2x5 format?

[h2oman]

After reading the 4x10 thread, I took one of my 4x5 holders and cut one of the darkslides to try the half darkslide method of getting that aspect ratio. Has anyone else tried this?

Film and developing costs are not that prohibitive, but I will likely be payaing for scans, so two images for one sounds good there.

[dazedgonebye]

Here's one person I know of...

http://forum.manualfocus.org/viewtopic.php?id=4857

[Darren Kruger]

After reading the 4x10 thread, I took one of my 4x5 holders and cut one of the darkslides to try the half darkslide method of getting that aspect ratio. Has anyone else tried this?

I use a cut darkslide for 4x5" film testing. I haven't shot in the field with it, but I have composed shots where I knew I didn't care abotu the bottom half of the image.

I do believe that the 2x5" size is real close to the 6x12cm roll film format.

-Darren

[MPrice]

I'm planning on trying it out this weekend with an old darkslide on 4x5, if it works out well I'll have to find a spare 8x10 darkslide to do the same for the larger format, I'll let you know how it goes...

[Daniel_Buck]

it would certainly work :-)

[h2oman]

Thanks for the responses - I guess I'm not totally out to lunch on this one. I'm going to give it a shot in the next week or two, but I only send film out when I have 20-30 sheets ready, so I'll have to wait a bit for my results.

One serious flaw in my plan to save $$$ for scanning chromes is that the probablity of a single decent shot is low, and the probability of getting two with any value on one sheet is then very close to zero!

[Ken Lee]

You may find it even easier to simply mark the ground glass with some removable painter's tape.

That way, you can shoot 2x5, 3x5, 1x5, whatever you want, whenever you want... even goofy shapes like 3.1 x 5.

No need to mess with dark slides and remember which which is which - or which which was which.

[BrianShaw]

One serious flaw in my plan to save $$$ for scanning chromes is that the probablity of a single decent shot is low, and the probability of getting two with any value on one sheet is then very close to zero!

Why would this be? If you can get decent exposure in Chromes using 4x5 then you should be able to do the same in 2x5. Or am I missing something? Personally, I wouldn't worry about getting two Pulitzer Prize winners on the same sheet.

Somewhere I read some advice to NOT cut the darkslide EXACTLY in half, but slightly less than half... to leave a rebate between the two images. I haven't done that yet but it sounded like a good idea.

[BradS]

I tried the half darkslide trick and found the added dark slide makes things much more complex and therefore, makes it much easier to screw up. so, now, I just compose shots knowing that I'm going to crop out the bottom or top half when printing. Same end...with much, much less complexity.

[Jess C]

You may find it even easier to simply mark the ground glass with some removable painter's tape.

That way, you can shoot 2x5, 3x5, 1x5, whatever you want... even 3.1 x 5.

No need to mess with dark slides and remember which which is which - or which which was which.

I agree. This is much simpler. I have a mask that I cut out of a used support backing from T-Max readyload pack film. I cut the mask to fit the outside of my ground glass and then cut the cropped format for the mask using an X-acto knife. It is easy to attach and removed the mask from the ground glass using a piece of masking tape (I prefer black photo tape). You can cut several in your choice of format.