4x10 On An 8x10 Camera

[neil poulsen]

I've been considering different ways to shoot 4x10 on an 8x10 camera. An "obvious" way is to have a 4x10 back made for the 8x10 and purchase some Shen-Hao 4x10 film holders.

A less obvious (and far less expensive) way would be to dedicate a few 8x10 holders to holding 4x10 film, and glue guides onto the flat surface under the darkslide that would hold the 4x10 film. One would also need to add a mask to the 8x10's ground glass for composing the images. Load 'em up, and yer ready to go.

It seems like this would be workable. Has anyone given this a try? It should be an advantage that the length of the 4x10 film would be same as the film-length for which the holder was originally designed.

Is there a material that comes to mind for making the guides?

[John Layton]

Thinking aloud here...I wonder if you could fabricate a 4x10 insert that would slide in to an 8x10 holder - using the original guides to hold it in place? One that you could then insert and remove as needed? Seems like this might be worth investigating. Comments?

[John Layton]

On further thought...any type of insert which was self-supporting would need to be a frame of some sort - which would likely mean sacrificing a bit more film area on the ends of the 4x10 image. Also - a removable insert would necessitate a "full capture" (both sides) of film edges, at least along two parallel sides - which would raise the film up a bit or at least cause it to bow upwards along these edges. Not good. The film guides would need to have open bottoms to ensure film plane accuracy and film flatness...but a removable insert with such (open bottom) guides would, I would think, put the film at risk of sliding under these guides and partially out of the frame. Not good.

So the guides would likely need to be firmly attached to the core of the holder - but not necessarily along their entire lengths. So maybe drilling three small holes along each edge of the guide strips (at the middle and near the ends) and then attaching these to the 8x10 holder with shallow screws which are captured by a guide strips/shallow nuts on the reverse side, would allow these strips to be removable. The question then I suppose would be that when being used for 8x10 film, the small holes would be a problem - but perhaps some very thin, black tape over these would work. Thoughts?

[Michael Roberts]

Neil,
Why not use a splitter on your gg back and shoot two 4x10s on a single sheet of 8x10?

No hassle with modifying holders or buying/carrying 4x10 holders....

This is what I do.

[Alan9940]

As Michael suggested, a wood splitter fits into the back on a Deardorff that allows two 4x10's per each single sheet of 8x10. I've never actually tried it on mine--seems like there could be some "light leakage" on to the covered side of the film--but could be an inexpensive way to give it a try.

Good luck!

[Daniel Stone]

Split darkslide, 2 shots on a single piece of film, less stuff to fiddle with.

[Michael Roberts]

Dan, it's six of one, half-a-dozen of the other. I've used a cut darkslide, too. I've also broken cut darkslides because it becomes a challenge to protect them when they are not in a holder.

Another advantage of splitters is you can shoot 5x8 as well as 4x10 on 8x10. You can't shoot 5x8 on an 8x10 holder with a cut darkslide.

As Alan mentions, splitters were commercially made by Deardorff and Kodak. I've also made DIY splitters for gg backs that are not manufactured to accept wooden splitters. I will put up a post in the DIY forum to demonstrate.

[ic-racer]

Expose two frames of 4x10 on a single sheet of 8x10 and cut it apart after processing seems like the easiest to me.

[neil poulsen]

I'm thinking of sacrificing the 8x10 holder for further 8x10 use.

My thought was to center the 4x10 sheet of film in the holder and put two guides on either side. Since the film is the same length as 8x10, only two guides are needed.

[neil poulsen]

Got it! I didn't think of this. For some lenses, this would work fine, as long as I could raise the front standard high enough. (Am I thinking correctly on this.)

I also want to be able to use my 121mm S.A. with this outfit.