Oh yeah... I'm officially a LFer!

[Foto Ludens]

Man, this stuff is cool... After a week and a half of waiting, I finally shot, developed, and printed an 8x10 neg. The print is in the washer right now...

I'm amazed that the work I've put in this week paid off so quick. In between studying for midterms, I rebuilt the front standard of the Empire State 8x10 (the rise/fall gearing was iffy, so I built one with full movements), and built a tilting head for a surveyor's tripod. Nothing has fallen apart so far, which is kind of amazing.

On the film side of things, I'm pretty amazed that I didn't mess up more than I did. My only error was not checking for coverage after the front and rear tilts I put in; I ended up vigneting about 1.5 inches off the top corners.

The film I used was Freestyle's APHS, stand developed in Rodinal (fresh bottle, too! I've had it for a while...) at 1:333. The neg, exposed at E.I. 3, still came out VERY contrasty, but gave me a nice print at 170 yellow (less than grade 0, I believe). I'll post a scan as soon as I can.

Anyway, I'm just sharing the joy

André

 

[Alex Hawley]

Congratulations Andre and welcome to Large Format!

 

[User Removed]

*HIGHFIVE*

Good to see more people coming into 8x10!

 

[David A. Goldfarb]

Welcome to the club!

 

[laz]

Welcome to 8x10. We're twice those 4x5ers and can't be compared with 35!

 

[Flotsam]

And I'm real MFer.
That stands for Medium Format-er, despite what all the filthy minded wisenheimers that are known to populate this site are thinking.

Since I've gotten my D2, I've been having fun shooting a lot of 4x5 but tonight I'm shooting a still life and chose to use a rollfilm back on my view camera.

 

[Foto Ludens]

Neal, I can relate. I've been a MFer for a while. Some people don't even know my name, they just recognize my work. For example, last week I was commuting to school when an enthusiastic fan pulled up to my motorcycle and yelled MFer right to my face. I was kind of embarrassed, but glad they knew my work.

But anywho, I'm just glad to be shooting something again. Takes the edge off, you know...

 

[Foto Ludens]

Jay,

I thought of doing development under the safe light, but decided to do stand development instead to control the highlights a little. It worked to a very good degree, considering that this is a litho film, but I think that next time I'll agitate for 15 seconds instead of 30 seconds before leaving the thing alone.

ooops, posted too early...


I might try the paper developer route as well, though.

I'll post the scan tomorrow, or as soon as the print dries...

take care,

André

 

[Robert Hall]

Welcome to the dark s(l)ide.

Welcome to 8x10. We're twice those 4x5ers and can't be compared with 35!

Actually we are 4 times what the 4x5er use. (one must be accurate to be a real elitist)

 

[rbarker]

Congrats on your initial success, André. The first view of that 8x10 ground glass is pretty neat, but there's nothing like holding that first negative up to the light, eh?

 

[Foto Ludens]

Congrats on your initial success, André. The first view of that 8x10 ground glass is pretty neat, but there's nothing like holding that first negative up to the light, eh?

You said it, man. When I first took that neg out of the fixer and held it up I was done. No real need to wash, print, or anything. I just went on and did those things out of habit.

Which was good, because those contact prints are nice too!

And what I really liked was the simplicity of the printing process. Smaller trays, less chemistry, no need to grain focus, no light fall off from the enlarger. Simple.

 

[Daniel Grenier]

This is just like having your first kid..... your life will never be the same again (in a good way). Enjoy the experience and good for you.

 

[stephen]

Congratulations from a miniature film user....

 

[John Kasaian]

Congratulations, Andre! Welcome to LF & the mighty 8x10! FWIW, The WOW factor keeps growing with each exposure.

 

[Donald Miller]

Congratulations on your first efforts.

To echo Jay's experience, I have used APHS using paper developer as well for masking. Dektol 1-10 works pretty well.

 

[lee]

Andre,

welcome to the north texas large format club.

lee\c

 

[photomc]

Congratulations Andre!!! Know what you mean about the negative...it still happens everytime for me.

 

[removed account4]

congratulations andré!

if you ever run out of $ to feed your new beast film, and need to give it a healthy diet of paper ( for paper negatives ) ... you can get great results processing in semi-expired ansco130 and using a water bath to slow down your contrast

have fun + can't wait to see some of your 8x10 portraits!

- john

 

[colrehogan]

Andre',welcome to the world of LF!

John, semi-expired? I didn't know there was such a state of being.

 

[Mongo]

Congratulations Andre...I still get that same thrill whenever I pull an 8x10 negative out of the fixer.

I wonder how your negative would look on Azo. Might be worth a try...Azo has an amazingly long scale and can hold an incredible amount of information. (I have one of my early Azo prints in my office, and I'm still stunned by how well the paper held the information that was in that negative...simply amazing stuff.)

All of the best as you learn to use 8x10 more effectively. In time it'll be second nature to you...and you'll wonder why you didn't do it sooner. Just be careful of looking at larger cameras...the lust can be overpowering!

Be well.
Dave

 

[David]

My condolences. You'll never be the same again. Not only that, if 8x10 is good, your mind will start toying with what is even better - yes, 11x14 negs are nice and then there's those enticing panoramic formats - you get the drift!
Enjoy the journey. Had to smile at the MF alternate acronym.

 

[scootermm]

andre...
awesome. I cant wait to see your 8x10s... all those gorgeous MF shots of yours and now we get to see it all through the LF. excitin.

oh and welcome.

 

[removed account4]

Andre',welcome to the world of LF!

John, semi-expired? I didn't know there was such a state of being.

diane,
its the stuff as black as coca cola, that you don't dare throw out because it still works

- john

 

[Jeremy]

Congrats, Andre!

Now I've got to get home this evening and do some printing and then shooting to catch up!

 

[dphphoto]

Welcome to 8X10. I still shoot lots of 4X5 (as I get older, my back gets weaker) but some things just don't seem to work without the big camera. Wish I had the bucks (and the back) for something even bigger. Dean