8x10 tranny films

[Jim Rice]

I've been shooting 4x5 Velvia 50 almost exclusivly for some years now. It and I seem to get along with one another, with some issues of course.

It looks as though I MAY be landing an 8x10 soon, and knowing that black and white contacts, alternative processes, and 8x10 'roids are one the eventual horizon, I would like to start pretty close to home.

My choices seem to be Provia and the various Ektachromes.. Any thoughts from those who have been there would be greatly appreciated.

-j

[tim atherton]

Jim

I have a belief that is entirely subjective - that for colour, the larger the format the less saturation you need.

Colour can get expensive in 8x10 and up (not sure how deep your pockets are). You can sometimes get deals on outdated 8x10 tranny film. Buy some, test to see if it needs a correction filter or iso adjustment (often, it would seem not to need much) and take it from there.

Personally I have never liked the look of Provia in any format and I don't seem to like some of the newer Kodak sheet films (E100G - I much preferred the 100s/sw). I find Astia very nice in 8x10 and I'm getting to like Portra and Fuji NPS print fims in 8x10 as well. And you can still try Velvia can't you if you really want to blow your eyeballs out? :-)

[Jim Rice]

Velvia is available in 8x10?

-j

[tim atherton]

BTW - I'd add it's getting harder and harder to find. B&H doesn't stock all the films available in 8x10 transparency. Freestyle doesn't seem to stock any 8x10 transparency any more. Sammy's lists most - not sure if , but yothey stock them. There are others aroundu are starting to fnd you have to hunt for it.

[Jim Rice]

Way cool......and I assume Astia, too?

-j

[tim atherton]

Velvia is available in 8x10? + Astia

Samy's lists them -whether they have them in stock or can get them is another questions - I can probably dig out some other places to try too

[Jim Rice]

I'm thinking my first twenty exposures are going to cost as much as the camera. :P

-j

[Jim Rice]

Thanks, Tim

[Jim Rice]

And I'm thinking that for ten sheets or so, blowing my eyeballs out is exactly where I want to start.

-j

[tim atherton]

you could always try some old old Fuji 50D (goodness knows what it will be like...)

http://www.freestylephoto.biz/sc_prod.php?pid=5281

try Adorama too for fresh film

[Scott Atkinson]

Jim: I'm also an old 4x5 Velvia junkie, but when I tested 8x10s head to head, I found that I actually preferred Ektachrome 100VS--it also helps that it's about 1-1/3 stops faster. You can find 8x10 Velvia if you shop around--try Calumet or Samy's. I also found some 8x10 Velvia 100F at Samy's (some say it's not available, but it is, or was), but again, I prefer the 100VS. I'm not a big fan of Provia, in any format. Haven't tried the new Astia in 8x10, though I like the 120 indoors under studio lights. For 100VS, try Jeff at Badger Graphic Sales.

[tor kviljo]

Have bought something like 300 sheets of various 8"x10" fujichrome films from Freestyle the last 5 years. Works excellent, and the RFP 100 & RDP 50 I have been using have performed perfectly with no need for color-correction. (have some Astia also I belive - havn't used that yet). To complete description, I develope in a JOBO ATL 3000 using Tetenal E6 chemistry. Freestyle/tetenal combination making the use of 8"x10"trannies a less than 2.5 $ a sheet experience... I Did'nt know Freestyle were out of "cold-stored Spesials" - 8"x10" sheet film (ieeeek!) - they have been able to supply this at rock-bottom prices for many years - hope the rumour is wrong.

[jantman]

Well, I'm not afraid to make it public to the world now that the deal is done. Up to a month or so ago, Freestyle had a clearance on 8x10 transparency film. Of most interest to me was 100D (the original Provia, circa 1995 or earlier) sold at $35 for a box of 50 sheets. Well, too bad I only bought one box. That one box, expired in 1995, is sitting in my fridge, and so far has shown near-perfect color balance.

Too bad the deal is over, I could use another box or two. Once this runs out, my color in 8x10 will be severely limited.

[Brian Vuillemenot]

I recently bought several boxes of 8 X 10 RVP from Adorama- they have it in 10 and 50 sheet boxes. I'm not sure what the supply is, but I was able to get severl boxes right away.

[Mark Sampson]

A dumb question- what do you all do to make a finished product from an 8x10 chrome (excepting commercial work)? Make massive scans for digital output? Ilfochromes? lightbox viewing only?

[tim atherton]

"A dumb question- what do you all do to make a finished product from an 8x10 chrome (excepting commercial work)? Make massive scans for digital output? Ilfochromes? lightbox viewing only?"

Scan, adjust in photoshop using the exceptional colour and other controls it offers, and either print in the office up to 13" (soon to be 24") wide prints or get lightejet prints made at the lab up to 4' wide or more (if you really want). The Kodak and Fuji lightjet papers, or prints made via Chromira combined with a good scan and Photoshop give you options and an end result that exceed what you could normally get with Ilfochrome and most other "traditonal" colour processes imo. The level of control of colour, contrast, hue etc etc is far greater.

[kthompson]

dumb question #2: couldn't you just do that with 4x5 chrome film? not trying to be a smartass--but that's pretty much what we've been doing--having mural sized lightjets made off of drum scanned 4x5 CT's.

I understand the allure of a big 8x10 chrome---for years & years that was the stable of the furniture catalog industry in the state I live in (High Point NC--Alderman's, Norlings, Omega studios etc.)--but those days seem pretty numbered now, even though I understand they still shoot some 8x10 over there. then again, they used to longroll contact print the catalogs, bypassing offset printing, so they had a backshop full of retouchers & lab techs putting together showroom type catalogs made on printing paper....

[Brian Vuillemenot]

Yeah, sure, but with an 8X10 outfit, I get more than twice the exercise of hauling around my 4X5. The large size also attracts twice as many chicks! (Size does matter!)

[tim atherton]

"dumb question #2: couldn't you just do that with 4x5 chrome film? not trying to be a smartass--but that's pretty much what we've been doing--having mural sized lightjets made off of drum scanned 4x5 CT's. "

Only if you are of the"there's really no point in using anythuing bigger than 4x5 school"... whereas I'm closer to Stephen Shore's dictum that "there are really only two film formats - 35mm and 8x10 - everything else is just a variation on one of those two" :-)

In most of the subjects I shoot I can fairly easily see the differnece in detail, look and feel from 4x5 to 8x10 even in an 11x14 print. And certainly in anything bigger than that. I recently did a shoot that used both 4x5 and 8x10 using the same film and (okay I know which are which), but to me, even in the magazine repro there is a subtle difference in look and detail between the two.

Take a look at Chris Jordan's work www.chrisjordan.com - looking at real life prints, I'm sure a lot of that, for example, just wouldn't work the same way. The difference in detail and smoothness is significant

[tim atherton]

k, Mark - having had some lunch and a Guiness at the pub, I could re-phrase it like this.

While those great big prints are great - love to see something printed up 5' or 6' wide - it's generally quite amazing - you don't get too much chance to show them more than one or two at a time, unless you are a Struthsky and have some big museum halls to hang a dozen or more in...

More common is this scenario; personally, I don't feel that prints up to say 11x14 make the most of the LF original neg/transparency. Yes, there may be plnety of reasons why you end up printing that size, but to my mind it's not ideal.

Far better is a print in the 20x24 to 24x30 range. They benefit from all the advantages of the larger original, but aren't so big that you can show or display them easily. Also, the viwer can generally still take them in from a reasonable distance in one "glance" (i.e. they aren't stepping abck so far away so they can actually see the top of the print!). But the viewer is also close enough to pick up a lot of the detail, depth and smoothness that comes froma LF original.

Now, lets take 24x30 - which is a size I particularly like for prints. For 8x10, thats only a 9 times enlargment. But from 4x5 it's a 36 times enlargement - that's quite a difference. For me, it's a difference that shows in the finished print.

[Brian Vuillemenot]

Hi Tim,

How are you arriving at those enlargement figures? I thought that a 24X36 made from an 8X10 would be a 3 times enlargement (8x3=24; 10x3=30), while that from a 4X5 would be a 6 times enlargement (4x6=24; 5x6=30)?

[kthompson]

Fair enough--just so happens that I do work in a museum (albeit one of a few staff photogs within an agency of several museums & archives)--for exhibitry, for years & years--murals were done by bumping 4x5 up to 8x10 and going that route, because of the limitations from the lab point of view. Some of these are fairly large. Not uncommon to have them made 16-20 some odd feet lengths, as 2, 3+ 4x8s seamed together. Some of the b&w's used to be made in-house, then in the last decade or so, these were thankfully farmed out. So--the studio has always been 4x5 oriented. Out of 3 studios/labs in my agency, only one has ever had an 8x10 within the span of my time. Yet, there are thousands of 8x10 and larger negs & glass plates for example in the archives--even in the museum where I work, next to me now is a hollinger box of 8x10 nitrate negs whose fate I'm pondering....and in another room are the beginnings of a project that involves contacting & duplicating 900 8x10 and 6x8 glass plates from the late 1800s.

So, I'm no stranger to the incredible details found buried in them...only from a practical point of view of storage as a record, and the types of output & use they will get--which is almost impossible to predict, since your work continually contributes to the "record"--meaning you draw from the work of your predecessors and so on. Out of this, the 8x10 has become cumbersome to a degree as the types of output have shifted to getting higher quality from smaller sizes. Having 900 glass plates with flaking emulsions is more of a chore to print than 900 4x5 negs, but back in 1885-1900 when they were shot, it was pretty much the norm. The same could be said for 8x10 negs & chromes-which would be problematic from a storage point of view eventually. Unless you're in a cold vault at Iron Mtn or someplace like that and money is no object....

That said--the longterm historical record is 4x5 estar based b&w sheets--we have to maintain these files as well as produce them. We've found that you can do just about anything with a 4x5 neg or CT. I'm gonna have to agree to disagree here with you on the repro end of it. What we do is used in everything from slick 4 color mags like Civil War Times, American Legacy to Time-Life series history books and school textbooks, and some postcards, calendars, posters and a billboard or two. Then, the museum exhibits often contain large murals. You can definitely see the differences between a 35 or 2-1/4 neg against a 4x5 optically repro'd this way--but in my limited experience in this type of environment--this gap is narrowing with the Lightjets and drum scanners. We did an exhibit at the tail end of last year and had 18 some odd murals in it, with one that was 16 feet long by 8 high. All were output on a Lightjet, coming from a range of formats, including some lousy digital-born files from outside (sigh). In the past 5 years or so, the ratio of digitally output murals & larger prints to optically has shifted quite a bit--so now it's almost 99% Lightjet/Lambdas. These jobs are sent out on gov't bids, and it used to be cheaper to get them done optically--but now the Lightjet's are almost rock bottom prices at about half what a consumer might pay. There are exhibits up in our building though that have both types of murals in them--and given that these come from both current & historical negs/CTs, it's almost impossible to tell the difference beyond price. Frankly, if the scan is good & the original is good--I don't see how there'd be that *much* difference between a 4x5 and an 8x10. With offset repro, there could be a question of pre-press quality, but since alot of printers are going over to direct to plate now, I'm still pretty fuzzy about the benefit.

Right now it's the great perspective control of a view camera and the long-life of polyester based sheet films--coupled in with the basic financial reality of a 100 yr old infrastructure of a studio based on sheet films that keeps us shooting it....I hate to say it, but this might be the twilight of 8x10 chromes for a commercial & industrial point of view-- that might not mean much to some--but when places like Alderman Studios (used to be the world's largest studio) quit using truckloads of the stuff--there better be a comparable market to pick up that slack. Just look at a film like Pro Copy--all the archives in this country couldn't keep up the demand for that once the commercial labs went digital. Since the system ordered literally truckloads of 4x5 b&w film last year, not to mention hundreds of feet of aerial film, microfilm & tens of thousands sheets of paper--I hope (fingers crossed) we're doing our part. Sorry--not much 8x10 though.

KT

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[tim atherton]

kent,

I tend to agree with you if we are talking about what is basically "commercial' photogorpahy (even if it's "gevernment" commercial photogorpahy) - in it's broadest terms. Use the minimum and most cost effective to get the job done. The critical attention paid to those murals isn't going to be so great the the difference matters that much.

But if we are talking about - for want of better terms - fine art or "creative" photography - whether for gallery and museum display or for other kinds of work, that difference can be improtant - and at times, critical and can make a difference.

And as a former senior imaging specialist at a Government Archives - all I can say is that I'm glad it's not the archivists who decide what and how something is photographed...!

You are also probably right - we are probably in the last gasp of LF colour of all sorts - though one can always hope that someone will pick up the slack with obscure small runs of colour material from the Balkans or something - look they are even making Dye Transfer matrix material now....

[kthompson]

I'd be the first to admit that we're not doing fine-art. You're right--the murals are used in "exhibitry" which when you say that, tends to conjure up images of art galleries and the like--but I'm referring to exhibits where the murals are used as visual signage or even design elements in environments and the like--so it is very different.

Where I work--we're all film based for the longterm, but digital is making rapid inroads, in ways that even 5 years ago, I didn't imagine. Back in 1997, I was sent with another staffer to a week long digitzation conference at the Smithsonian CAL lab--all about managing photo collections in the "digital age"--the message was to shoot film; Film--cold storage vaults--scan for access. In the time since then, it's amazing how many of those large archives represented there have full-out digtization projects--with some shooting all digital now--all the while carrying another party-line of sticking with film.

The trickle-down effect of this has been this push in a big way to get records online for access. You look at LOC American Memory or NARA's NAIL(ARC)--and then try to strip it down into a state budget reality and it's a no brainer to a photographer to stick with film--whereas to computer folks, it's the other way around.

For us--I think we'll shoot sheet film as long as it's made. But what has happened has been this split between the types of imaging going on--where in the past, you might see a curator go out into the field with a roll of TX, they now take a digi-point-n-shoot ( a PHD--push here dummy) camera and then that unfortunately becomes a part of the record as well. It's like a reformatting project almost. where for one party--they want to get it out to as many as possible in the most efficient way in "real-time"--now. Then, the archivists with trying to select & store out a vast amount of info knowing they can't save everything--and museums trying to figure out how to embrace this multi-media wonderland we have at our fingertips.....for one group--it's okay to film it & destroy the original for the sake of access. For another, it's more about preserving beyond the immediate moment, even if they never use the thing within their lifetime. There isn't a right or a wrong here, it's just a different approach to the same problem.

I'm not happy about it--but I'd like to stay employed, so I have to adapt. The curious thing is that when it comes to shooting events--which we always did on chrome film & b/w like TX using 2 cameras?--when it comes to shooting these, digital is perfect. I shot a historical type gov't event last year--as the "film guy"--while another guy shot digital. My stuff went into the record files--the digital is what was actually used. It's going to be harder down the road to make these decisions though--because like I said, you really never know what all is going to be used. That film I shot could sit in a drawer forever--all nicely packed in Mylar sleeves and PAT envelope in an "archival" file cabinet that cost more than the camera almost, in a room being monitored for temp & rh. Is it worth archiving a grip & grin? There are alot of questions unanswered in this--but then look at one archive up in DC using Nikon digital slrs to do building surveys and look at preservation programs shooting 35mm of all things instead of 4x5? It comes down to money--space--time. the reality is the smaller formats and even digital will fit the bill for some things. times change....

fwiw--we're embarking on a huge photo documentation part of a conservation survey of some textile panoramas-- over 100, 6x10 foot sized rolled paintings. We're doing a prototype--but if (big?--money.) it happens, it would mean building a scaffold/platform to shoot down onto these rolls below. Our part is alll 4x5 and encompasses camera/lens and 3 speedo 2400 ws packs & 6 heads rigged to a scaffold. 8x10 would be great for this--but it would blow the budget sky high--and then in the end, we wouldn't be able to print them in-house or scan them even, so 4x5 it will be.

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[Richard Fenner]

Brian, Tim is referring (approximately) to area enlargement, rather than linear enlargement (as you are). Eg 4x5 to 8x10 is 4x area enlargement (20 square inches to 80 square inches), or 2x linear enlargement (each side is multiplied by 2 to end up with the 8x10). I never understood (and still don't) why both exist and any practical difference - I don't think there is, as long as you always adopt the one system.

I used to use area enlargement as well (to me, it made sense) but after checking with Schneider on what the magnification of a loupe actually refers to, I use linear enlargement now - the Schneider technician said that's what they use ie an area looked at under the 6x loupe is the equivalent to seeing part of a 4x5 as if it was 24x30.

[Richard Fenner]

The 'approximately' obviously doesn't belong there. For some reason, I was thinking about 6x7 to 4.5 at the same time.

[Mark Sampson]

Tim, k, thanks for your answers. I don't shoot larger than 4x5 for myself, and when I did use 8x10, I made contact prints. And at work, I think I've used the 4x5 camera twice in the last year (sigh) and the 8x10 cameras have been gathering dust for a long time. And on the job our color work has been based around color negative, which I've also used for personal work for the last 20 years. So that got me to thinking (wrongly) that an 8x10 chrome was pretty much an end product unless scanning for offset repro. And that since I'd bet a majority of photographers on this list are not full-time professionals, output options would be difficult and expensive. Obviously there are newer and better ways now, and it's interesting to hear about the workflow that gets you to the final print. Tim, I like your thinking about print size, but darkroom and logistic considerations have kept my prints to 16x20" so far.