Should lead fishing weights be sewn in the hem of a dark cloth?

[EdWorkman]

I tried a heavy motel style dark-drape material. Wind defeated it, plus a simple dark cloth let too much light , reflected from the ground, into the dark.
So I use a black tee shirt [ on a Kodak 2D] with my head thru the neckhole and the waist wrapped around the ground glass. [ kinda like the one in the url above]
Not elegant, but it works well and doesn't take up very much room in the case

[Struan Gray]

FWIW, the curtain hem tape is less likely to break anything, because both the weight and any impact it has when windblown are spread out.

That said, I use a Blackjacket, and greatly prefer it to a darkcloth.

[Doremus Scudder]

Another vote for Velcro. My homemade darkcloth has Velcro all around, with hooks on one side, loops on the other. I can close it up around the camera and around me. I haven't had a ground glass broken, but have had a strike in the head from a darkcloth weight that was painful enough to cause me to change.

I am lucky enough to have a bright enough Fresnel screen on most of my cameras that allows me to focus many shots without the darkcloth. I compose with a viewing frame, so don't need to spend a lot of time composing on the ground glass; just make sure the edges are correct, that the movements and focusing are correct.

FWIW, my darkcloth is white Gore-Tex on the outside, black on the inside and doubles as reflector, rain poncho and trendy-looking Superman cape

Doremus

[Alan Gales]

Bricks or Cement blocks work the best according to Drew Wiley. Unless of course you are shooting in a hurricane or tornado.

Drew was once shooting 8x10 in a hurricane with several tornados in it. As usual he was using his A100 Ries tripod so the camera stayed put. His dark cloth did fly up due to the high winds and hit Drew in the head several times. The bricks were pulverized so they had to be replaced later for his next adventure. Drew still has the pictures but you really can't see anything in them. Unfortunately Drew used a crappy Zeiss lens and not the Dagor that Andrew Glover had wisely suggested to him.

[Drew Wiley]

Cute, Alan. But I do have some immaculately sharp prints taken in very high winds. Sustained wind can work. It's gusts which shake a camera. Not that I like
difficult scenarios; wind can spoil shots. It just tends to come with the territory sometimes. We have something called mountains out here, and I have taken
thousands of large format trips in them. Ice and snow also happen to make lovely photographic subjects. I know that this is kinda a mystifying topic for people
who come from states where the highest peak changes every day depending on how much a bison left behind on the ground, if you still have any bison. But
even bison pies get transformed into photogenic abstractions when they are covered with a fresh layer of snow.

[Alan Gales]

Cute, Alan. But I do have some immaculately sharp prints taken in very high winds. Sustained wind can work. It's gusts which shake a camera. Not that I like
difficult scenarios; wind can spoil shots. It just tends to come with the territory sometimes. We have something called mountains out here, and I have taken
thousands of large format trips in them. Ice and snow also happen to make lovely photographic subjects. I know that this is kinda a mystifying topic for people
who come from states where the highest peak changes every day depending on how much a bison left behind on the ground, if you still have any bison. But
even bison pies get transformed into photogenic abstractions when they are covered with a fresh layer of snow.

Drew, I was wondering how long it would take you to find this.

I tried my hand at writing a story like Andrew does on his Dagor77 Ebay listings. Unfortunately, I'm not quite the writer that Andrew is.

We have Bison here in St. Louis but they are at a place called Grant's Farm where they are on display like at a zoo. We have hills too but no mountains. When we get high winds it's usually in the spring during tornado season which is not exactly a good time for shooting large format. You are safer in your basement.

[Kevin Crisp]

Bricks and cinder blocks really don't do it. Unless you have a vacuum film holder to hold the film flat, all of this is pointless. Lens? Nah. Tripod? Nah. Isn't going to be sharp.

[Noah A]

I like velcro. It lets me snug the darkcloth around the camera when needed, but it's easy to take off and you can choose to use it or not depending on the situation.

I've never owned one of those fancy hood or jacket type things, but I've had students use them during my workshops and I don't really like them, they seemed slow and cumbersome to me. It's a personal preference of course.

I have, in a pinch, used everything from a black t-shirt to a fleece jacket with fine results, but I do rather like the Harrison dark cloth. I think I have the small one, or maybe medium.

[mdarnton]

I carry a handful of small plastic spring clamps. They can hold the cloth in place on the camera, but a couple clipped on the bottom can be weights, or clipped under can close the bottom, or . . . they can be anything you want. :-)

[Alan Gales]

I like velcro. It lets me snug the darkcloth around the camera when needed, but it's easy to take off and you can choose to use it or not depending on the situation.

I've never owned one of those fancy hood or jacket type things, but I've had students use them during my workshops and I don't really like them, they seemed slow and cumbersome to me. It's a personal preference of course.

I have, in a pinch, used everything from a black t-shirt to a fleece jacket with fine results, but I do rather like the Harrison dark cloth. I think I have the small one, or maybe medium.

I agree that they are slower to use but darker underneath. It's a trade off. I have a BlackJacket that I use with my 8x10. I used to use a BTZS with my 4x5. The BlackJacket is the slowest to use but also the darkest underneath. I am in no hurry when shooting 8x10 but someone shooting in fast changing light would feel differently.