Need Advice on 16x20 cameras and film from owners/users

[Torontoamateur]

I have always had a draw to move up to an ULF from my 8x10 cameras. Its a BIG step for sure. I have the tripods and developing trays and even the Fuji 600mm Lens to cover 16x20. Yet it is a Major investment of Money and Time to move into the 16x20 world. I would enjoy hearing from actual owners and users of this glorious format. The good and the bad. Thank You.

[Greg]

Shot 14x17 (close enough) for a while. For me (setting up the camera alone) after a while was more of a chore and many were the times that I struggled to set up the camera and after composing on the GG decided not to make the exposure. Need for using 2 tripods was always a pain to get everything to balance up. Camera was an Improved Empire State which morphed into a sail/kite with the slightest breeze. Switched to an 11x14 Chamonix and never looked back. Before investing in a truly ULF camera, get to know someone who uses one and ask to assist them on a couple of their shoots. If you do fall in love with the 16x20 format, by all means go for it. Never regret using a 14x17, cause it led me to now shooting 11x14 and loving every minute of it. Only drawback are bystanders who tend to stand around and stare silently at me setting up the camera. Onlookers who ask questions, don't mind a bit. One time led into a conversation that led me to discovering some LF equipment that in the end was given to me. The equipment was about to be destined for the trash.

[Tin Can]

I am very slowly adapting a camera to 14X17"

I have three 14X17 NOS plastic holders, very heavy and I chose 14X17 because X-Ray film is available and cheap

My process camera being adapted is also very heavy with only front rise or fall

It will be used in studio or on a wheeled cart close to my truck

Let's see how many 16X20 users show up!

[angusparker]

I'd echo the above comments. I have a Chamonix 14x17 but much prefer my 11x14. I'd go with a Ritter (super light). But the holders are what actually weigh the most in ULF.

[Torontoamateur]

I am considering it will be more of a studio camera and once in a while taken by SUV to a location on a nice weather day. I already have noticed and live with the limitations of the 8x10.

[angusparker]

I am considering it will be more of a studio camera and once in a while taken by SUV to a location on a nice weather day. I already have noticed and live with the limitations of the 8x10.

Then maybe the Chamonix 11x14 if you want something new. Or a good condition Korona or similar used. 7x17 and 8x20 often come with short bellows to take portraits at banquets, hence their name.

[esearing]

also factor in your commitment to the format. Big cameras are easy to buy, but hard to sell if you change your mind.

[Torontoamateur]

Ha Ha Ha ! I am not seeing much support for this format. I keep hearing I should go smaller... Well I walked away from the 11x14 and 12x20 format offers. I am not considering anything smaller . Don't wast time advising me of smaller. If anything advise me of 20x24. I turned down a full Deardorf V11 kit with several holders already. I will just skip your posts that contain advice on any format under 16x20.

[angusparker]

In that case, if you want to use it at all outside the studio I would go with a Ritter. It will be feasible to shoot with only one person that way. Otherwise with any other camera you will need at least one helper. Also consider the darkroom requirements: trays that take 16x20 film are big! You need a big sink even if the trays lie down sideways.....

[Tin Can]

Any thread may drift, if you want 16X20 by all means go for it

My project, in planning stage only is much bigger, as I work out how to do it with my limited budget

Here goes, 14 X 72" film, you figure it out...




Ha Ha Ha ! I am not seeing much support for this format. I keep hearing I should go smaller... Well I walked away from the 11x14 and 12x20 format offers. I am not considering anything smaller . Don't wast time advising me of smaller. If anything advise me of 20x24. I turned down a full Deardorf V11 kit with several holders already. I will just skip your posts that contain advice on any format under 16x20.

[Fr. Mark]

I know where there's a copy camera mounted in a building/darkroom if you are serious about going bigger. I think the vacuum back on that is something like 30x30" You'd have to mount in a trailer for it to be portable. I really want it for doing life size group portraits as contact prints. No film holders, the back is the film holder. I have no idea what it weighs. It's got several feet of bellows. I doubt it'd make sense to come from presumed Toronto Canada to central TX to get it.

[Monty McCutchen]

I shoot a 20 x 24 camera with a second reducing back for 16 x 20. As I have stated in other threads I use them both for wet plate and pt/Pd prints. I buy several boxes of film from Ilford for each format every year.

There are many more reasons not to do it than to forge ahead. Money, space, ease, convenience, diffraction, lens availability, marriage, kids, global warming and of course the catch all the Kardashians. For God’s sake pin your ears back, channel your inner Man from Snowy River and jump off down the cliff while everyone else stands by and watches. A man, a woman, a person should have something useless in their lives that has no productive endpoint but exists inside them and only them as the logical path ahead. As Wendell Berry said ‘do something that doesn’t compute’.

The payoff for me has been the experience. In portraiture something occurs between the sitter and yourself that is born out of the size of the camera. They understand they are collaborating with you not being taken from. A participation comes alive that my smaller formats don’t produce. Bonds are created and anticipation reintroduced to a immediate world.

In landscapes detail and light take on a different impact to composing and there is a grand theater aspect to being under the darkcloth that comes alive. Process reigns over product from the beginning—embracing the size, the weight, the cumbersome nature changes the odds from outnumbered to a rich target field. It’s just in your approach. But man when it goes right the product is breathtaking.

Or you could use an iPhone


Monty

[Torontoamateur]

I Have a Stianless sink and the 20x24 trays and the Film washer for 20x24 already . I did this for my 8x10 set up.

[Torontoamateur]

Thank You for this insightful reply. It is definitely about being Impractical and Magical. I do already notice how people react to my 8x10 Mahogany and Brass 8x10 Wisner. I expect that to be more pronounced as the size of the camera increases. You are right many will not "get it". Yet there are musicians who play ancient traditional instruments. Play ancient music compositions. But with the ULF I can do Contemporary Images. I have been looking at Chuck Close today and his work with Ritters 20x24 Polaroid. Amazing. There are always trolls and nay sayers. You encourage me to "waste my time". But what else is time for except to be wasted?

I have found a cache of 8 boxes of 16x20 Ilford in a local store . Cold stored and not yet expired. 8 x 25 is ... 200 exposures!!! Let's Not do the Math of the Co$t. Bah ! So inconsequential when the goal is to be Magical. Not for me as much as for the subject. To see themselves, to show others themselves. In analogue rendering of light energy on paper. Directly made. Not interpreted through a Bayer coded sensor.

BTW I checked my Cel Phone. It cannot reach the area code where the Magic is.

[Torontoamateur]

Any thread may drift, if you want 16X20 by all means go for it


My project, in planning stage only is much bigger, as I work out how to do it with my limited budget

Here goes, 14 X 72" film, you figure it out...

Sounds like a Cirkut Camera??

[Hugo Zhang]

I use my Chamonix 16x20 and have a 14x17 back so I can shoot both formats. I can handle it myself as long as the walk is not over a mile. :)

[Tin Can]

Not saying, when it works I will show it

I am not in a hurry


Sounds like a Cirkut Camera??

[Greg]

Ha Ha Ha ! I am not seeing much support for this format. I keep hearing I should go smaller...

Age most probably has a lot to do with forum members advising you to go smaller, is so with me, will turn 72 next month. Years ago thought nothing of toting around an ULF camera far from the trail head. Many times took me 2 or 3 round trips to do this, but never once feared someone walking off with my equipment... always left a hand written sign with "please do not disturb, will be back in 20 minutes". Now as I previously posted, 11x14 is the largest format that I am able work with in the field. My 11x14 camera system I am still able to backpack in using a large Granite Gear case with my tripod over my shoulder, and plan on doing this for as long as I can. Currently a half mile hike in seems to be the farthest practical distance to hike in. Fortunately most of the destinations that I am interested in photographing are within this distance. For longer distances, just pack a D850 and make LF digital negatives to print from. I will be the first to say that (to me) they have a much different look than images captured with my 11x14. But after displaying 11x14 Platinum/Palladium prints made from 11x14 negatives and from the D850 both side by side in a retrospective show last year, not one of the viewers could tell the difference, even some LF photographers. Good luck with your pursuing the 16x20 format...

[Fr. Mark]

Would multiple exposures from 8x10 satisfy this urge to make enormous contact prints?
The reason I ask is that I once got my hands on a ?72mm? super angulon on a Sinar Lensboard for 1/2 an hour and shot a picture of an extremely busy scene onto 5x7 Xray film---a wall of antique cameras, photo books, and accessories in a camera shop. The amount of information on that negative is crazy. I've never done it but I've thought about taking several 8x10's of a scene of interest and displaying them as group. Sort of like looking through a window. This idea is probably better for landscapes than portraits. But, it might give you some sense of the "presence" of the resulting prints before you get the huge equipment. It will do nothing for understanding the enormous camera, film holders, developing etc.

[Jimi]

Would multiple exposures from 8x10 satisfy this urge to make enormous contact prints?

It just struck me reading this comment, that Matt Magruder does (or did, don't know if he still makes photographs) multiple exposures (wetplate, though), see examples:
https://rfotofolio.org/matt-magruder/

He's always been an inspiration that I come back to every now and then.

[Torontoamateur]

No thats not feasible.

[Len Middleton]

Or a good condition Korona or similar used. 7x17 and 8x20 often come with short bellows to take portraits at banquets, hence their name.

Angus,

I believe you are correct with your comment on banquet cameras, but my 8x20 "Korona Panoramic View" has a rear extension to accommodate a total of about 32" of bellows, same length as my Dorff.

On the other hand, often banquet cameras have front tilt, which my panoramic view does not. It has front rise and rear tilt and swing.

Different tools for different uses.

Hope that info helps,

Len