11x14 experiences - please share yours

[jnantz]

Welcome!

thnks !
- john

[Duolab123]

The stand with 16 inch wheels is brilliant.

Taking the logical next step, if I had the money maybe an all terrain vehicle with a Majestic head mounted front and rear with a custom trailer to pull behind my little Subaru.

I need something as I have a nice folding 11 X14 and 8 x 10, haven't been outside with either in a couple years.
Lazy, Mike

[Jason50]

Hello, everyone. I'm also going to buy an old 11x14 for wet edition photography. I like this size. I've learned a lot about large format cameras here. Thank you

[DrTang]

wow..can't believe I haven't commented here yet

anyway.. was wanting a 11x14 for a LONG time - ever since I went to a sale at Prof Bloodgood's HQ in town (they were behind the olde tymey photo studio stuff) and saw one..they wanted 200 bucks at the time which I didn't have

fast forward 30 years.. I finally find a studio space in town I can afford.. and almost immedicatly come across an 8x10 /century stand which I start using...if only I had a 11x14!!!.......about a year after getting my studio..I go to a garage sale locally where the ad said 'old cameras'... I drive up and see a big wood hulk of a thing..it's an Empire 11x14, three holders and a conley 12/20/25 lens..how much?? oh..we aren't open yet

- so I wait around until they open and apparently someone else had previously expressed interest and they didn't know what they wanted to ask for it anyway so it turned into an auction with me and two other and I just jumped in at 500 buck and the others walked away..I figured at worst..I could sell off the holders and get back even if the thing was too thrashed...it wasn't and the lens is cool .. I been shooting it at 25" (front element only) - which I have just recently learned I am using wrong.. I was just leaving it on the front..but I am supposed to take it off and put it on the back!!! who knew?

anyway..it's a pisser when you blow a sheet..but when one comes out - OH MAN

I have just recently received a 11x14 Indian Field camera - a Vageeswari - in trade

needs help, came with no back and bad bellows and no tripod plate... getting the tripod plate made (here) and ordered a back and bellows from some guy in Prague
- so I'll have two pretty soon

[Vaughn]

Took my new 11x14 out into the redwoods yesterday -- exposed 4 sheets...I'll develop tonight!

[bob carnie]

I hope to buy a 11 x14 someday as I own a 11 x14 enlarger and would love to introduce larger negatives to the Devere.

[Mark Sampson]

I just realized that I do,indeed, have some experience with 11x14. In 1979 I was hired by a chain of portrait studios (headquartered in Rochester) as a high-school senior portrait shooter. One of the services this old-line studio offered was the composite portrait- all the members of the graduating class, row upon row of faces. The method was to take a contact print of each submitted yearbook portrait, paste them up on a board, and hand-letter each name beneath. Add the name and logo of the school ("South Seneca High School, Class of 1980" or whatever). The finished poster was then copied, using an 11x14 studio camera (on an iron-wheeled stand) and hot lights; the resulting negative was contact-printed for sale to students. The original composite was, I believe, delivered to the client school to hang in the hallway. An enormous amount of hand work in that pre-digital age... but then the studio wasn't paying us much.
The "Composite Dept." was a hangout for photographers not on assignment... the studio had hired a dozen of us that year. I was useful down there because I knew how to load a film holder (unlike most of my colleagues). But one day I coerced the cranky old staffer who ran the department into letting a bunch of us pose for our own group portrait, using the composite setup, and we did. Of course it was goofy, (it was after lunch on Friday) and the lighting was awful, focus wasn't great, exposure was long (so blurred), but it was fun just the same. I'm sure no copies still exist. And that's the sum total of my experience shooting 11x14.
For the record, I must state that I cannot remember the brand of the camera, stand, or lens; the f/stop or the duration of the exposure, or the type of film used (although it was certainly a Kodak product, probably Professional Copy 4125). Nor will I suggest that this story will be of any use to anyone wishing to shoot 11x14; but I had fun doing it, and remembering it all.

[Robert Brazile]

I came across some 11x14 plate holders locally, so I picked up a couple lenses that would cover, and fashioned a very silly sliding-box camera out of scrap wood and cardboard. Managed to grind a decent ground glass, pour two plates (man, those big ones take a long time to dry), and shoot a couple of shots in my shop -- the thing took up the entirety of my not-so-big workbench -- and managed to get results. The shots weren't very good; in particular, focusing was difficult with various parts of the camera attempting to dissociate themselves from each other every time I tried to slide the back forward or backward to get focus but it was enough fun that I'll certainly repeat the experiment once I improve the middle part of the camera, either by building a simple (probably German-style) bellows, or at the very least, by making a slightly better pair of sliding boxes out of thin plywood.

Not expecting to take this thing on the road ever, but perhaps I'll build one someday that will allow it.

Robert

[Duolab123]

I just realized that I do,indeed, have some experience with 11x14. In 1979 I was hired by a chain of portrait studios (headquartered in Rochester) as a high-school senior portrait shooter. One of the services this old-line studio offered was the composite portrait- all the members of the graduating class, row upon row of faces. The method was to take a contact print of each submitted yearbook portrait, paste them up on a board, and hand-letter each name beneath. Add the name and logo of the school ("South Seneca High School, Class of 1980" or whatever). The finished poster was then copied, using an 11x14 studio camera (on an iron-wheeled stand) and hot lights; the resulting negative was contact-printed for sale to students. The original composite was, I believe, delivered to the client school to hang in the hallway. An enormous amount of hand work in that pre-digital age... but then the studio wasn't paying us much.
The "Composite Dept." was a hangout for photographers not on assignment... the studio had hired a dozen of us that year. I was useful down there because I knew how to load a film holder (unlike most of my colleagues). But one day I coerced the cranky old staffer who ran the department into letting a bunch of us pose for our own group portrait, using the composite setup, and we did. Of course it was goofy, (it was after lunch on Friday) and the lighting was awful, focus wasn't great, exposure was long (so blurred), but it was fun just the same. I'm sure no copies still exist. And that's the sum total of my experience shooting 11x14.
For the record, I must state that I cannot remember the brand of the camera, stand, or lens; the f/stop or the duration of the exposure, or the type of film used (although it was certainly a Kodak product, probably Professional Copy 4125). Nor will I suggest that this story will be of any use to anyone wishing to shoot 11x14; but I had fun doing it, and remembering it all.

That's a great story. Most people don't remember what "Cut and Paste" really was and how it worked. I remember in the 80's photo typesetters. It would print in different fonts black letters on thin photo paper. This output was then "cut and Pasted into a composite for the process camera.

Today it's how fast you are with a mouse. I think the old ways were a lot more fun!
Best Regards, Mike

[dodphotography]

Great resource here.

I've contemplated the jump, numerous times. I spent a few years with 810 almost exclusively and recently downgraded to 45. Its now the third time I've come to 45 but it's taken me some time to realize I just love contact printing. A friend recently offered me an 1114 at a great value so the time may be right for me.


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