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22-06-2005 |
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By Carl Weese (http://www.carlweese.com)
A version of this article first appeared in Photo Techniques magazine.
During photography’s first century, there was no mystery why
photographers often worked with enormous cameras. If you wanted a big photograph,
you needed to use a big camera. All early processes relied either on direct
use of the material exposed in the camera or on a print exposed in contact with
the negative. If Timothy O’Sullivan, William Henry Jackson, Francis Frith or
the other great 19th century photographers wanted to bring back views of the
American West or the Mysterious Orient in the form of 18 by 22 inch prints,
they had to carry and use “Mammoth Plate” 18x22 cameras. They also had to travel
with a full darkroom for preparation of the wet-plate negatives. The enlarger,
the piece of equipment most central to twentieth century darkrooms, was still
in the future. Before enlarging could become the standard method of photographic
printing, papers had to become sensitive enough to expose by projected light.
Effective materials and equipment for enlarging have been available for more
than a century, so why is it that a revival of ultra-large format photography
is underway? Antique banquet cameras (the term derives from their original use
to make record-portraits of large groups of people with enough detail to see
all the faces clearly) and panoramic cameras are eagerly sought after. Several
craftsmen offer restoration services for old giant cameras, and some of the
companies that make view cameras in more familiar sizes also offer jumbo versions.
The first and most obvious reason is the simultaneous revival of interest in
older “alternate photographic processes” like platinum, albumen, and even the
wet-plate collodion process for which the first really big cameras were invented.
These remain contact printing processes so the photographer who wants to use
them must either make prints the size of the original negatives, or go through
the laborious process of creating enlarged negatives to make prints bigger than
the camera.
For enlarged negatives, first an enlarged or contact printed positive
must be made from the original negative, then this must be enlarged or contact
printed to make the final negative for printing. Digital methods are also available
but require powerful computer hardware and software and, usually, the use of
outside suppliers to output the actual negatives. After looking over these options,
many photographers decide that the simplest way to get big alternate process
negatives is to use a big camera.
There’s something more important, though.
Enlarging has become the standard photographic method over the last hundred
years, but the fact remains that for sheer technical quality, for ultimate rendition
of photographic tone as well as detail and sharpness, the contact print still
reigns supreme. Enlargements—direct silver, or from chemically or digitally
enlarged negatives—can be very, very good, but they never equal the qualities
of a direct contact print. For this reason some photographers who prefer to
print in silver gelatin also turn to the giant camera in order to make large
prints by contact. A couple of years ago PT contributor Oren Grad was engaged
in a series of tests to see just how much technical quality he could wring out
of modestly enlarged medium format and 4x5 inch negatives. One day a print arrived
in the mail at my studio with an inscription on the back, “Finally figured out
how to make an 8x10 that looks like a contact print.” Of course, what he’d sent
me was an 8x10 contact print.
So, just how difficult is it to work with really
big cameras? The surprising answer is, not very—though the pitfalls are many
and a frustrating technical failure rate is unavoidable. Anyone who is comfortable
with 4x5 or 8x10 field cameras will find the transition to ‘Beyond the 8x10
Zone’ quite comfortable. Studio work with oversize cameras may actually present
more complications than field work, but more on that later.
Any view camera presents a radical change from the working methods used with handheld small
or medium format cameras. Moving up the scale to sizes beyond 8x10 presents
an incremental increase in handling difficulty rather than another radical change.
The difference I most often notice when working with my 12x20 inch banquet camera
compared to my 8x10 field camera is simple. With the 8x10 an entire outfit goes
in a backpack that I can hike with for miles. With the 12x20 I’m pretty well
restricted to places within a couple hundred feet of my pickup truck’s tailgate.
In choosing an ultra-large format outfit, many things need to be considered
including camera design, lens choices (which influence the camera design required),
film, film holders, and accessories like tripods and carrying cases.
If sheer
size of negative is the prime benefit of oversize cameras, it’s also directly
related to the biggest hurdles that must be overcome. The physical size of the
camera is a real consideration but in fact a 12x20 camera isn’t much more difficult
to set up and manipulate than smaller view cameras. My antique Korona 7x17 is
actually lighter than most modern 8x10 field cameras, and lighter even than
my Horseman 4x5 monorail. It is safe and sound on a relatively lightweight tripod.
My 12x20 Folmer & Schwing weighs about twenty-two pounds with a typical lens
mounted. This is heavy enough to keep me from hiking with it, but a strong tripod
supports it with ease and I find that I can set up with it just about as quickly
as I can with more ordinary view cameras. However, a large sheet of film requires
long lenses so that the nominal “normal” focal length for a 12x20 is a whopping
24 inches or 600mm. As lenses get longer depth of field at a given aperture
gets shallower and obtaining adequate depth of field may be the most persistent
technical problem of ultra-large format photography. Of course, finding lenses
that can cover the larger formats is an issue as well.
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Dernière mise à jour : ( 23-06-2005 )
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