 Should you go large format for your film photography? Well that's today's topic on Deconstructing Photography. Welcome to Deconstructing Photography. I'm David Patton and today we're talking large format photography. 4x5, 5x7, 8x10, even larger. I've been on and off with large format photography starting probably 35 years ago. Can you believe I took this out in the field? To do landscape photography? Oh god, what a dummy I was. So if you follow my YouTube channel, you know my last dance with the format in a few months ago. After a year of using 4x5 as my only way of shooting film, that was the camera I used. That was what I chose to do my film photography. So I sold all my 4x5 gear because I come to the conclusion that it really didn't fit my style of photography. It didn't fit with the projects I wanted to do and it just didn't fit me as a photographer. My goal for this podcast isn't to talk you out of large format photography. I just want to give you something to think about. If you're considering going into large format, investing in a bunch of camera gear, I just thought I'd give you a few things to think about before you make that big step. And just because it wasn't for me doesn't mean it's not a good fit for you. So I'm going to share some thoughts on what I learned while doing large format photography. Things that I didn't consider before I actually got into it. One of the first things to consider is what's your approach to photography? What do you want out of your photographs? And how are you going to be using your images? Those are all really good considerations before jumping into that large negative. For me, I like to explore with my camera. And that's something I really didn't consider before going into large format. I like to go to a location and explore and see a lot of it and react to what's in front of me. And really large format is just not a good format for that because it's slow. It's just too slow for being spontaneous to be playful. So that was one of the things that was always frustrating me. And I really wish I would have considered that more before I actually went back into it. If you're the kind of photographer that likes to plan, maybe scouts out of shots, looks around, looks for the photos. And then we'll come back later when light's good or when the weather's better or is willing to set up a shot and just sit and wait for hours or something like that. The traditional way a lot of landscape photographers work, if you're willing to do that kind of thing, then really large format is probably a good fit for you. You hear a lot about the cost of film, but for me it was the cost of time that I think affected me most in my photography. I think I walked past a lot of possible compositions because I didn't want to invest the time and commit the time to making that shot because I might be missing something better down the trail. And if it wasn't a sure thing, or at least it looked like a sure thing, I would probably just keep going. Whereas if I was shooting a smaller format or digital, I would go ahead and make the shot and then move on. The cost of film does play into it. I mean it's very expensive. But what affected my photography most I think was just that cost of time it takes to set the shot up. That's something to consider. Now the cost of film can't be ignored because that's a big part of large format photography. It's quite expensive. I shoot black and white film. It's not quite as bad as it sounds if you factor in how you shoot four by five. If I spent $50 on a box of 25 sheets, that sounds like a lot of money. But if you consider that for me to go out and shoot four, five, six sheets in my outing, that's a pretty good day. I could get four or five outings on that one box of film. Now it's not too bad for 50 bucks. And if you develop your film yourself, that's another reason it's a little bit cheaper. But if you break it down into how much photography you're doing, or how many outings you have, it's not quite so bad. Now if you're shooting color, that's a whole nother deal. Color is quite a bit more expensive than black and white. It's something you should consider, you know, especially if you're doing bigger projects. I like to shoot for projects like zines where I need to make a lot of images. So for me that 25 frames, that doesn't last that long. I'm not going out for the experience of photography. I'm going out to produce a piece of work, document a story. And for me, that's why another reason large format really wasn't a good fit. But if you're shooting more one-off type photos, or something you're shooting for maybe a gallery exhibition or something for your wall, then four by five might be perfect. So you can be scanning your images, or you're going to be doing traditional darkroom printing. Those are also things to consider before investing in a large format setup. You'll need some way to scan the negative or the transparency if you're using color. And a flat bed scanner is really the most direct approach, and that's what I used. It works very well. I mean, when you think about your, to make an enlargement, you don't need a whole lot of magnification. You're always starting with a big, a big negative. So it's very easy to work with. In fact, that's what I miss the most about large format is how easy it is to work the file. When you scan a large format negative, there's just so much information there to work with. I do miss that. It's just a beautiful, beautiful file to work with. If you're doing digital scanning with a digital camera, that's something else you want to consider, because you're going to have to either stitch multiple frames together to get the most out of that large negative. Or if you take just one frame, you're taking all that, what that negative has to offer, and you're cramming it down into a small little frame, it's just a total waste. If you're just going to be putting it on the internet, then it's probably not going to be that big a deal. But then there's really why, why would you even be shooting for a large format? That's all you're going to be doing anyway. If you're thinking about setting up a traditional darkroom for four by five, that's a lot more complex than if you were just going to set one up for 35 millimeter. You're going to need a bigger and larger. It's going to have to have more extension. And then keeping the dust off of the big film is also a challenge. If you're going to make big prints, you're going to have to have big trays. There's just the complexity in printing four by five, eight by ten, that kind of film is quite a bit more than if you were going to be doing just 35 millimeter. Are you one of those photographers that like film grain? You may not want to waste your money on large format. It's much easier to get that grain in a smaller format in medium format or 35 millimeter for that matter. I know nowadays a lot of people really seem to enjoy the film grain. I'm starting to come around a little bit. I'm liking a little bit more than I used to. But with large format, I mean one of the big benefits of having that big negative is it's very smooth. It's very clean. If you're exposing in a way to get a lot of grain, then you've probably messed up. So that's just something to think about. I mean, you're going to spend a lot of time making a shot. You're going to spend a lot of time, a lot of cost in the film. If you're in goal is to have a dark, moody, grainy image, you might want to choose a different format for that. Lens selection is another thing to consider when you're thinking about large format. It's been my experience that large format cameras, like say a field camera, will do certain things better than others. Like if your camera does really good wide angle, it may have a fairly short bellow length. It may not do telephoto very well. Or vice versa, you may not get, you may have to use a recess lens board or put it back bellows on your camera to get it to go real wide if you have a longer bellows on your camera. It's always been a little clumsy for me using large format to take telephoto. My large format cameras did pretty well with wide angle. My last camera, I had like 300 millimeter draw on it. So it was really short telephoto. So smaller formats do telephoto just way better. I mean, there's just no getting around that. And if you're the kind of photographer that likes to do a lot of telephoto photography, then you're going to make make sure you consider that when you buy your large format camera, make sure you get one that will accommodate what your needs are. If you're really into wide angle stuff, wide angle photography, then you want to keep that in mind. You want to make sure you get a camera that will accommodate 65 millimeter or 75. That's pretty wide on a large format camera. Another limitation for the format is being able to work in a lot of different weather. If it's really windy out, you're going to have a heck of a time using a large format camera. It's also a bigger challenge when it's raining and that kind of thing. It's not that it can't be done. It's just a lot harder to do. And your results may not turn out when you're faced with those kind of challenges. Something else to think about for large format is do you want to shoot anything that's moving? Moving subjects aren't going to work out well in large format. Again, there are cameras that will allow you to handhold and that kind of thing. Press photographers were doing it many years ago using speed graphics and that kind of thing to document the world. But nowadays it's not that common to try to shoot active things with large format. So if it's just not really the right tool for the job, there's other tools that are much better, much more capable of covering our photographing moving subjects. This is a camera related issue, but something that I had trouble with with my camera was it had a really dark focusing screen that was really a challenge to use. So I ended up putting a Fresno lens on it and that did help. But it's still quite a bit darker than your typical SLR. So just be aware that there's going to be, there could be issues with not seeing the ground glass very well. And if your eyes are old like mine, it did seem to be more of a challenge as I get older trying to make a composition on the back of that camera. And to make things even harder, the image is upside down and reversed. You can't set it up too quickly. You have to really study the back of the camera to get the composition right. And sometimes that's hard to get used to. And you get a practice with it quite a bit to get used to it. And something that I think if I were to continue shooting, I mean, I, many years ago, I didn't really seem to have a problem. I think my eyes are getting to the point where it's a little harder for me to see the ground glass. And some people like that. They like the fact that they they're forced to study the scene even more on the back of the ground glass. So if you can get beyond the limitations of the image being upside down reversed, you might actually like the aspect of studying it more. If you'd like to work at that pace. That's another thing that slows you down. And that's another thing that I don't like working that slow. So that was another reason that I left to dark format. But so it can be a plus or minus. It just kind of depends on how you approach your photography. Film cameras and lenses are really getting old. They've been around for a long time. And the pool we have to draw from for that use gear is getting smaller and smaller, especially when you think about large format, because it's kind of a niche. It's it's the smallest of all the camera gear. There's a, if you think about 35 millimeter, there's way more options. There's way more used cameras, way more used lenses than there would ever be for a large format. They're just not nearly as many people doing large format photography. It's always been that way. There's going to be more people doing medium format than large format. Large formats is the smallest group. It's this, it's the smallest pool of lenses. They do make new large format cameras, which is great. But the lenses are getting really old and they've been around for a while. So you want to keep that in mind when you're thinking about buying your camera gear. Are there going to be lenses available for you or are they going to be available at a price you want to pay? I don't regret spending another year working in large format photography. In fact, that time I spent with large format helped teach me what I wanted out of my photography. There was really a lot of good lessons to be learned from using that format. All the formats I've ever used, I've learned something from. And it's, you build that knowledge as you go. And there was things that I do as a photographer that really didn't think that much about until I started working in large format. Then I realized that it really wasn't meeting my needs for what I wanted to shoot. But I don't regret using that format at all. It was a very good experience. Sometimes you just have to do something for the experience, for the education, and for the wonder. And that's what large format brought me. And there's no denying it. When things go right, the results can be stunning. It's hard to beat the image quality of a large format negative. And you may have noticed that I said, when things go right, a lot can go wrong when doing large format. There's a lot of steps that you have to master to make sure you don't ruin a sheet of film. You have the potential of light leaks with your film holders. You have the potential of scratching the negative when developing it or putting it into the film holders. You have the potential of the vibration from the tripod if it's too windy. There's just so many things that can happen, so many accidents. If you're not the right kind of person that can just take all the fun out of photography. You're going to make mistakes and things aren't going to happen. When you get it right though, it will be stunning. Well, hopefully I've given you something to think about. My goal isn't, as I said earlier, isn't to try to talk you out of doing large format. It's just sharing some of my experiences to make you think. It's very easy to have a romantic idea about photography, certain kinds of cameras, certain formats. Easy to get fixated on the image quality of a negative, the big negative. The image quality also is a theory. It has that potential, but getting to that potential sometimes is a lot harder than you think. Sometimes it's better to have a smaller negative but have less hoops to jump through to get that image on that film. But if you're willing to take that journey and you're looking at it, knowing that it's going to be slower, more complicated and set up, but you really want the challenge, you want to learn this new format, then go for it. If you can afford it, if you don't mind the cost, then it might be for you. Either way, if you decide to go large format or not, I hope you get out there and make some really good images, because that's what it's all about. So many things right here. Until next time, thanks for coming along for the ride. I'd like to welcome Howard Simmons and Robert Goley. They're the first members in our Ride and Yen's Patreon team. Your support is much appreciated. If you like this content, you like content on photography, you like what we're doing, if I consider joining our Patreon team, there'll be a link in the description below.