Do you use a dark cloth?

[Rider]

I was wondering how many people use a dark cloth vs. other ways of blocking light (such as a hood). Does it depend on the subject, the lens, the camera, whether you're inside or outside?

[SamReeves]

Is the cow brown? Dark cloth or put the film holders away!

[Bill_1856]

BTZS hood.

[deatojef]

I just use a dark cloth. Although I've wanted to try the black t-shirt thing to save weight in the pack, I haven't.

[Gem Singer]

I use a dark cloth on my 5x7 camera, a folding focusing hood on my 4x5 camera, and a reflex viewing hood when using a 4x5 back on my 5x7 camera.

In my case, a dark cloth is camera specific.

[Roger Cole]

I use a dark cloth. My Technika III came with a pop out hood which was just about deteriorated away when I got the camera. It cracked some more and was on its way so I finally just removed the useless thing. The standard ground glass is too dim to use the hood without also using a cloth, making the hood superfluous, and I also couldn't get a loupe on the ground glass away from the very center with it in place.

I want to get a better cloth, however. I have the Zone VI "horse blanket" and that's pretty much what it is, bigger and heavier than needed and rather awkward. The only good thing about it is that it's black on the inside and white outside, which probably does make it less hot under it in the sun.

[Brian Ellis]

Other than at the very start of using a LF camera when I used a "horse blanket" type dark cloth for a few months, and an unlamented few weeks when I tried an Ebony viewing box or whatever exactly it was called, I always used the BTZS synthetic material hood with 4x5, 5x7, and 8x10 cameras. There are many different systems out there, they all have their pros and cons except that I never found a pro for the horse blanket, for me it was all cons.

[Roger Cole]

I said I was still using it because I hadn't bought anything better, not that I liked it.

I bought it when I got into 4x5 about 1998, used it for a couple of years and put the film cameras away (I didn't go digital except for snapshots so much as just drift away from photography) and am really just in the past year getting started again. Moving the darkroom to Georgia where I live now from my parents basement in TN where I had it, setting it up in my currently running-water-less basement to use a holding bath and big jug of water, getting into other formats too, restocking all my supplies...a better dark something is on my list. It's not high on my list because the thing I have works, it's just big, heavy and awkward (and pretty much impossible to actually attach the the camera effectively. I just throw it over my head.)

[Jim Jones]

The folding hoods on my cameras do provide ground glass protecion. However, I take them off and use a cloth for focusing.

[Rider]

For anyone who uses a hood, do you take it off when using a loupe, and put it back when done with the loupe?

Is Frank there--I was wondering what he uses when dealing with semi-moving subjects (i.e. people).