Richard & Caroline's Blog

I spent some of this bank holiday weekend planning a few future photo shoots, nothing definite yet but starting to get a few things lined up.

I definitely want to get a few large format landscape shots completed; mainly for the practice; ready for a big photo trip next month. As I have not owed a large format camera until recently, and have only hired, borrowed or gone on large format landscape courses I am terribly out of practice. Its going to be good shooting some film again, I have shot barely four frames of film this year and over 1700 digital.

I might even dig out my old Nikon FM2 possibly one of the greatest manual film SLR’s ever, and shoot a few rolls of Ilford HP5, now where did I put my old developing tank!

If you have had the pleasure of photographing with film, then you will know the pleasure of film loading.  With the modern film SLR of the 1990’s, then autoloading made the loading of small format 35mm film an easy task.  With older cameras it was a manual process but still relatively simple.  The 35mm film canister and the film sprockets took away the need for much skill, just some care was required, and it was rare to ruin a roll of film.

With the modern digital camera then very few people use 35mm film anymore but medium format and large format is still relatively popular, though medium format in professional use has mainly moved to digital with cheap digital backs now available for £10,000, cheap being a relative term!  Strange as it may seem, over the last few years film sales have been increasing.

For medium format and large format, loading film is a more challenging and old fashioned affair.

Hasselblad 503CW
Hasselblad 80mm f/2.8
1 Sec at f/22, ISO50
Fuji Velva RDP 50 120

If you need to know how to load a Hasselblad V System Film Back then check my old Blog Post that you can find here:

Having a free afternoon today I decided to load up a few large format dark slides with a film I wanted to test.  The film in question was Fuji’s Provia 100F.

Large format film has to be loaded into its holders in total darkness; I, like many old film users no longer have a darkroom, so I resort to an old changing bag, not ideal but it gets the job done.  The sheet film has a notch in the corner so you can tell which way to load it.  Held in a portrait orientation, the film emulsion is facing you when the notch is in the top right hand corner.

There is quite a cultural change when shooting large format film to digital.  On a days shoot with small format digital I can easily shoot 500 or more images.  When shooting medium format its likely to be no more then 6 or 7 images.  With large format that drops to 1 or 2.

With the amount of effort needed to get a single shot with large format you tend to be really sure you want that image before tripping that shutter.  Its a slower more contemplative form of photography.

In my continued search for the ultimate in image quality, I have finally managed to get hold of my own 4 inches by 5 inches Large Format Camera.

I have shot large format before and regularly shoot medium format, but until now all my large format shooting has been with hired large format cameras or on Large Format courses.

While to many the Ebony 45S looks like a hundred year old camera, it is a current state of the art Large Format Camera, capable of shooting Large Format Film, a Digital Scanning Back, a Medium Format Film or Digital Back or one can even mount a Nikon D800E to the back (something I hope to test later in the year).

This camera with its advanced movements, tilt, shift, swing, etc gives nothing away to image quality. The downside is speed of use and the size and weight.

I see my Nikon V1 being the perfect compliment when carrying this ultimate in image acquisition.

In keeping with my Nikon habit I have also got a Large Format Nikkor 150mm f/5.6 standard lens.

Its going to be a tough learning curve but one I am really looking forward to.