Photographic Equipment and Technique: Large Format Film Photography

#238: This is a picture of me using my large format camera. I’m standing on a cliff above Lake Superior, adjusting a polarizing filter on my lens while my 35mm camera (used here as a light meter) dangles around my neck. That silver cloth around my head serves to block out the sunlight so I can view the upside-down, backwards image on the groundglass on the back of my camera. After fine-tuning the composition, I inspect the image with a magnifier to obtain proper focus, insert a film holder, use a light meter to determine the shutter speed and aperture, manually transfer these readings to my lens shutter, close the shutter, remove the darkslide covering the film in the holder, depress the button on a cable connected to the lens to open the shutter and expose the film, replace the darkslide, and store the exposed film. This is what happens in the simplest of circumstances; more demanding situations involve considerably more steps. This process often requires 10 or more minutes. It is embarrassingly easy to screw up.

Why bother with all this when I could just grab a digital camera, peer through the viewfinder until I find a pleasing composition, and push a button? As much as I enjoy using my Sony α900 digital SLR, it is a very different way to see the world than that offered by my large format camera. The slow, methodical approach necessitated by this camera forces me to become highly selective about when to take a picture. I vividly recall a highly regarded photographer telling me that using a large format camera turned him into a “photography snob!” Once I focused on large format photography, I began to visualize pictures in my mind rather than staring through my camera’s viewfinder and hoping for inspiration. A good day with the large format camera means I have taken half a dozen photographs, not a hundred as with the digital SLR. The percentage of my pictures that have turned out to be “keepers” has dramatically increased. And best of all, the quality of the prints I am able to make from large format photographs is extraordinary.

As the pictures below demonstrate, the amount of detail in a drum scanned 4x5 inch or 6x17 centimeter sheet of film is simply incredible. This detail is readily apparent in extremely large images and gives big prints a lifelike quality that makes viewers feel as though they can walk right into them.

Photo © by Brett Deacon.

#249: This photograph was captured on 4x5 inch film and scanned with my Optronics ColorGetter Eagle drum scanner. The four close-up crops below provide a view of the numbered red boxes above. This 740 megabyte image is sized for a 40x50 inch print at 360 dpi, and the apparent detail in a print this size will be even more than what can be seen in the crops below.

Photo © by Brett Deacon.

#250: The ability to keep both near and far portions of the image in sharp focus, as seen above, is a product of the unique capabilities of a large format camera and, until recently as I describe in the Why Digital Photography? page, was not possible with smaller format film or digital cameras.

Photo © by Brett Deacon.

#252: This is a drum scanned 6x17 cm photograph. The close-up crops below provide a view of the numbered red boxes above. This image is sized for a 22x62 inch print at 360 dpi, and the apparent detail in a print this size will be even more than what can be seen in the crops below.

Photo © by Brett Deacon.

#253: Photo © by Brett Deacon.