Reducing Backs in Practical Use

[jcoldslabs]

I have reducing backs of all kinds: 4x5 and 5x7 backs for the 8x10, as well as 6x7 and 6x9 roll film backs for the 4x5. I acquired them all in good faith with the promise of diversity of formats or ease of use in the field. Yet just about all of them have languished over the years. The reason is that each time I break out a large format camera I want the largest format possible. If I am using the 8x10 it is for a reason; if I wanted to shoot 4x5 I would shoot 4x5. Why go to all the trouble of lugging around a huge camera only put put a much smaller back on it?

For example, I used to lust after a 6x12 back for the 4x5, but I find I'd rather use regular sheet film and compose with cropping in mind instead.

I was wondering if anyone else suffers the same reducing back malaise, or maybe there are ways or reasons to use reducing backs that I have not yet thought of?

Jonathan

[Gem Singer]

I agree with your premise. No need to lug a large (heavy) camera in order use a smaller reducing back on it.

The main reason I occasionally use a roll film back on my LF camera is to shoot 120 color film. Less expensive, and easier to have it processed at a lab. than color sheet film.

[Jay DeFehr]

I use all of my reducing backs, regularly, but not in the field. In the "studio", it's very convenient to change lenses and backs, leaving the camera in place.

[cjbroadbent]

I've had reducing backs but I never used them other than for macro. I have found it very awkward to handle the shortish lenses I use most of the time on an outsize camera.

[Jim Jones]

I bought a 5x7 B&J flatbed almost 40 years ago, and used 5x7 film until losing the Elwood enlarger in a darkroom fire 10 years later. For over 20 years a crude 4x5 back was almost all I used, until getting better 4x5 cameras. The 2.25x3.25 sheet film back from a photographic flea market never got used, and an adaptor for Nikon almost never.

[jp]

I use a 4x5 reducing back on my B&J 8x10 some of the time (indoor). That's the only camera my 300 symmar-s and Kodak 305 portrait fit on. If I want to use those lenses for their look and perspective on 4x5 film, that's the camera it's done with; they are a little wide for many people pix in 8x10 film.

[cdholden]

I agree with your premise. No need to lug a large (heavy) camera in order use a smaller reducing back on it.

The main reason I occasionally use a roll film back on my LF camera is to shoot 120 color film. Less expensive, and easier to have it processed at a lab. than color sheet film.

I recently got a 5x7 -> 4x5 reducer back for my Sinar for this same reason with a Sinar Vario/Zoom back for use with color rollfilm.

[Frank Petronio]

Old timers used to throw a 4x5 back on their Deardorff to shoot 4x5 Polaroids before shooting 8x10 film.

This was before they made 8x10 Polaroid or they were too cheap to use it.

[jcoldslabs]

The back I have used the most is the Horseman 6x7 for my 4x5 field camera. It used to be that 120 chromes were significantly cheaper than 4x5 sheets, but not so much these days. I just got an E-6 120 roll back from the lab and it was nine bucks! That's almost a dollar a shot vs. $2.00 per sheet of 4x5 for processing. At that rate I'll take the 4x5's 3x surface area for double the price.

Frank, 4x5 for proofing before shooting a full 8x10 sheet makes sense. But as Jay said, studio work is a natural environment for reducing backs being at one fixed location. I suppose I should have specified that I am mainly a field shooter and thus have found little use for reducing backs while out and about with my gear. The irony? I still have my 6x7 and 6x9 Horseman backs loaded and in my kit to this day. I think the 6x7 was loaded over three years ago. That will tell you.

Jonathan

[Brian Vuillemenot]

I've used my 4X5 back quite a few times on my 8X10, but I mainly use the 8X10 to shoot 4X10 with the half-darkslide method. Shooting color, I'm more of a 4X5 guy and rarely shoot a whole sheet of 8X10 film at once. If I was a serious 8X10 shooter, I don't reckon that I would use a 4X5 back, and have never used a reducing back for my 4X5.