Two weeks ago, I had my first go at using my 4x5 (a Zone VI).
Basic camera operation seemed simple enough. I'm sure there are about a million things I could have done better, but I got an image—sort of. I used Type 59 film, but had some trouble getting the hang of how Polaroid sheet film and the 454 holder worked. Out of 2 sheets, I had one work, though I will admit it was a little man handled.
In the intervening time, I put the Polaroid 454 manual on my phone this time and read it over and over, as well as using the processed sheets to get the hang of it.
Today, went out with 6 sheets of Type 57 (B&W, 3000 ISO). I had the following results:
Scene 1:
Sheet 1: Just a dark sort of molted dark gray.
Sheet 2: Slightly over exposer image, but an image!
Moved on to scene 2:
Sheet 3: white
Sheet 4: the sleeve didn't catch at all and came out of the holder, this was this a very gentle and slow pull.
Sheet 5: white
Sheet 6: dark gray
In all cases I loaded film into the holder off camera, made sure the lever was in L position, checked the direction of the film each time during loading, slide the sleeve gently open and checked that the pod and negative had not pulled out with the sleeve (as per the manual). Shutter seems fine, it fired, and yes both lens caps were off.
Any ideas? The manual was not so helpful. I'm wondering if the chemicals have simply given out.
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