You’ve decided to join the group of elite photographers who use a large format camera, now what ?
well, if it is a modern camera ( post world war 1 ) it most likely will take modern “double dark slide” film holders. You can also purchase “plate holders” so you can buy J.Lane Dry Plates or Zebra Plates if you don’t make them yourself yet … it’s labor intensive but self coating glass and metal and paper might be less expensive for you if you are now broke from buying a camera.
If it is not a modern camera, you might have to do a little research to see what film holders fit your camera. Before a certain time between the mid 19-teens and the 1920s camera companies sometimes had their own film holders so they sold a whole “system” rather than a camera that you could use just a “film holder”. To give you an example. I have a camera made by the Century company probably from 1905 and film holders from another company ( even the same company, the back of the camera might not be compatible! ) won’t work. The camera backs sometimes aren’t interchangeable, so if you got something “vintage”. it might be a long search.
If you have gone the box camera route, and it is a “falling plate” or sometimes called a “magazine” camera, you are in luck. If the camera included the “septi” you can just insert a thin piece of mat board or cardboard to get the focus to the right place so your images will be in focus the way you want. The focus is measured for glass plates, which are thicker than film.
You have the camera and film holders now what do you do?
If you are unsure if your bellows are light-tight, you can go into a darkened room, extend the bellows and put a flash light in it you might see constellations on your ceiling ! If this is the case, you a make a sealant from white glue and a little bit of India ink. Equinox Photographic sells a proprietary blend as well. And they are a great place to find obscure and sometimes hard to find things.
So now your camera is light tight and you have film holders to use, what next?
Do you need a focusing grid on the back of your ground glass ? It might help if you want to straighten converging or diverging lines. If you don’t have a grid and really don’t want to draw on your ground glass with pencil, you can make a grid on your computer and print it out on acetate / overhead transparency film and slide it on top of your glass.
Then there are all those lenses …
If you go to eBay or website classified sections you will see all sorts of things for sale. Anastigmat, Rapid Rectilinear, Wollaston Meniscus, Petzval and handfuls of other designs. Petzval lenses are the lenses sought after by Daguerreotypists and Wet Plate photographers, they do not have a very wide focus “cone” but are very sharp and let in a lot of light when they are wide open. Wollaston Meniscus are simple lenses, sometimes sold attached to box cameras and falling plate cameras. Modern ones are made by Reinhold Schable. He also makes a variety of other photography related things. Then there is the Rapid Rectilinear. It is what is called a “convertible” lens, 2 lenses in one! It is also what old Verito Portrait lenses were based on. If you find one, you just unscrew the front element and you have a longer lens. There are “triple convertibles” too, they turn into 3 different lenses. You might run into what is called a “casket set” the is a barrel with a collection of lens elements that are screwed into the barrel and give you a variety of different focal lengths. Some people find shutters and modern enlarger lenses like the Schneider G-Claron (widely used for landscapes) and mix and match different lens cells to make a modern day casket set. The lens I haven’t mentioned yet is a Schneider “Symmar” which is a “plasmat” design, and was also sold as a convertible. The tricky thing about that lens is that instead of its focal length being the bellows draw at “infinity”, the focus point is further back. For example a 210 / 370 Symmar is requires over 400mm to focus at infinity when the front element is removed.
Then there is the “dark cloth”. There are many sold specifically as dark cloths, and some people wear a “hoodie” or a large jacket to put over the back of the camera so you can focus. I just use felt purchased at a fabric store. It cost pennies compared to the things sold as “dark cloths”, and if you are cobbling together a “kit” maybe it will be sufficient.
The tripod might have slipped your mind. Since a large format camera is much bigger than a 35mm or medium format camera, you need something that is a bit larger. There are “tilt all” tripods and they used to be very affordable new and later in the used marketplace. They typically have the smaller threaded screw size ( 3/8 -16 ) keep in mind there are some large format cameras that have a 1/4 socket. Larger than 4×5 cameras may require something even larger and more sturdy than a “tilt all” type tripod. Berebach offers an affordable large tripod. You will also need a “head” that mounts on the tripod to screw into the base of the camera. The Bogen 3047 is an affordable “3-way” tripod head. You might read in the forums you can use a surveyors tripod as well. I haven’t seen one converted so I really can’t comment on that.
It’s a lot of things to think about , I know … but it’s a lot of fun using a camera with a big negative. don’t forget, you can put paper in instead of film too.
don’t forget to have fun, that’s what it’s all about.
