Experiences moving from small to large format?

[Eric_6227]

Hello,

I have always shot in 35mm and medium format, hand-held, in natural light. For medium format, I use an old Rollei TLR and a Mamiya 7 rangefinder, allowing me to work much the same as in 35mm. Since I am just getting started in large format, I am wondering if anyone else can share their experiences moving from smaller to large formats. Or did you all start off in large format? Clearly, large format is a slower, comtemplative way of working. My biggest hurdle so far is working with a tripod, which makes me feel tied down. Any suggestions? Did any of you go through similar experiences or learning curve? How long before you got comfortable with the new format, and how do you think it changed your work or way of seeing. Thanks.

[Bruce Watson]

Working in LF makes you realize things about the way you were working in 35mm. Most people, myself included, tend to adjust our framing and points of view in 35mm by putting the camera to our eye and moving our feet. You don't realize that you do it, and in particular, how easy it is to work this way, until you can't do it anymore.

Interestingly, I find that having this taken away from me makes me a better photographer. It forces me to think before I shoot, literally. I have to walk the scene to find the point of view that will let me make the photograph I want, then setup there - not the other way around.

But don't let this make you feel tied down. Instead, let this make you feel liberated. You are free of that camera on your face making you adjust to *its* needs. Now you are free to think about the photograph you want to make, and positioning the camera to meet *your* needs. This is an entirely different and much better way of working. At least for me it is.

[Frank Petronio]

Switching between loose and formal photography doesn't have to be an either-or proposition. You can shoot large format lose and small format formal. In fact, using something like a rangefinder focused Crown Graphic and a monopod might be a good transition.

Getting a good tripod makes a lot of difference too. I always liked using my more expensive (of course) solid Gitzo over the shakely Bogen. Getting a good ground glass viewing system figured out - an old black t-shirt or a fancy viewing binocular - helps, as well as practicing the simple techniques and patterns you need to make shooting LF almost mindless and easy.

In other words, the more you do it the more comfortable and better you'll become -- duh -- but you have to endure a few silly mistakes and not get discouraged early on.

[Brian Vuillemenot]

I went through a similar transition from 35 mm through MF to LF. Very few people start off directly in LF. For about a year, it took a lot of gettting used to. My main hurdle was having to look through a dark cloth and compose on the ground glass. Although I had always used tripods, with 35 mm adn MF I was used to being able to compose through a viewfinder, allowing me to move the camera around to change the compostions. With LF, you pretty much have to have the composition in your head before you set up the camera. Another transition is getting used to the working process- composing on the ground glass, using the camera movements, light metering, loading the film, etc. This can take quite a bit of practice, and one mistake will mess up the whole process. Several times during the first year, I planned on getting rid of the 4X5 and going back to MF. What kept me going were the beautiful chromes I produced on a light box. Compared with 4X5s, MF transparencies just seem so insignificant! After a year of using the camera several times a month, I was fairly comfortable with the whole working process, but even after 4 years I'm still learning some of the subtle nuances of the camera. Good luck with your transition- I'ts definately worth it, just take your time, concentrate, and be sure to get lots of practice!

P.S.- one more thing to get used to are the masses of onlookers who will watch you photograph and ask you all kinds of sometimes innane questions!

[Ron Marshall]

The biggest difference for me is that I slowed down and considered my composition and lighting more. With 35mm I often would go into point and shoot mode. looking at the contact sheet I would realise all the things I could easily have done to improve the image.

[Jim Rhoades]

My suggestion would be to sit down and review all of your other work. Every print or slide you ever made. Now, how many of them could have been made with a tripod? Unless your a photojournalist or street shooter most could have been made with a tripod. That means all of those photographs could have been made better. Yes, a tripod slows you down. Is that bad? The photo will be sharper and better composed. With a tripod you will look at the edges more and have less suprises of trees growing out of peoples heads.

You should have been using a tripod for your 6x6 and 6x7 work. You may not believe me now or you might think I'm blowing smoke. In a year of working with L/F you will find that you will also use that damn tripod even with the TLR. Once you reach that level you will see diminishing returns on M/F vs 4x5. That's when you will start thinking about 5x7 or 8x10.

[Patricia Langer]

When I worked in 35 mm, I always used a tripod. It allowed me to compose carefully, and then to step away from the camera, take a breath, then a final look into the viewfinder to check the edges of my frame. When I moved to LF, I began using my 35 for handheld work and enjoy the spontaneous and serendipitous experience. I also will use my medium format rangefinder handheld.
To your point of the value of being on a tripod... in my own experience, it creates a whole new relationship to seeing. First of all, when I am compelled to stop and make a picture, what initially caught my eye is rarely the photograph I end up making. This is because while I am on the tripod I move my camera around until the composition shows itself. Also, the image being upside down is a wonderful thing. It allows me to take the labels off things, so that I am looking at line, shape and form and the relationship between these dynamics. So, a tree is no longer a tree, but a visual experience particular to the composition on the ground glass. I can't imagine how this would be possible without a tripod.
I can't make a respectable landscape off a tripod, because it would briefly considered and shallowly examined. However, I am able to compose my handheld work ( casual portraits, street shooting, travel stuff) more quickly and feel they are improved because of the discipline of tripod use.
Using a tripod facilitates deeper seeing and that has a ripple effect through other formats handheld. I don't enjoy lugging the beast around, but it's worth it.

[paulr]

the only part of the transition i didn't like was discovering all the new kinds of mistakes you can make with a big camera.

just be prepared to waste a bunch of film, and to patiently convince yourself that you're not actually stupid. once you make each or the major kinds of blunders a couple of times, it will all become second nature.

i felt liberated by the big camera, because i'd been using a small camera as if it were large format ... on a tripod, slowly, carefully. i was fighting the format, and sticking with it only until i could finally afford to switch.

[Eric Woodbury]

I started with smaller formats and worked up and then back. Now I use them all. What did I learn?

You take different pictures with different cameras.

(Oh yes, and I like to buy cameras.)

[Jay DeFehr]

I shoot 35mm, MF and LF on a regular basis. I don't like tripods, but use one out of necessity for 8x10 work. I don't find any value in a tripod apart from holding cameras too large to hold by hand, but that's just me. Until very recently, my go-to outfit was an RB67, which I shoot handheld, and get tack-sharp negs, but if I had to give up a format today, it would be MF. I print 90% of my work at 8x10, and I've recently begun using a developer that allows me to shoot TMY in 35mm with fast lenses in low light, and make beautifully sharp, grainless, 9x13 prints, which covers 90% of my enlarging needs. I'm confident that I could make excellent 14x20 prints from the same negs if I wanted to, but I haven't had occasion to do so. I won't give up LF for its strengths, which for me, are the vintage portrait lenses and contact printing processes, which combine to produce qualities unobtainable by other means. If I could do it without a tripod, I'd be happier for it.

Jay

[medform-norm]

Ah, the tripod! Now there's one thing I still fight with - getting it level and steady and all that. Being on a small budget, I invested in a reasonably good but certainly not the best tripod in the world and now I sometimes catch myself thinking I should get one that can be positioned in a much easier way. I think I'd like a spirit level in my LF tripod and a very easily adjustable head that allows me to move the camera comfortably. Also, my current tripod is hard to fix down - sometimes I don't tighten it down enough and before I know it, the camera will start to move on the pod and I even have had it nearly falling over backwards (this was where the weight was), just in time to save it from crashing. (-Something I am sure some of us here have had to witness as well. )

For a great list of mistakes to make - both classic and modern - , you could look for a thread on APUG titled 'useless fact of the day'. It gives you a good impression of what can and what will go wrong. Take me, for instance: last time out shooting I must have pushed the flash button on my Lunasix. Otherwise I can't explain why the negs were so underexposed. Being on an antihistamine medication I was a little groggy, so at the time I didn't think anything was wrong with the readings the Lunasix gave me.... duh! However, it has led me to the discovery of the incredible latitude of Fuji Acros - the negs can still be printed!

Other issues with the move:
-if you plan on shooting outdoors: get a camera with controls/knobs you can still easily operate in very cold weather with a nice frost biting blistering wind chill. There's nothing so horrible as having to adjust the camera with icy fingers that have lost all feeling.
-be prepared to go through the learning process of finding out which camera is good for you - meaning buying and selling some before you end up with mr. or mrs. Right. Consider the option of renting several types to try out which suits you best.

HTH, Norm

[Nitish Kanabar]

First of all, welcome to Large Format.

I started off with 35 mm and moved to digital before coming to large-format. Over time I found myself using my cameras in a manner similar to a large-format camera - mounting it on a tripod, composing each shot with extreme care, using the manual exposure modes - essentially exercising the discipline generally required when shooting large-format. It was natural to try out large-format (inexpensively!). I bought an excellent speed-graphic off ebay and began my explorations.

I found that loading the holders was quite easy to learn. I practiced loading with my eyes open and then in the dark and pretty soon got the hang of it. Paul Butzi's excellent site helped a lot here - see www.butzi.net.

I found that developing a sequence / workflow reduces mistakes dramatically when taking an exposure. I practiced this sequence - compose, focus - adjust movements - refocus - until satisfied, stop down the lens, close shutter, ensure that film speed is correctly set on the meter, meter the scene, decide exposure, insert holder, recheck shutter speed and aperture, fire shutter a few times, recheck shutter, remove dark slide, fire shutter, insert dark-slide, take another shot, until it was second-nature. Following this sequence each time I took a photograph kept film wastage to a minimum. Of course, one could argue that many of my shots are a waste of film anyway ;)

The things I found most annoying were - leaky holders and inaccurate shutters and fogged up ground-glass in the winter!. I got new holders, so that fixed the leaky holders. Although my shutters were inaccurate, they were consistent - so I calibrated them and use my calibrated settings. I still am dealing with the fogged up ground glass.

Getting into LF can be a bit frustrating initially - the number of photographs that were keepers went down to zero. But that changed gradually and I'm continuing to learn and improve. These days I take more LF photographs than the other formats and have upgraded to a Linhof Technica from my speed-graphic. Once you overcome the initial learning curve, the satisfaction that you derive from photography will dramatically go up.

Good luck in your LF forays.

[Ralph Barker]

As has been mentioned, not all people "move" from 35mm or MF to large format. Many simply add LF to their overall photographic "toolkit".

Of potential interest to astrophysicists, this fact proves that multiple black holes can exist in close proximity, and that they can suck money from the same wallet. ;-)

Personally, I use the various formats for the tasks for which each is best suited. The fact that any given format is not universally optimal for all types of work is perhaps the most important lesson to learn.

Interestingly, the exploration of LF technique reinforced and expanded my understanding of numerous aspects of photography that I had only partially understood from my 35mm and MF experience.

[Eric_6227]

Thanks for all the replies. Ralph, I think I also see LF as adding a new dimension to my work. When I started using medium format, I was initially frustrated then as well. But over time I adjusted to the equipment which led to to break out of my routine way of working and see things differently. The result was surprising and better than I had hoped for. I guess it will be the same for LF. I'll definitely keep all these great comments in mind as I go forward.

[Ed K.]

A couple of additional thoughts...

Just because you are shooting large format does not necessarily mean that you must have a tripod. I shoot LF all the time WITHOUT a tripod. I use various bean bags which are simple and fast to set up, and yield tack-sharp photos. The abosolutely best bean bags are the cheap, bead-filled childrens pillows from Sears. At a cost of 10-15 bucks each, they make any surface into a rock solid tripod with pan and tilt. The tiny beads are larger than sand, but smaller than the peas of traditional beanbags, so that camera stays rock steady. Two of them fully support a Deardorff with a 1200mm T/ED lens on it, and the results are dead-on.

Sure, a view camera requires careful GG composition, however a press camera can use its rangefinder or sports finder for handheld too. I shoot a view camera mostly, however I have several box cameras as well as a Gowland Aerial 8x10 which can be used hand-held ( 1/400th second, 300mm ), on a pod, or again, with excellent results on a bean bag. Don't get me wrong, a tripod is something every camera needs at times. There are also gyros if you don't mind the weight - adding a gyro to the bottom of a hand-held LF box camera ( or aerial camera ) works like a champ too.

Indeed, as others have said, there are many new and wonderous kinds of mistakes to make. And one gets a whole new perspective on what "reasonable" prices are for things. Development issues, such as evenness rear their ugly head, film holders cost a lot ( for the big ones ), and the time it takes just to hunt all of it down is a real shocker these days. It often takes quite a bit of time to tune in all the variables and collect one's own kits compared to 35mm. Picking up a nice motordriven 35mm after a long stint of LF photography feels like going from a semi to a Ferrari.

One thing for sure, once a person gets used to seeing a glorious, large neg or chrome, it's tough to settle for less. Everything that mattered in 35mm still matters, it's just easier to see just how much all the best parts of your photos matter, and feasible to make much larger prints.

[CXC]

You gotta slow down, learn not to rush. If your subject won't be available for 20 minutes, either find something else or use a hand camera.

[Walt Calahan]

First assignment in photo school the prof took away all our lenses except our normal 50 mm lens (135 format).

Second assignment the prof took away all our cameras and made use use a single-rail 4x5 camera with a 135 mm lens.

After those two lessons, everything else was heaven.

LF has always made me slow down and really THINK when shooting, which has paid off in spades with medium format or 35 mm, too.

[Terence Spross]

When I've used LF for landscapes I've also noticed that the tripod is cumbersome due to re-leveling it frequently. I pick the whole setup up to move it and the ground is never level! Thats why I added a crude but effective finder set for normal landscape use. It is simply two wire rectangles, a small one above the film plane and a larger one above the lens board. Only when I'm close do I go to the ground glass. I decided this was also a safety issue after watching a tourist using a waist level finder on a MF camera turned sideways on his tripod. While looking sideways into the finder as he moved the tripod around, trying to avoid foreground branches in his composition, he moved off the edge of a cliff! First one tripod leg went over then everything went over. He and his camera remained largely unscathed, however the tripod may only see a future as a monopod.

I could just see me doing the same thing with a black sheet over my head!

[John Latta]

Eric, something that works for me is a viewing frame made from mat board with a 4x5 opening cut out. There is a good description of this technique in Ansel Adams' "The Camera". Using the viewing frame I can compose without the camera and tripod. Once the composition is decided upon then I set up. It liberates the "seeing" part from the tripod.

Cheero,

[Eric_6227]

Thanks John. That's a great idea. I've used similar cutouts for cropping prints, so it makes sense that they could also crop the real world. I was also reading the article by Ken Lee in the latest View Camera magazine. He goes around with only a tripod looking for his shot. When he finds it, he sets the tripod in place, and only then takes out his camera. I'll have to give it a try. Along with Ed's suggestion for bean bags. Moving to LF has been a great experience, and reminds me of the feeling I had when first starting out in photography.

[steve simmons]

Here is some recommended reading

Large Format Nature Photography by Jack Dykinga

User's Guide to the View Camera by Jim Stone

Using the View Camera that I wrote.

Check your local library or Amazon.com

There are several articles in the Free Articles section of the View Camera magazine web site

www.viewcamera.com

that might also be helpful.

steve simmons

[Dan Fromm]

Terence, if re-leveling is a problem, why don't you get something like a Bogen 3502? The 3502 fits between platform and head, has a "circle" level, makes leveling the head quick and easy. Alternatively, at least Berlebach and Gitzo offer tripods with built-in ball levelers.

I got an earlier version (Bogen 3115) of the 3502 when I took up movies, have never understood why only cinematographers use these things. Can't imagine working without it, feel deprived when I use my little Benbo 3 with tiny Bogen 3028 for near-ground shots.

Cheers,

Dan

[Eric_6227]

Thanks Steve. I have been reading Jack Dykinga's book and another one on large format photography by Kodak. They are both very good. Jack's book is especially full of information and inspiration. And I like the technical descriptions in the Kodak book. I'll check out yours as well.