Rendering quality when shooting 120 on 4x5 camera

[Doremus Scudder]

6x9 is a great format. I used a 6x9 back on my first 4x5, a Graphic View II, when I was first learning 4x5 (more than 30 years ago now... time flies). I still exhibit some of the prints from those negatives.

The advantages to the smaller format: more portable, roll film is cheaper to develop commercially, and you don't need a darkroom/changing bag to load filmholders. Plus, you get a tad bit more depth-of-field for equivalent focal lengths (i.e., "normal" on both formats), roll film is easy to daylight develop in a tank, whereas sheet film usually takes a bit more trouble.

Areas where the formats are equal: cropping a 4x5 negative to roughly 6x9 gets you the exact same quality (assuming everything else is the same). Many shoot sheet film and then do a lot of cropping, but are quick to pick on a smaller roll film format... go figure. If you frame carefully, you can get quite a bit of negative area to work with.

The advantages of 4x5 sheet film: larger film gets you finer grain and better resolution for the same film (if you use all of it), sheet film allows individual development (e.g., Zone System) so you can tailor each negative for optimum printing, camera movements are a little easier to control, since the film is a bit bigger, you can use faster film and stop down more and still get relatively fine grain due to the larger film size.

FWIW, since I made the switch to sheet film, my roll film backs have been sitting in the drawer collecting dust.

Best,

Doremus

[koraks]

I find that roll film is in particular a cheap way to shoot color while retaining movements. On my Sinar F, I have gotten very usable results with tmax 100 and color negative film that are comparable in terms of sharpness to the frames I get from my mamiya 645. My flatbed scanner is in both cases the limiting factor, but still, plenty of resolution for 8x10" prints, which is the format I do most of my printing on.

But mostly I just shoot sheet film in the sinar; that's what it's for! Developing at home is pretty easy even without a dark room, using a changing bag and a mod54 film holder. I would invest in some development stuff rather sooner than later as you're bound to go that route at some point anyway.

[Donald Qualls]

Drew, that's my ultimate goal - to take a LF cam out into the mountains and shoot.

Film choices are rather limited (one commercial offering at Freestyle, last I checked) but there are 9x12 cm "plate cameras" from the 1920s to 1930s era that give 85-90% of a 4x5 negative in a package not much bigger than a 4x5 film box. The smallest to carry is the Patent Etui, aka Kawee Camera, hardly bigger (folded) than a 4x5 film holder; its film holders aren't much thicker than a Grafmatic septum. Hard to find film holders for it, though, and because they're actually made to hold glass plates, you have to either ensure it has, or separately find film sheaths that hold a film sheet where the plate would have gone -- an all of this at collector prices. Get one with a good lens, though, and the one model that had front shift as well as front rise, and it'll do almost everything you want to do while peakbagging -- in a backpack space not much bigger than a 6x9 folder of similar age. Of course, if you're doing things that need monorail type movements, then you need to find a way to carry the GVII, or spring the money for a good tailboard field camera (similar movements, but folds up much tighter than a monorail) -- but little in the way of distant-vista landscapes requires large or complex movements; the rise and shift of a press camera (which is essentially what the plate cameras were) will do what you need, aside from changing lenses (most of the plate cameras had one and only one).

If you're shooting 120 with a 5x4 camera and want results that are close to 5x4 sheet film quality you need to use the slowest 120 film you can, in my case that used to be Agfa APX25, these days it would be Pan F.

Although I rarely use it these days I used to always carry a 120 6x9 roll film back when out backpacking, I stopped about the time APX 25 was discontinued and I began to run out of it.

Ian

If you don't mind dealing with special low-contrast developers (the simplest of which is made from instant coffee, laundry soda, and optionally vitamin C powder), Adox CMS20 will give every bit of resolution you might have gotten out of APX25, and easily beats Ilford Pan F; it's essentially similar to Tech Pan but without the extended red sensitivity. If you have high enough scan resolution or a tall enough enlarger column, you can get more from a 6x9 negative in CMS20 than you would from, say, Foma 100 or even Acros in 4x5. In my opinion, it's not hard to develop, either; my first use give me perfectly processed negatives using data previously established for similar emulsions sold as microfilm.

[AtlantaTerry]

Thanks everyone! This was really helpful. My primary reason for considering roll film was from a cost and ease of use standpoint while I learn the ins and outs of my camera. Well, I'm guessing it would be easier...I'd have more exposures without having to change media right? Developing by 3rd party lab is cheaper too. I think the local lab is charging 4.50 per 4x5 sheet vs 6.00 for one roll of MF. Youch! My darkroom will come in time, but until then...it's the shop!

I was mostly curious about the much shallower DOF of LF vs MF and how it compares form one format to the other. I suspected I'd crop by using a smaller film size. I didn't consider at all how tricky it would be for focus though. Or is that just for shorter focal lengths?

Anyways I've been plastering the Intertubes with all my newbie dumb questions and learning along the way from you more experienced types :-).

I think you are going about this all wrong. If you want to shoot roll film then use a roll film camera. If you really want to learn how to use a 4x5" view camera, then use 4x5" film. Otherwise, you are only learning to use your view camera with a roll film back. If you use a roll film back you will not get used to sheet film holders as well as viewing, composing, framing and shooting full 4x5" negatives.

In other words, just get out there and burn up some 4x5" film.

IMHO one of the things about using a view camera is not creating quantities of images but THINKING about what you are doing and only exposing a few sheets - an entirely different thought process.

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About depth of field. A given focal lenth lens will create a given amount of depth of field. It does not care what film is sitting behind it. All your film does is capture some of the light coming out of the back of the lens.

If you have (for example) a 135mm lens on the front of a view camera, you could use 4x5" film or roll film or 35mm film. Every photograph would have exactly the same amount of depth of field in the image on the film. The only difference would be how much image area you would end up with. Naturally, the larger the film, the more image area.

You could lay the chip of 35mm film on top of the 4x5" film and the images would be identical - depth of field and all. But, as I said, the 4x5" film would simply include more of the scene.

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So get some inexpensive sheet film and get out there.

[Peakbagger]

Not quite ready to go out and shoot yet. I still need a lens! I just ordered one graflex sheet film holder. I'll hold off on the 120 back at the moment. I do want the full "4x5 experience". I suppose that includes self developing!
Thanks for the advices everyone.

[joselsgil]

Peakbagger,

Where are you located?

[Peakbagger]

Peakbagger,

Where are you located?

I'm in PDX! Or actually across the river in Clark County, WA.

[AtlantaTerry]

I'm in PDX! Or actually across the river in Clark County, WA.

It bothers me a bit when people use local abbreviations or postal codes. How is a photographer in Thailand or Brazil or Germany supposed to know where in the hell "PDX" is located?

[Peakbagger]

It bothers me a bit when people use local abbreviations or postal codes. How is a photographer in Thailand or Brazil or Germany supposed to know where in the hell "PDX" is located?

AtlantaTerry, you are right - not everyone thinks in terms of airport codes, and even then it doesn't really tell you the city. If someone typed "I'm from GRU" there's no way I'd be able to tell that it was in San Paulo, Brazil. I'd have to google it. Too much trouble! I've updated my location in my profile :-).

[BrianShaw]

https://www.google.com/#q=PDX



With fond regards from LAX