Yesterday, after a year of thinking and reading about large format, including the many helpful posts on photo.net and now here, I ordered an Arca-Swiss 4x5 Discovery (a stripped down Arca) and a Rodenstock APO-Sironar-S f/5.6 150mm lens. I have to phone the vendor Monday a.m. to order a "film" film or "instant" film, and associated holder system, that I plan to use with this camera, which leads to the questions in this post.
I should preface my questions by stating that I am new to large format and that I intend to travel with this camera, including internationally. This means that choosing the best medium for learning large format, weight of camera system and convenience are major issues for me. On the anchoring side, the tripod is a Gitzo carbon fibre 1325 and the head is an Arca-Swiss B1, both overkill for my Nikon, but they were purchased in the expecation that I would wind up with a medium or large format system where a major objective would be keeping weight down.
One choice is to purchase a Polaroid 545i holder or the Fuji equivalent (although this dealer does not seem to carry the Fuji holder) and to use Polaroid 55 film with which to make black and white prints and negatives, and either Polaroid 79 film or the new Fuji FP 100C for colour. It seems to me that I may learn a good deal about large format photography by using these products. Furthermore, I gather that Polaroid 55 is considered to be a serious medium. The concern I have is that while it seems to be as fast as Kodak and Fuji black and white films available in Readyload and Quickload if one wants to make a print, it seems to be very slow if one wants to make a negative. I'm not sure that using it to make a negative with an f/5.6 150mm lens stopped down to, say, f/22, and using available light, is practical. On the colour side, I don't know anything about Polaroid 79 or Fuji FP 100C, but I get the sense, based on earlier posts and the Polaroid and Fuji web sites, that they are seen as principally good for tests and nothing else.
The other choice is to purchase a Kodak Readyload or Fuji Quickload holder and to use "film" film as a medium. If I go this route, I will commit to, and buy, one black and white and one colour film made by one of these two companies and buy a holder accordingly. In other words, I do not intend to try to use Kodak film in a Fuji holder or vice versa.
The advantage of this option relates principally to black and white film. I have a friend who is a co-owner of a lab. In July, I spent an afternoon with him while he was printing some black and white photographs for a French photographer who does a good deal of fashion and celebrity photography and who has published a few books. My friend, based on instructions accompanying the contacts, made at least three prints of each negative to try to fulfill the instructions. Every time he did this, I could see significant variation. As someone who has never been in a darkroom before, I found this fascinating, and walked away with the impression that photography, at least black and white photography, is in many ways really about printing. I don't have a darkroom, and I have no intention of building one, but there happens to be a very good shop a couple of blocks from where I live where one can rent darkroom time at quite reasonable rates. Consequently, if I choose to go the film film route rather than the instant film route, it opens up the door to playing around with darkroom printing sooner rather than later.
I should clarify a couple of things. Weight, convenience and bulk, as well as cost, are major considerations. In time, I may want to buy both Polaroid and Kodak/Fuji holders, but for the moment I'd rather go with one system. Also, I am working on the premise that none of these holders are truly interchangeable, meaning that I can't buy one of them and expect it to work for all of the media. I know that this question has engendered a lot of debate on photo.net, and I definitely do not want to trigger further discussion about that issue. The premise of my questions about is that the systems are mutually exclusive, a premise that I am quite prepared to accept for working purposes.
Thanks for any comments.
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