 Paula Hildy |
4 x 6 Negatives I've seen a number of gorgeous large photos in various showrooms. When I inquire about the photos they say they are untouched from 4 x 6 negatives. What is a good camera that produces this size of negative. I'm interested in continuing with my digital but expanding into other options too. Thanks
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robert G. Fately |
Paula, it sounds as though what they told you was actually that the photos were taken from 4x5 negatives (not 4x6). This refers to the size of each piece of film used in the camera - in this case, 4 inches by 5 inches. Because these are loaded in the camera one at a time, and are manufactured in individual sheets, this is referred to as sheet film. Other sizes of sheet film are 5x7 and 8x10. The cameras that can take sheet film are called view cameras and field cameras. In both cases, the camera is baasically a light-tight adjustable bellows stretched between the film holder in the back and the lens holder in the front. These are the kinds of cameras you may have seen where the photographer uses a dark cloth hood to view and focus on the ground glass back before inserting the film. View and field cameras are conceptually the same; the latter are designed to fold up (usually into a box shape) to make it easier to take out of the studio. Besides the much larger format, the major advantage of these kinds of cameras is their adjustability between lens and film. The cameras most folks know about have a lens positioned directly in front of the imaging surface; focus is achieved by moving the lens back and forth a little. But with large format cameras, the lens can also be moved up/down or sideways (called "shift") as well as be angled away from the perpendicular (called "swing"). These shifts and swings lead to a whole world of flexibility in terms of having the plane of focus not parallel to the image plane, or avoiding perspective distortion (like a building looking like it's falling back when a shot is taken as street level and the camera pointed up). As you might guess, there's also a lot to learn, but this is an area that can lead to a great deal of enjoyment. Maybe not for family snapshots or sports photos, but for more "artsy" stuff.
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John H. Siskin |
With a big neg you can do platinum, van dyke and cyanotype printing. You make your own printing paper! Good Luck, John Siskin
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John H. Siskin |
With a big neg you can do platinum, van dyke and cyanotype printing. You make your own printing paper! Good Luck, John Siskin
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