Most of my photography is done with a large format 4" x 5" camera. I also own an even bigger 8" x 10" camera, and occasionally shoot with it. It is much more challenging than 4x5, for a number of reasons.
First its the physical size of the thing. I have it in a large Pelican case and when I carry it around, I'm not really able to carry anything else, except maybe a tripod. The tripod also has to be bigger and heavier than what I normally use, to provide the required stability for the heavy camera. The film holders are large and cumbersome and I have about 20 that I take with me out in the field, ten each in a couple of Pelican cases. Then I have another Pelican case full of about half a dozen lenses, and yet another Pelican case with all the rest of the stuff I need.... meter, filters, extension rails, cable release, focusing loupe, etc. I usually only end up shooting stuff that is fairly close to the road as it takes me three trips from my vehicle to pack all the gear out to what I want to shoot, and of course when I'm finished, it is three trips to pack everything back.
The lenses are also somewhat limiting. A normal focal length for 8" x 10" format is a 300mm. A wide angle lens is about 120mm, and a longer portrait lens would be about a 450mm. The depth of field of a given lens is not a factor of the format that it is used with, rather it is a factor of the focal length of the lens. These long focal lengths do not have a lot of depth of field. They need to be stopped way down to sometimes really small apertures to hold the subject in focus. Shooting at F32, F45 or even smaller is not uncommon. This can create issues with long shutter speeds and subject or camera movement.
Finally, there is the issue of printing these large negatives. 8x10 Enlargers are costly, hard to find, and take a lot of space. I bought a used one a few years ago but have not yet had time to set it up. For the time being it remains in crates at my shop. I need to renovate the space adjacent to my darkroom to make space to set it up. The ceiling is slightly too low for the enlarger so I will need to cut an opening to allow the column to project up an extra inch or two between the floor joists. There just aren't enough hours in the day for all the projects that I've been meaning to get around to and this one has been put on the back burner.
In the mean time, the only way that I can print these large negatives is by contact printing them. This involves putting the negative in direct contact with a piece of light sensitive photographic paper and exposing it to a light source. The resulting print is not an enlargement and is an 8" x 10" print, the exact same size as the negative. Traditional silver gelatin prints can be made by contact printing but mostly I have experimented with some alternative processes. In the past I have made some Ziatype prints that use palladium and iron as the light sensitive material. Most recently I made some Van Dyke Brown prints. A light sensitive chemical is coated onto a sheet of fine art paper and allowed to dry. The negative is then put in contact with that paper and it is exposed to a UV light source. The sun works as a light source but I use some ultraviolet lamps. They are consistent and repeatable and I don't have to go outside, particularly in the winter, and I am not limited to printing during the day. The UV light darkens the emulsion and the image gradually appears. When I am satisfied with the density of the image the light is turned off and the paper is rinsed, fixed and washed.
Back in February I set up the big camera and took some portraits of the girls. I processed some of the film that I shot that day and was quite happy with the results. I also found a box of exposed 8x10 film in my cupboard and just the other day decided to process them. This was nine sheets of Ilford Delta 100 film and the images were all taken back in 2009 and 2010.
Here is an example of one of those negatives. The first is just a scan of the negative, with just a little adjustment to brightness and contrast but no other computer manipulations. The second is a photograph of the Van Dyke Brown print that I made from this negative last night. The subject is the confessional inside the old restored Catholic Church in Dorothy, Alberta. At the time that this photograph was taken, in May of 2009, the restoration was still in progress. Now, almost eight years later, that project is complete.
This image was taken with a Nikkor-SW 120mm lens. This is a wide angle lens for this format and would be about equivalent to a 20mm lens on a full frame digital SLR, or on an old 35mm film camera. The Delta 100 film was rated at 160 iso and given plus development in Kodak HC-110.
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