First shots

My Calumet CC401 is in transit from California, and so is my first box of 4x5 film. I decided to start with an inexpensive black and white option, Ilford Delta-100, 25 sheets. Anyone have tips on shooting this stock? I plan to meter at 100, as I do when I shoot their 50 speed. My biggest concern is compensating for bellows adjustments, as I have seen how much the brightness on the ground glass changes depending on rising/falling/etc.

Working on my darkroom setup, should be another few weeks so my first few shots will have to be lab processed. Any tips on first color stock to try?

Rick A said:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kZcDzG-71xM

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I've watched all of these except this one, great series. Does this guy post on APUG? I love how detailed he gets. I imagine I'll be making some mistakes this month, thats just the nature of these first exposures.

My biggest concern is compensating for bellows adjustments

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From infinity to the lens close focus distance there is no bellows compensation needed. The close focus distance varies with focal length, a 90mm is about 3 feet, a 135mm is roughly 6 feet, a 210mm roughly 10 feet. Beyond the close focus distance the lens has to be moved a large distance to achieve the next closest foot distance from the film plane. Lets say your 150mm focuses infinity 150mm from the film plane and 7 feet 170mm (bellows draw) from the film plane but to focus 6 feet 11 inches it takes 190mm of bellows draw and 6 feet it takes 250mm of bellows draw. As you focus from infinity to the lens close focus distance the formulas for calculating the extension factor give you a 1/3 stop or less exposure compensation. Many do not concern them selfs with less than 1/2 stop exposure compensation. In wet printing a 1/3 stop difference in negative exposure is just detectable in the print. There are a lot of posts on this site about bellows extension and some good articles on largeformat photography info, http://www.largeformatphotography.info/ . You do not need to be concerned with bellows compensation unless you are doing closeup or macro photography with your camera.

I like Delta 100 at 50, get more midtone grays out of it...probably not "correct" but I like it.

There's a sticky at the header of this page that will make it all so clear(after a bit of screwing it up a time or three)

John Koehrer said:

There's a sticky at the header of this page that will make it all so clear(after a bit of screwing it up a time or three)

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Sorry, not sure what you're referring to

Go to the home page. Click on Large Format Cameras and Accessories. You will see your thread, "First Shots". The thread above yours is the sticky that John is referring to.

Pick your color film according to your subject. For example, you probably wouldn't want to shoot portraits with Velvia although I have done it before.