A New LF Flub for Me

Alex Hawley · Aug 31, 2008

Today, I found a new way to flub a LF shot. Shooting 4x5, sheet #10 was the next one up. I loaded it into the back with the #10 label facing me (think about that). Pulled the darkslide and DUHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!! I'm seeing the film through the ground glass.

Hadn't done that one before!

The wonders of Large Format. At least I caught it when it happened.

jovo · Aug 31, 2008

In one of my earliest foray's into 4x5, I remember pulling the darkslide, taking the picture, returning the darkslide and removing the holder only to see the film sitting on a slant inside the bellows. I hadn't correctly inserted it in the holder, and it just flopped out when I pulled the slide. From then on, I always checked that I could feel the edges of the groove in front of the film when loading. I also try not to drink scotch when shooting large format .

colrehogan · Aug 31, 2008

Alex Hawley said:
Today, I found a new way to flub a LF shot. Shooting 4x5, sheet #10 was the next one up. I loaded it into the back with the #10 label facing me (think about that). Pulled the darkslide and DUHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!! I'm seeing the film through the ground glass.

Hadn't done that one before!

The wonders of Large Format. At least I caught it when it happened.

Ooops! Well, look at the bright side, Alex. At least it was "only" 4x5 and not 8x10 or worse, 7x17.

Alex Hawley · Aug 31, 2008

colrehogan said:
Ooops! Well, look at the bright side, Alex. At least it was "only" 4x5 and not 8x10 or worse, 7x17.

Yeah, that would have really sucked if it were a 7x17.

JBrunner · Aug 31, 2008

Have you gone out and happily shot with empty holders yet?

Alex Hawley · Aug 31, 2008

JBrunner said:
Have you gone out and happily shot with empty holders yet?

Oh yeah, done that and double exposures too.

papagene · Aug 31, 2008

Wasn't there a TV show way back when called "My World and Welcome to It"? Well welcome to my world!!

gene

raucousimages · Aug 31, 2008

BTDT. Welcome to the club. I don't mind making stupid mistakes I just hate when I do it again.

ic-racer · Aug 31, 2008

I think most of my goofs were the usual ones. I did have a pretty stupid one last week:

I was shooting with my 6x9cm Horseman view and forgot my magnifier. So I thought I would fine tune focus using the coupled rangefinder. When I got home I realized the lens I was using had the 'those-infinity-stops-that-are-off-that-I-need-to-reset-one-of-these-days'

fschifano · Sep 1, 2008

JBrunner said:
Have you gone out and happily shot with empty holders yet?

That and worse.

Ria · Sep 1, 2008

Look at it this way; if you're making NEW mistakes instead of repeating old mistakes-you're making progress.

Seabird · Sep 1, 2008

Ria said:
Look at it this way; if you're making NEW mistakes instead of repeating old mistakes-you're making progress.

This reminds me of the immortal words of Peter Cook:

"I've learnt from my mistakes - and am now sure I can repeat them EXACTLY!"

Cheers

Carey Bird
http://members.iinet.net.au/~cbird/index.html

gerryyaum · Sep 1, 2008

Alex Hawley said:
Today, I found a new way to flub a LF shot. Shooting 4x5, sheet #10 was the next one up. I loaded it into the back with the #10 label facing me (think about that). Pulled the darkslide and DUHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!! I'm seeing the film through the ground glass.

Hadn't done that one before!

The wonders of Large Format. At least I caught it when it happened.

haha...try using a grafmatic back for the first time..on my recent ladyboy shoot...I double exposed images...I accidently exposed sheets to light...I had fogging...I even managed to shoot out 6 sheets onto the bed I was photographing the ladyboy on...still not sure how I diid that one!!

live and learn I guess

Trevor Crone · Sep 1, 2008

Alex Hawley said:
Today, I found a new way to flub a LF shot. Shooting 4x5, sheet #10 was the next one up. I loaded it into the back with the #10 label facing me (think about that). Pulled the darkslide and DUHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!! I'm seeing the film through the ground glass.

Hadn't done that one before!

The wonders of Large Format. At least I caught it when it happened.

Now if only you had a lens on the GG you would have caught yourself a wonderful self portrait

Phillip P. Dimor · Sep 1, 2008

Jovo, i've done that too. Something similar happened once when I was shooting 220 in a 120 hasselblad back.. A loop of film was sticking through the body shutter curtains. Beats me how it happened but I no longer try to shove 220 in there.

Maris · Sep 2, 2008

I thought I had made all the mistakes, learned from them, and moved on. But no! A new one and potentially dangerous too.

My new lens is a 2.5D spectacle meniscus with nice spherical aberration. I'm focussed on some back lit grasses and flowers and the ground glass image is much worse than it ought to be; really murky and low contrast. A single element lens can't have that much flare, can it?

Anyway I figure that changing to landscape format might be better than the portrait format the camera was set up in. So I take the back off my Tachihara 810HD and...a big puff of smoke comes out! Yes, the sun was hard focussed on the inside of the bellows and charring the black silk lining. On with the lens cap. Phew. Fortunately the bellows is still light tight.

I shudder to think what would have happened if I had left the camera in place and walked back to the car for a couple of film holders. The whole thing might have caught fire and burned down. And how would I explain all this to the company I've got my fire insurance with?

Whiteymorange · Sep 2, 2008

I also try not to drink scotch when shooting large format

Ah, but it's a trade off, isn't it? You make a lot of mistakes, but you care less about each one...

brummelisa · Sep 3, 2008

I havn't photographed myself, but surely removed the darkslide with open shutter and noticed that the film have popped out into the bellows. But my worst thing happend when I developed the 4x5" negative this spring.
It was my first development this year and I tried to remember everything one should do. I mixed up the developer, stop and fix-bath and I turned off the lamp.
When I put in the negative in the fixing-tray it didn't feel as it normally do. It was way much slippery. But I kept on shuffling those negs.
When I was finished I noticed that all my 10 negatives (the whole session with my modell were only ten negatives) were destroyed. They were really dark with just a fade of image. I started to think that I may have measured the scenery wrong, but after some minutes I noticed that the fixer I had used was a developer for print and not the fixing-bath

/ Marcus

colrehogan · Sep 3, 2008

Alex Hawley said:
Yeah, that would have really sucked if it were a 7x17.

Alex,
I seem to recall Jorge Gasteazoro once said he did this same thing with a 12x20 holder. OUCH!

jp80874 · Sep 3, 2008

jovo said:
In one of my earliest foray's into 4x5, I remember pulling the darkslide, taking the picture, returning the darkslide and removing the holder only to see the film sitting on a slant inside the bellows. I hadn't correctly inserted it in the holder, and it just flopped out when I pulled the slide. .

My class partner did this in an intro view camera course. She then posed while I shot a racy jewelry only shot. The film in the bellows caused a halo reflection that was most unlikely for the pose and the girl's look. We had a lot of fun.

John Powers

Ralph Javins · Sep 6, 2008

Good morning;

I thought that was why we have things like a 4 by 5 Polaroid back. That way we get to see the mistakes we have made only 60 seconds after we take them.

mhcfires · Sep 6, 2008

JBrunner said:
Have you gone out and happily shot with empty holders yet?

Not only with empty holder, but with two empty roll film holders. DUH!

Alex Hawley · Sep 7, 2008

Ralph Javins said:
I thought that was why we have things like a 4 by 5 Polaroid back. That way we get to see the mistakes we have made only 60 seconds after we take them.

In this case, I realized my flub much faster than a Polaroid would have shown me! :rolleyes:

A New LF Flub for Me

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