 Well, Ectochrome Christmas 5 isn't ready yet, and by that I mean you're not ready for it. So as punishment, I'm going to be shotgunning this can of flaming hot Mountain Dew. Oh, that does not feel good. Today's episode is sponsored by Squarespace. Well, you may remember a long time ago, me saying something along the lines of, I have some 4x5 Aerochrome because it's true, I have 10 sheets. Just needed to flex that a little, it's been a long week. Some of us also have a 25 rack of Cinestill 400D in 4x5 coming to us very soon as well. But what's the point of having some dank-ass rare 4x5 film if you don't have a 4x5 camera? Yep, that's what I was thinking. Glad we're on the same page. I should just get a 4x5 camera. I certainly don't want to use a smaller 4x5 reducing back on the big-ass 8x10. It just seems counter-intuitive to me. It's like being a vegan who eats dolphin meat. Well, guess what, motherf***ers? I did a lot of research and wound up purchasing a Bessler C6, an old military 4x5, which now means I own both an 8x10 and a 4x5, so I guess now it's public knowledge. I'm officially a sheet film whore. Why the Bessler C6? I basically wanted something hand-holdable, something that could be shot on the move. Of course, 4x5 is a massive format and it would require a level of precision that I was unfamiliar with. But if you already easily miss focus on smaller formats like I do, missing focus on sheet film probably doesn't scare you. These cameras are actually super cool, but you wouldn't really know it because there isn't a ton of information on Yahoo Answers, my primary search engine. The Bessler C6 is pretty much a standard 4x5 camera, similar to the Graflex in a lot of ways. It actually originally came with an internal focal plane shutter. That's what all these knobs on the side are for. In case you're wondering if they were actually for some sort of awesome medieval torture device. Apparently, the focal plane shutters on these cameras were pretty s*** though, so most people just ended up ripping them out and using the shutter on the front of the lens. And yeah, that seems pretty consistent with mine. The kind of lucky thing about this 4x5 gobbler is that it's actually incredibly easy to use the front shutter with this button here on the back. When you press it, a series of mechanisms pushes down the lens shutter actuator. So you don't technically need a shutter release cable anymore, which is good because I always forget mine. Up top, the Rangefinder was actually designed to use multiple focal lengths without the need to switch cams. To adjust the Rangefinder, apparently all you need to do is just turn this knob, but mine was actually good to go after verifying it against the ground glass. Super cool. I wonder if I can get the Leica MP window upgrade on this thing. Anyway, close-up focusing is basically non-existent. The Rangefinder even stops working at a certain bellows extension, so yeah, I guess that was just Bessler's way of saying, use the ground glass for close-up s***, dumbass. Weight saving was also a concern of mine, but after receiving it, it was only slightly heavier than the Pentax 6.7, so I guess I could deal with it. I do need to bulk up anyway. I'm tired of being the practice guy at my local fight club. Additionally, if I really wanted to make you jealous, I could tell you that the camera has a built-in hand grip and the cherry on top, geared movements on the front standard. Rise and fall is the only thing that is not geared, but tilt and swing are, which is nice, even though I probably won't use those features handheld. Or maybe I will. I don't know. I do like to be unpredictable. It keeps my enemies guessing. So with that, we hit the field. Just kidding. I had some small renovation work to do first. Before I get out and shoot this beast, I wanted to make some small modifications to get it back in tip-top shape and maybe just make it a little prettier. I had a look at the only manual for this camera that I could find online and under specific maintenance instructions, it pretty much just always said, return to the overhaul depot for service. But when I tried, I was arrested for trespassing on military property and suspicion of espionage as a foreign agent. So I'd have to go in myself with limited online resources. Luckily, it wouldn't be too difficult, even for someone like me who has pre-Cambrian and no anus jellyfish intelligence. For starters, this camera is pretty much all black, except for some bits here at the front, and most noticeably, the front lens board. And because I have a bit of a twinkle for custom design, that wasn't going to fly with the big dog. A sexy looking camera is really important to someone like me who's shallow and actually goes out of their way to judge every book by its cover. So I removed the lens from the lens board and painted it black because the stone's got at least one thing right. The lens that came with the kit is a 135mm 4.7 optar from the 50s. I believe most of the lenses from that generation are uncoated, so this one probably is too. But what about filters? They didn't actually use traditional screw and filter mounts back then because why make anything easy? So I had to get an adapter, starting with the Series 6 9 sixteenths inch slip-on ring to 39.5mm. Apparently this lens uses the 1 and 1 half inch slip-on ring, but you can't find that anywhere anymore. So whatever. 9 sixteenths of an inch and bending the pins in is close enough. From there, I had to acquire like a billion step-up rings in weird ass sizes, like from 39.5mm to 40mm. And then another step-up ring from 40mm to 52mm so that I could attach 52mm filters and a nice lens hood because, again, the lens is uncoated. Anyway, with all that done, I picked up two graphmatic backs in pristine condition and also like 10 4x5 backs for 50 bucks. Don't really know what that deal was all about and I definitely don't need 10 of them, but I'll take it even if they smell like an airport smoking lounge for some reason. Now you might be wondering, is this camera going to make my family love me even more? Let's hit the field and find out. Caleb and I headed northwest to some abandoned structures because why shoot anything different? Change is scary to us. What are the odds? Every time we come to somewhere cool, there's always like an additional thing that's really cool to shoot. Like this runway here. How much farther? First up, we came across this old hanger thing that was making way too many creaking noises in the wind for comfort. But if we didn't die from it collapsing, then we'd probably die from someone wildly flying their drone around inside it. It was pretty easy to find the first composition, a cool rock formation in the distance that would be nicely framed by the hanger supports. All I brought with me was some HP5 as I didn't want to shoot the top shelf stuff just yet. In fact, I didn't even really know if this camera would return images that weren't f***ed up. I actually did technically shoot this camera once before on a small hike, but of the two images I shot, one of them was completely unusable and was blown out by crazy light leaks. The other one still had light leaks, but it was, you could at least tell what I was trying to do with it. However, since then, I had felt like I had found the source of the light leaks and was confident that I would get something good. Because after all, what good 4x5 journey does not start with light leaks? With a yellow filter and lens hood attached, I was ready to fire away. Turns out, I did screw it up. Later on, I must have somehow double exposed this image. I'm not too sure how that happened. My dark slide flip system has never failed me. Our next location was this building that had seen lots of artists and philosophers come through. I guess it used to be an old penitentiary or some sort of insane asylum according to internet lore. Whatever, I had found my next shot. A hallway with some nice light hitting a blown out window overhead. The 135mm optar is equivalent to a 35mm lens on full frame, so it'd be just wide enough to capture everything I needed if I put the camera down low. Okay, I see where I made the double exposure mistake. Right here, you can see me withdrawing a dark slide with the white side up. Most people flip their dark slide to the dark side when they're done shooting, but I do the opposite, because at least in the world of compositing, zero means no information or black and one means full of information or typically white. It's how I've always done it for all of my 8x10 shenanigans and it's always worked well in my head. Up until now, I guess. Anyway, thinking I'd absolutely just lit up two sheets successfully, I moved on to another composition that was somewhat similar. A doorway framing some stairs that headed who knows where. I know I talked a lot about shooting this camera handheld, but for this go around, I'd be shooting strictly on a tripod. My thought process here is just taking time to get to know the camera before you jump into the advanced stuff. Sounds like I'm starting a relationship with it. Anyway, this shot is good. For starters, it's not double exposed, but I think what I really like about it is the sheer volume of information captured by the format. That and the depth of field, these trees back here are slightly out of focus and that's kinda cool. Nothing's too crazy Caleb. Anyway, I continued my obvious and cheap trend of setting up compositions using doors and windows as frames. It takes me, what, 15 minutes to set up if I'm moving real quick and then like half of a second to shoot the photo. By the way, these sheets of HB5 are all pushed to stops in development for that extra crunchy, nasty contrast. Got one shot left. Down at the airstrip, I set up my final shot hoping for the best. This is probably my favorite shot of the day, though it's really more technically good than artistically, I think. I like how the mountain is framed nicely here, though I do wish I changed some things around. The leading lines don't really take you anywhere interesting, and I wish I kinda bumped the exposure a little more down to get the foreground to be more silhouetted against the mountainous backdrop. Oh well. 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So what are you waiting for? If you're ready to build a website, you can start a free trial today at squarespace.com slash grainydays. And if you use the code grainydays at checkout, you can get 10% off your first purchase. Anyway, we wrap things up there and head it out. The entire ride home between me and Caleb was super awkward and quiet, because I was silently contemplating my decision to enter the 4x5 arena. I think, overall, I'm happy that I did. You can't really bring 8x10 everywhere you go, and 4x5 just seems to fit into my run-and-gun style of shooting a bit better. Especially if the setup would allow me to hand-hold a shot, if necessary. So catch me on the streets doing some sick street photography with this thing in the future, or, I don't know, at least in the background of a Christopher Nolan movie or something. I'm excited to knock out this Kodak Aerochrome when the time comes. Still don't know where or when I'm going to shoot it, but I believe I'm sleeping with that box under my pillow in anticipation. Admittedly, there are more film stocks available to 4x5 than there is 8x10, and that was a deciding factor as well. Like, T-Max 400. What the f**k, Kodak? Bring that s**t back to 8x10. But not before you bring back Aerochrome. I love the optar lens on this camera, too. It has a nice, unique character to it, while still maintaining sharpness throughout. I'm betting shooting wide open will give me some interesting results, but I haven't tried that yet. Anyway, that's all I got. Don't worry, I haven't forgotten about the 8x10. Bigger is always better. Well, not for my back, but you know what I mean.