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My sister and her family were in town for a visit this weekend and to help celebrate my getting old. This little guy is Tyler - my nephew. He is only still enough to take photos of when he is dead asleep (especially when you are trying to shoot with a big 4x5), so, while he was knocked out on Sunday I grabbed these two shots of him. Above, Fuji FP-3000B45 in a Crown Graphic, and below, Impossible Project's PX 680 Gold Frame in an SX70 sonar.
This is only my fourth photo out of my first pack of this Gold Frame film, but each one has looked pretty good so far. The colors and contrast of this film are pretty awesome. The development time seems to go on for quite a while though... this particular photo probably took about a half hour to look like this when left alone on a table at around 60-65 degrees Fahrenheit. Still... I think this film is worth the wait.
Yesterday was one of those 60-something days in the middle of March. That, of course, led to a long drive and some time taking photos in a few different spots along the lake. I had my Crown Graphic with me, but, in a moment of brilliance, had only brought a pack of Fuji FP-3000B45. 3000 speed film on a bright sunny day with a camera that will only shoot at 1/400 of a second just doesn't add up. So, since this was one of the few times I only had one extra camera with me, I ended up shooting with that - a 35mm Canon Ftb loaded up with some 32 iso Rollei ATP. I will get that developed sooner or later.
Since my obsession with my new camera runs pretty deep though (and because I came across this location that I absolutely needed to shoot) I ended up going back out last night near sunset. I found the 3000B45 a lot more difficult to work with than expected, but after a few shots I came up with the photo posted above. This one was taken after sunset, somewhere near 8pm, with a 1 sec exposure. At the time it was dark enough I could barely make anything out on the ground glass and I wasn't sure how this film would handle the longer exposure. To my surprise (and delight) it handled it quite well... probably one of my favorite photos I've taken in a long time.
I spent most of Friday driving along the Lake Erie Coastal Trail with a couple of cameras. I had taken the day off with the promise of temps around 60 degrees. Unfortunately, that never really happened, but I still enjoyed the back road drive from Cleveland up to Erie, PA. I definitely didn't take as many photos as I had hoped, but there are a few decent ones to share.
The three that I am posting today were something of an experiment. While browsing through different resources for my new Crown Graphic 4x5 I stumbled upon flickr user Patrick J Clarke and his experimental runs of integral films through a large format camera. It sounded like an interesting idea so I figured before I headed out for the weekend I would load one of my Old Gen packs of Impossible Project's PX 680 into my 4x5 sheet holders to see what I could get.
The process is definitely more work than just popping a pack of film into your SX70 or 600. In a darkroom I transferred each shot individually out of it's film cartridge, placed it in the desired position in the 4x5 sheet film holder, taped it down and placed the dark slide over top. I then measured out and cut a matte for the ground glass of the camera so that I would know approximately what area of the viewable ground glass was covering the PX680 below. All in all, it turned out to be pretty accurate.
After exposing the film I just placed the sheet film holders back into my case and went along my way. It wasn't until hours later that I used a dark bag to remove them from the holders, place them back into an empty Impossible pack and run them through a 600 for development.
The work can be a little tedious, but there are definitely some positives to shooting the Impossible film this way too. Full manual control over exposure is the most obvious advantage, but, what I found most helpful is that I didn't have to worry about temperature. These were all taken outdoors with temps running below 40 degrees fahrenheit, but, since I didn't have to develop them immediately that temperature didn't matter as much. Once I was back inside and the film had returned to room temperature I developed and got the results you see here.
Sure, this takes the instant out of instant film, but I did enjoy myself and find it interesting to experiment with this film in different ways whenever I can. I think I still have a few issues to work out with the process in order to get the best results, so, I'll probably run a couple more packs through this way.
Last night I had a little more time to work with my new Crown Graphic after work. I did quickly get a chance to take a shot outside before the light faded entirely, but for the most part I was working in my dining room. The scene was definitely something to behold considering I didn't take any lights home with me. So, like I've done a time or two before, I pulled lamps from all different rooms to put together a couple different lighting setups.
The photo at top was lit with one of those cheap pole lamps you can get from target or Walmart (like this, but all plastic). The lower arm used as a key light causing a bit of the shadow you see, and the top lamp just bouncing into the ceiling for fill. It was still a longer exposure, but it worked out pretty well. The benefit of this lamp was the ability to mix my light temperatures - the key being a compact florescent (close to daylight) and the fill a regular tungsten. The combination of those two and all the other ambient light bouncing around the room seems to be what gave the photo it's washed out, almost sepia toned, color.
This second photo, an old(ish) coffee advertisement clock, was shot with a single light source. With the rest of the lights in the room off, I used one of those "paper shade lamps" which you can see there in the specular highlight in the glass of the clock. The light source here was completely tungsten which, with the daylight balance of the Fuji FP-100c45, shifted the color of the image more towards an orange/yellow tone. This shot also displays the extent of a close up for this camera/lens combo.
And, for good measure, here is that photo I mentioned at the top of the post that I was able to shoot outside before the light faded and before the cold ran me back inside.
This ship, the Buffalo, has been parked in this shipyard in the Flats for a few weeks now for maintenance. It always amazes me the size of boat that is able to maneuver through this small area of the Flats and I've been wanting to get a shot of this one for quite some time now as it can normally be seen rolling down the river once or twice a week. I overexposed this image a bit more than I would have liked, but with the temperatures outside and the development time resulting from those temps I would have had to stick around for quite a while to see what my results were in order to shoot an adjusted photo.
In any event, I think I will be shooting more with this film/camera this upcoming weekend and I'll post some of those images early next week.
Months ago I decided that I wanted to get into large format photography. I did a ton of research, read up on all the different formats and types of cameras, looked into the accessories for each and all the different costs. I decided right off the bat that I was probably better off starting with the 4x5 format over the 8x10. Cost obviously played a factor in that decision, but, I also thought that something like a folding press camera would be a better way to become familiar with large format, film loading, composition, etc., without jumping directly into a large monorail camera that would require learning a lot more than the basic camera movements of large format (rise, fall, tilt, shift, swing) and the results of all of those combined movements on the photo.
The camera I decided to go with is one of the most tried and true of the press cameras - the Graflex Crown Graphic. Here's a photo of the one I just purchased -
This particular model (there are many variations within the Graphic series) comes with the f/4.7 135mm Graflex Optar lens paired with a synchronized Kalart rangefinder. With it I also got some sheet film holders, a Graflex 23 roll film adapter to shoot 120 on this camera, and a Polaroid 545 back (which at this point is nearly obsolete.) To compensate, I also went out an got the Polaroid 550 back which holds the Fuji 4x5 packfilms - FP-100C45 and the discontinued but still available FP-3000B45. The seller also threw in a few extras like an original case, changing bag, two flashes and some sync cables.
This all arrived yesterday in the mail and to this point I've really only gotten to take two photos. The ones you see here in this post are the first two out of this camera and were both shot on the Fuji FP-100C45 pack film. I didn't have a lot of time, so I pretty much just took a walk around the block with the camera and a tripod till I found something I could shoot. I also didn't have my light meter on hand, so, both of these were metered with my iPhone's free light meter app that I had previously calibrated with a real meter. The image at top, my first photo, is of the Crittenden building downtown and I used a front rise and tilt on this image to get the tilt-shift look that you see. The one below, shot in the same area, is a more straight forward photo.
These two photos were pretty much all it took to fall in love with this camera, and, with large format photography. There's nothing that compares to viewing, framing and focusing an image onto a large ground glass like you get in large format. I am really looking forward to getting out to shoot more with this camera soon, as well as the opportunity to load up a few different sheet films. The only downside... I know this camera is just a gateway drug. The 8x10 monorail camera that looked so frightening during my research seems to have become an inevitable future investment at this point.
Stay tuned, I hope to have some more interesting images to share from this camera soon...
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