Hacker News Reader

Comment by madaxe_again | Hacker News Reader

I used to travel with a crown graphic - pretty much the same camera as in the video, shooting colour positive. You can do some great stuff with them, and tilt-shift is trivial, if that’s your thing. Quality on slow film is just crazy - I’ve a shot of an ex, she’s half-frame, and you can see the second hand on her watch - you can get very fine focus with a loupe, and having a Polaroid back to do some instant tests was a godsend - but you can’t get the film for it any more.

I have no idea where he’s finding film so cheap - I stopped when it was costing me £5 per exposure.

It also folded up into a very neat little box, which is irresistible to children - sadly one was handed it by a friend, who promptly destroyed it.

View on HN

Going to admit that I only scanned through the video.

More so than in smaller formats, B&W is cheaper. Older style emulsions (cubic grain) are also cheaper than newer style (tabular / shell / whatever). Litho film is cheaper still.

B&W is USD$1-$3 per shot in 4x5, and if you process yourself you’re only paying for your own time and consumables. Newer styles like Delta, T-Max go for $2-$3. Older styles like HP5, FP4, Tri-X go for $1.50-$2.50. Budget lines like Arista can be found around $1/sheet.

Ortho litho (what is being used in the video) has always been dirt cheap by comparison. It’s like $0.30 per sheet. Basically, all of the technical innovation that has gone into modern film is simply not used in ortho litho. You just need high contrast and resolution, that’s it. So you don’t need complicated sensitizing dyes or anything of that sort.

I literally just bought a box of the film he's using here, it's a high contrast red-insensitive film, $15 for 50 sheets, https://www.freestylephoto.biz/531345-Arista-Ortho-Litho-Fil...

developing it for normal contrast images is more difficult but not impossible

I've shot a ton of Kodak Ortho film in 4x5 at EI 3, 6, and 12. It's actually super easy to develop. I recommend stand development in 1:100 HC-110 with occasional agitation. The developer basically exhausts after 10 or 12 minutes depending on the temperature, which happens to be pretty much exactly the right development time, so it's pretty much impossible to over-develop.

Seems similar to xray ortho film, green or blue sensitive, and is pretty cheap.

Greatly reduced Rodinal, on the order of 1:100, will bring some "normal" tones out of hi-con film. At $0.30 a sheet it's not a bad experiment.

I was gifted a roll of expired Kodak Imagelink microfilm stock and once it's cut down to sheets that's my development plan for it. Similar tonal range and ISO.

There are still photographers shooting 4x5 in DC professionally with the press core. One is David Burnett and the other I can't remember off hand, but he's been shooting 4x5 of the congressional hearings. You just can't beat the quality of large format. With Kodak releasing Ektachrome in 4x5 this last January I've been shooting more and more of it. It's expensive for chromes, but shooting HP5 sheets is pretty cheap for the quality of the output in the end.

Impossible Project has brought back peel-apart 8x10 polaroid film. Currently $18 a shot, so not for the faint of wallet, but perhaps they will bring back 4x5 someday as well.

Expensive roller to “develop” it though.

For color, I think it really depends on your willingness to use expired film. I've shot mostly expired film for about 15 years, and once you've tried a range of emulsions of various ages and provenance, it's not hard to figure out how what's going to perform well under what conditions. Even 20 year old color neg performs pretty well with only modest overexposure. B&W you can still get down to about $1/sheet if you're willing to shoot Arista.

Are you sure you mean a Crown Graphic? A Crown Graphic is about as different as it's possible to be from the camera in the video while still being a 4x5 camera (https://vintagecameralab.com/wp-content/uploads/graflex-crow...). It also doesn't make tilt-shift movements as easy as you're suggesting.

The camera in the video is a Graflex Graphic View, so made by the same manufacturer, but yeah, totally different in use. A Crown does not have the same level of movements. But they [Graphic Views] are relative bargains for view cameras if you can find one in decent shape.

>I have no idea where he’s finding film so cheap - I stopped when it was costing me £5 per exposure.

Ilford is £1.50 a shot + chemicals. Rodinal is pretty cheap and if you're printing then the fixer cost is negligible.

OP mentioned color positive film, which can go for around £5 a sheet.

If you want cheap film for large format, shoot x-ray film.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com