That is when I stopped using 4x5.

 

[Pieter 12]

What i miss the most is ability to shoot at f32 or even f64 practically with no penalty on sharpness, and amazing highlights on film.
With digital it is really difficult to get as much depth of the field and highlights get overblown easily.

Sort of. Because of the longer focal length equivalents in LF film, shooting at 11 or 16 with current MF sensors should give similar sharpness and depth of field, especially if you use the sensor's native ISO (well, at least for CCD). I usually expose digital as if it were reversal film, exposing for the highlights. Post processing can usually bring enough detail out of the shadows.

 

[Shashin]

I did some 4x5 and 8x10 larger-format photography. The results can be very satisfying. However, it was just too slow and bulky for the way I work. For me MF gave what I needed in terms of quality plus the flexibility to do different kinds of photography. The other thing I liked about MF was the choice of formats. I used 6x6 and 6x12 mostly, but there was a lot to choose from in all kind of camera styles: view cameras, SLRs, TLRs, rangefinders, viewfinders.

 

[Paul Spinnler]

The one thing about 8x10 that struck me was that you really, really, really, focus on what you want to shoot. The all-in cost of a developed 8x10 sheet is 50 bucks or more so imagine doing anything where each try or mistake costs you 50 bucks.

That very difficult to mimic psychologically.

Also: each shot was more or less a keeper.

So for photographic reduction it is amazing. Just the amount of time spent on framing!! Searching for the spot to setup, etc.! Scouting!