11x14 camera

[Matt_6555]

I used 35mm and 6x6 for years until a few years ago I bought a 4x5. Even though most everyone told me that I would hate it. Well, they were all wrong. It’s slow, time consuming and exacting work, god I love it. Although I print larger prints, 11x14 seems to be my favorite. Which bring me to my question? I’m planning to build an 11x14 view camera and contact print. What Problems will I find as far as, film availability, lens selection, holders and so on? The building of the camera will take some time to design and build. It will be an all metal camera, aluminum and titanium.

[GPS]

You have already encountered the first problem - you don't know the old Pythagoras'way to calculate the hypotenuse. Don't worry, the others will tell you the mesure - and so on...

[Leonard Robertson]

Matt - Here is a page to start with:

http://www.mamutphoto.com/

[N Dhananjay]

Not much. If you liked the move from smaller, more 'convenient', supplies-available-everywhere formats, its worth exploring, although there is little in common aesthetically and logistically between 4x5 and ULF. Once you move to formats larger than 8x10, the issues are primarily related to supply limitations and self-motivational issues. This means you need to pare back and be ready to personally think through obstacles and find solutions since you will not find off-the-shelf solutions.
1) Film emulsions are limited, even more so than 4x5. So, you need to get adept at getting everything you can out of what is available.
2) Film holders are available, used and new. Brubaker and S&S make new holders. They can get pricey but you aren't going to be getting 2 dozen of them. The bigger issue with used is that there appears to have been little standardization - holders from X were designed for the backs of X camera (getting the registration right between the ground glass and the film plane). If you are building your own, make sure this registration is ok.
3) Lens selections tends to be smaller, especially if you insist on new glass. You will probably be OK at the wide angle and normal lengths - old lenses like Dagors, Protars and newer lenses like the G-Clarons would work and people appear very happy with them. But obviously long focal lengths get more limited. If you like the look of a 12" lens on your 4x5, with 11x14, you ar elooking at around a 36" lens. Very long lenses tend to be rare and expensive. Also, using them is not a trivial exercise - with a meter of bellows catching the wind, think sailing.
4) Do not underestimate the change in your way of work with larger formats. Your backpack will be heavy with a camera, a heavy tripod, a couple of lenses and film holders. Your way of seeing is likely to undergo a metamorphosis as well. A good lightweight 4x5 pack is not necessarily much heavier than a medium format kit, but get used to a heavy pack if you are going larger.
5) If you have some problem for the kind of work you do, you will not find an off-the-shelf solution - you will have to be creative and figure out a way yourself.
6) You are likely to find you need less stuff but what stuff you need will be more expensive.

Having said all that, personally I think those limitations do have upsides. It force you to pare back and focus on the basics. It forced a focus on vision - with 4x5, there was still a tendency to try and do everything (and carry a lot of equipment to deal with everything). The larger formats do force you to define your seeing. And the contact prints are wonderful.

Cheers, DJ

[brook]

DJ summed it up nicely. You will spend alot more time at the hardware store and a lot less at the camera shop.

[Matt_6555]

Thank you
For the information, I’ve been lurking here, reading information and comments for awhile. I have been thinking about this for some time and now have decided to move forward. I plan to carry the 11x14 along with the 4x5 as soon as it’s built. My 4x5 gear weights about 80lbs with camping gear about 130. If I can keep the camera weight under 70lbs with lens I’ll be happy, I can use the same tripod, meter and so on for both cameras. I wouldn’t try to do this project, But coming from a family of tool and die makers. My father is as excited about the building of the camera as I am about using it. I will begin on the design, which will take some time.

Thanks again

[Scott Davis]

80 lbs worth of 4x5 gear? What are you toting in that pack? FOUR Burke & James cast-iron monorails, and every Schneider SS or SA XL lens ever made? I've got a Shen Hao field camera, 6 lenses (75,90,110,150,210,300), a dozen film holders, light meter, bag bellows, polaroid back and a carbon-fiber tripod that doesn't weigh 30 lbs combined. Even when I was using a Sinar A-1 monorail my outfit wasn't that heavy.

[Joseph O'Neil]

80 pounds? Got me wondering too. My backpack with camera (super graphic), lenses, film holders, etc, adds up to 35 pounds according to the bathroom scale. (16 kilos for all you metric types).

Mind you, I do have a lens out of a recon camera from a SR-71 Blackbird. The lens itself weighs about 30 pounds alone - as a wild guess - and that's without shutter or iris. All I can say for sure it's physically twice the mass as my 600mm, F9 apo-ronar. I'll get it mounted someday, but those darned #9 copal shutters are hard to find on Ebay.

So who knows what kind of lenses Matt has lurking in his backpack....

joe

[Don Hutton]

My entire 11x14 outfit (camera, tripod and head, holders, lenses, filters, backpack and case, couple of brews etc) weighs about 50lbs. I shoot 11x14 for fun, not punishment.

[Ole Tjugen]

As long as I leave my enlarger at home, my total LF gear weighs about 100 lb. And that includes a Russian 30x40cm camera with holder (30 lb total), a German 24x30cm plate camera with three holders (15 lb), one 18x24cm plate camera (12 lb), three 5x7" cameras (20 lb), two 4x5" cameras, holders for all of them, lenses ranging from 90mm f:6.8 Angulon to a 14" f:3.5 Petzval portrait lens through a 500mm f:5.5 Schneider Aerotar, and three wooden tripods...

There's no way I could fit all of that into a backpack, let alone think of carrying it all with me!