Lured by large negatives...

[Deckled Edge]

Stephanie,
Congratulations on your Crown. You will love it. A 90mm lens is the shortest you can use before the front standard tilts off the track at the gap. You can lower the bed and raise the front standard to accomodate shorter lenses, but as Keith states, the 90 is a great, comfortable wide angle for the Crown. My choice: f8 Angulon - a smallish lens with room to spare on the lensboard.
The 210 lens is my go-to most of the time. It just seems perfect for the way I see. I had contemplated a longer lens--seems that a 240 is the very end of the bellows draw before tele- land. My 360mm Tele-Arton takes up the whole lensboard with its Copal 3, and is a beast to use, but it's the best you can do for long lenses.
My DII makes 16x20 prints under a 7'6" ceiling, and the Chromega drums are a snap to use.
Wishing you many stolen hours (nap times get shorter, you know) in your darkroom.

 

[keithwms]

The 4x5 focal length equivalents are usually a bit surprising to a newcomer to LF; you divide the actual focal length by ~3 to get a rough estimate.

4x5 Lens FL / rough 35mm "equivalent"
65 / ~20
90 / 27 (what I call "plentywide" - shorter, you start running into various issues that are no big deal but may be a bit too much for a newcomer to the format)
127 / 35 (typical crown graphic "kit" lens)
150 / 45 (this is what I'd regard as "normal" in 4x5)
210 / 62 (getting into the long-normal / portrait category; many consider this to be an alternative "normal" because there are so few competitive 180mm offerings)
300 / 90 (one of the longest non-tele lenses many LFers use, but notice it's actually still quite wide!)
360 / ~120 or so (my personal favourite)
500 / 150

Oh, on the topic of 4x5 enlargers, I have two omegas and there are barely bigger than my beseler MF enlarger.

 

[mjs]

Stephanie;

Congrats on the change: I hope that you enjoy it. Not everyone takes well to the more deliberate pace of using these large cameras but that big negative sure makes up for a lot! You're getting a lot of advice, some of it conflicting: that's all right. For most of the issues it's just like small format photography. There is rarely a "best" solution that's universal. One of the nice things about photography is that you can try any number of alternatives relatively cheaply, and discover what works best for you.

I second Steve Simmons' book on view cameras: easily the best introductory text I've found, especially on camera movements. I wish he'd update the equipment section, though: it's still useful but the specific examples are a little dated.

I've made several focusing cloths in my day, and I'm not all that handy with a sewing machine! The ones I've previously made were from some rather dense and opaque fabric, white on one side and black on the other and treated with one of those waterproofing sprays because some of the best light is in the middle of a rainstorm or snow storm! A touch on the heavy side, though, and sized for 4x5. Since I switched to 8x10 last year I wanted a larger cloth and my daughter sewed me a sweet one for my birthday: I told her that white was boring and I wanted something exciting, so she got some red and orange fabric which makes it look like I'm on fire, with some black fabric for the inner side. I think it looks rather... interesting (photo attached. It was taken this past February at the Lake Michigan lighthouse at St. Joseph, by Ray Ostrander.) Add a couple of the large size binder clips to your equipment bag, to clamp the thing to the back of your camera if there's a stiff breeze.

I've always developed film in trays, for two main reasons: first, it's dirt cheap and not being wealthy, savings on equipment mean more film and paper for me! Second, it scales very well: I can do from 1 to 8 sheets of 4x5 or 5x7 at a time (8 sheets is the capacity of my home-made film washer,) or 1 to 4 sheets of 8x10. If I have more film there's very little down time between batches. This is convenient for me and since it has been forever since I screwed up an important photograph this way, I see no need to spend money to do it differently. That wasn't the case in the beginning, though: there is some practice and care involved in not scratching the heck out of your film when you're first starting out. Edward Weston was the epitome of care in that case: as far as I've been able to determine, he processed one sheet of film at a time his entire life. Well, I just wish I were 1% of the photographer any of the Westons were.

My 4x5 enlarger is a Beseler 45 and it fits just fine into my (very) small darkroom in the basement. I use a Rodenstock 135mm enlarging lens with the tall condenser light source and don't hit the ceiling even on 16"x20" prints, which are frankly a little larger than my darkroom is comfortable with. A 4x5 enlarger shouldn't be very expensive, either.

Regarding the rest of the stuff, there was a darkroom advertisement locally on Craigslist this past week: a woman has stuff stored in boxes in a storage unit but can't remember what all she has (or at least, what was left after the last move.) I've gotten hold of her to go look at it but our schedules haven't met up yet. I'm hoping to get a nice box of darkroom staples and if I do I'll ship it to you. I'll keep trying to meet up with her through this weekend but if she keeps putting it off past then there's probably a reason, so don't get your hopes too high and certainly don't turn anything down waiting for this mess to clear!

One more piece of well-meant but probably useless advice: get a small piece of clear glass, like window glass, and try a few contact prints from your 4x5 negatives. For some reason I don't fathom (possibly because I'm not the world's best darkroom printer,) there's a difference between an enlargement and a contact print which is truely fascinating. Don't shut yourself out of that by thinking that 4x5 is too small to contact print: one of my most treasured possessions is a 4x5 cyanotype which daughter #2 got me for last year's birthday: it's just exquisite and I feel a little leap in my heart every time I see it.

Mike

 

[matt miller]

. When making your own dark cloth (I'm pretty good with a sewing machine, you understand), what is the best fabric to use, and what should it be lined with?

When I made my dark cloth, I used a lightweight black nylon type fabric for the inside and a lightweight white blackout fabric (used for drapes) for the outside. It made focusing a dream. The darker it is under there the better, especially with wide angle lenses.

 

[Mark_S]

Stephanie - with regards to developing film, yes, if you are going Jobo, then you use the 2500 series tanks and the 2509 reel, which will hold 6 sheets. I have never used the Jobo tanks and reels without a Jobo Processor (I have had both the CPE and the CPP+). The system works fantastically, but I believe that it depends on the agitation that the Jobo processors - I don't know how it would work in other roller bases or for hand agitation. One thing that you might want to look into are BTZS tubes, either ones that you purchase commercially, or make your own from PVC pipe.

With regards to dark cloths, Depending on where you are taking pictures, you can get away with a black T-shirt, or stepping up a notch, a black hoodie (Just pull it up and put the hood over the back of the camera). If you are going to make your own, I would make it from two layers of fabric - dark on the inside, and soft (brushed cotton or flannel is nice) - the inside spends time on your head, so soft is nice. On the outside, I would use something that is light in colour so that it isn't hot in the summer, and slick or waterproof so that mist or rain isn't a huge issue. Lightweight fabric is nice so that it can fold up into a small package. Although not necessary, it is nice to have a way to attach the darkcloth to the camera - my darkcloth that I use with my 4x5 has an elastic neck that goes around the ground glass, I have velcro on the one that I use for 8x10.

Enlargers don't need to be huge, unless you want to make huge prints. I use a Beseler 45MX, which isn't much larger than a MF enlarger and it fits in my basement darkroom which has a lowish ceiling. I can easily do 16x20s, and I do 20x24 prints with a bit of work. Another option is to go enlargerless - I have done some nice alt process contact prints from 4x5 negs.

Enjoy.....

 

[Stephanie Brim]

I've done hand agitation for so long that, if I get a tank, I'd rather do that. I know it'll take more solution, but I generally use HC-110 or Rodinal, both rather economical, so I'm not so concerned about the waste.

To tell you the truth, I've been needing to look at new tanks anyway. I think I'll pick up a Jobo 2551 and a couple reels, plus some of the 35/120 reels as well to replace the ones I have for that.

 

[Bobby Ironsights]

I use a beseler MXT and it's only about three feet tall. I use a crown graphic and like it. I use the Combi plan tank and I like it too.