Originally Posted by
Michael Kadillak
I venture to say that anyone that has ventured into ULF (ie formats other than the standards) falls into a category of what is called personal overachievement. Concurrently they are introduced bluntly into the category of the challenges that come along for the ride if they have any experience in this arena. From light leaks at the flap end of wooden holders (if injection moulded holders are not an option) to underexposure from unintentionally not remembering that you are experiencing macro conditions (the larger the format the more challenging this becomes), etc. Then you get to the price of admission with sheet film which just flat out sucks. From my personal experience my least concern is how much developer a reliable development process requires. And I am not talking about 90-95% reliability because that does not work in this domain. I am talking 100% reliability. There is nothing more discerning IMHO than in the back of your mind having to burn a second sheet of $15+ ULF film on a "special" scene because you do not have the absolute confidence that your negative processing regime will not fail you and praying that one of the negatives comes out as you desire. The stakes are simply too high. From my perspective these daylight tray film developing options are wonderful for the smaller format photographers that are constrained in the inability to have a darkroom within which to work which justifies the risk profile with them. If they are not "perfect" that is an acceptable premise because a darkroom is not in the cards so they are willing, ready and able to take that operational risk and work through it. The reality is the size of the ULF sheets, the dynamics of the flow patterns over such a large surface area and more critically the stronger dilutions necessary to use such smaller volume of developer all factually conspire to create a host of risk factors that I know will be totally unacceptable to the desire of the ULF photographer in the results he or she is in pursuit of. Put this into perspective. In 8x20 you have 160 square inches of continuous film which is in need of perfectly uniform chemistry / film surface interaction. That is the equivalent of 8 4x5 sheets of film in the tray in the form of one sheet in one run. Massive quantities of diluted chemistry is the direction this conversation should be going not the other way around. I understand the pursuit of the optimal scenario in this instance and I am not wanting to rain on anyone's parade. I am just attempting to be the voice of sensible reason in this instance and pointing readers with ambitions with ULF to stay in your lane with processes that are in fact 100% reliable as there is no need to try to cut corners in this instance because of the inherent risk. If someone has in fact shown that these alternatives are in fact completely reliable in smaller sizes and through 8x20 I will be more than happy to tip my hat in amazement. Until that time I would recommend the time tested options even if they use far more chemistry or are more cumbersome. After all at the end of a day the finished print cannot sing until the negative is capable of telling it what key the song is in.
Bookmarks