Replacement for Quickloads?

[Roger Cole]

It's true. I vacuum them regularly and keep them in ziplocs except for when they're in the camera or being loaded/unloaded. Compressed air and brushes just move the dust around, use the vacuum. Keep your camera interior spotlessly clean too, vacuum there too and be careful of the bellows. Pulling a darkslide can generate static electric charges and all the dust in the camera will stick to your film.
When loading, I slide the darkslide back about two inches and insert the sheet while holding that side down and the holder over my head.
For 8x10 I put together a set of the old Kodak / Folmer & Schwing wooden holders with disassembleable lightraps - it's amazing how much crud can accumulate in a trap that big.

I wasn't questioning your honesty, BTW, just amazed.

Drew, I can't recall EVER having a medium format shot ruined by dust on the film. I'm lucky if 1/2 my sheet film shots are dust free and I go to relatively heroic measures, but not as much so as you two I guess. My only MF SLR is my M645Pro which should produce less dust than 6x7 just from less film to have dust on, but worse when it happens due to more enlargement. I can't recall ever printing a 645 neg to 16x20 but with today's films I wouldn't hesitate if I have a shot that would work at that size (well, maybe not from my pushed D3200, unless the grain was really part of the effect, but certainly from FP4+ or even Tri-X.) My other MF is a TLR without the mirror and focal plane shutter. I HAVE printed those to 15" square on 16x20 paper without dust. (From Pan F+ - looked great.)

 

[DREW WILEY]

Part of the problem is that the 6x7 is something I tend to use for quickie roadside shots, where there is inevitably a degree of risk of some
big truck whizzing by and stirring up things while I am attempting to change a lens or the film. Sometimes a bit of canned air helps, but often I'm in a hurry with 6X7 - that's the whole point! It's convenient for situations where I don't have time to set up and focus the view camera, maybe the light is too getting dim to do so, or I simply don't want to risk the big camera getting prematurely dirty and dicey for the rest of the trip. Or sometimes I just want a change of gear to keep the creative juices flowing. Did that yesterday, and took the 6x7 for a walk out to the shoreline, with the Ries tripod over my shoulder, and got some very nice shots which I probably would have missed with the 4x5 simply because the day way so short, the solstice in fact, and the first day it hasn't been raining cats n' dogs around here for the past two weeks. Wonderful light. But this time of year I tend to sleep in late and take my time with a big hearty breakfast, do some chores,
and by the time I get out, have to hike for Point A to be rather steadily. Getting old and lazy, I guess.

 

[E. von Hoegh]

I wasn't questioning your honesty, BTW, just amazed.

Drew, I can't recall EVER having a medium format shot ruined by dust on the film. I'm lucky if 1/2 my sheet film shots are dust free and I go to relatively heroic measures, but not as much so as you two I guess. My only MF SLR is my M645Pro which should produce less dust than 6x7 just from less film to have dust on, but worse when it happens due to more enlargement. I can't recall ever printing a 645 neg to 16x20 but with today's films I wouldn't hesitate if I have a shot that would work at that size (well, maybe not from my pushed D3200, unless the grain was really part of the effect, but certainly from FP4+ or even Tri-X.) My other MF is a TLR without the mirror and focal plane shutter. I HAVE printed those to 15" square on 16x20 paper without dust. (From Pan F+ - looked great.)

Forget heroism, just concentrate on what works. What you've been doing doesn't work, so do it differently.
Merry Christmas.

 

[DREW WILEY]

Part of the problem is not with dust at all. Most films have small minor flaws, and even neg carrier glass is never perfect. The smaller the neg, the more these show up in an enlargement and need to be spotted out in the print. A tiny blemish which wouldn't even be noticed in a 16x20 print from 8x10 film will look like a blimp in the sky if enlarged from something like 645, esp if you're printing a hard contrast grade.
No way around it. Even digi geeks have to sit on their butt awhile retouching in PS. That was the fly in the ointment back when Kodak was
doing those ridiculous ads claiming "4x5 quality with a 35mm film", referring to Tech Pan... yeah, sure, if you didn't mind miserable tonality
and skies that looked like they'd been peppered with a shotgun.