Ansel changed his film in his sleeping bag. Have you?

[Vaughn]

I changed film, 4 x 5 in this case, in my sleeping bag out in the wilderness. But due to the results, just the once. It would’ve been at the tail end of the 1970s in the Trinity Alps of northern California.

Traveling on the road in my pick up with a shell on the back, I would bring a clean sheet to layout and load my film in there.

Right now I’m traveling in Japan (I’m on a bicycle this week), but have a stinky Harrison pup tent to change my 4 x 5 holders.

One does what one needs to do.

 

[Vieri Bottazzini]

Somewhere in my reading Ansel Adams claimed to have changed film inside his sleeping bag during his early (1920s) days in the Sierras. Thinking about it, I can't imagine a better way to get dust and hairs onto the film holders, especially with the cotton sleeping bags of the time. The movie industry must have created portable darkrooms for loading movie cameras by then and I bet some people had changing bags if not crude versions of Harrison Tents but what do you think? Was Ansel bloviating or was he a really superb negative retoucher?

I am past the days I was sleeping in a tent, so a portable darkroom (eTone) in a hotel room is my solution, these days; that said, I don't doubt Ansel - back in the day they probably had to make do with whatever they had.

Best regards,

Vieri

 

[DREW WILEY]

Ansel quit backpacking in his early 30's. Even before then, he was more apt to use a mule. You don't have to be rich to own a mule. Later, he was in charge of Sierra Club outings which used huge convoys of horses and mules (and sometimes left a lot of litter behind). But don't think of his sleeping bag in modern terms. Linty would be an understatement.

 

[Donald Qualls]

I presume Ansel did his film changing in the sleeping bag at night, but the very first time I processed film entirely on my own I loaded the 620 film into the daylight tank in my bed, with every blanket I could find stacked on top -- in daylight in the room.

 

[Dr. no]

Many many times, this trip in 2019 in particular, changing piles of 4x5 under the bag:
Big Bend
and many other times by starlight in the back of the Sprinter, Trooper or Westy without the sleeping bag on moonless nights. Also, rescuing stuck film and other emergencies under coats in the shade and other exigencies.

 

[DREW WILEY]

It can be pretty darn cold at night in the high county; and stiff fingers are clumsy at switching out film.

 

[Tel]

Never used a sleeping bag as a changing bag but I did make a jacket into an improvised changing bag in several hotel rooms. Full disclosure: a jacket under a duvet.

 

[nosmok]

I've done the jacket trick, and used a thick hoodie that way as well, with a blanket over it. Last winter I respooled 120 onto 620 in a dark motel bathroom, with duct tape over the lighted light/fan switches.