Hacking Photography - one Picture at a time
Lomography has today announced a very requested item from the large format film community – the LomoGraflok 4×5 Instant Back. While many large format shooters of the past might have used Polaroids, this new back is the world’s first that lets you shoot Fuji Instax Wide instant film on a 4×5 large format camera.
It costs only $134 while it’s on pre-order, going up to $149 once it goes on general sale. There is a catch, though. They’re not shipping them until April 2021.
Large format film still holds a huge draw for a lot of photographers. It has a look that the relatively tiny digital sensors today (yes, even the medium format ones) just aren’t capable of. But shoot large format on film can be a laborious task. For many, the end result is worth it, but if you want slightly more immediate results, digital scanning backs are the solution.
The problem is, digital scanning backs for 4×5 cameras can be very expensive (and they’re not exactly common). In this video, Sean at Fotodiox shows us how we can turn a simple small portable flatbed scanner into a digital scanning back for a large format camera.
In early 2019, Kodak announced the comeback of Ektachrome 120 roll film and large format sheet film. After keeping us waiting for almost a year, it seems that we’re now only days away from the official launch. According to Kodak, the Ektachrome 120mm and 4×5 film will be available to order worldwide within the next ten days.
Large format film is something that many photographers would like to experiment with if it wasn’t such an expensive way of shooting. There are a number of great inexpensive options out there for cameras, like those from companies like Chroma, but the film is still relatively expensive. Even black and white film can work out to almost $2 per photo – and you don’t even know if you’ve got the shot until you’ve developed it.
But what about photographing what that large format camera sees with your DSLR? Will it still give you the same look that you’d get if you’d shot with the large format camera? That’s a question that photographer Bill Lawson explored over this three video series to see if he could find a definitive answer.
Intrepid, the creators of the wooden 4×5 large format camera have now announced their new 4×5 enlarger. It mounts to the top of a tripod and is designed to be used in conjunction with the 4×5 large format camera you already own. This brings the cost down to a ridiculous £119 (~$155). It launched on Kickstarter yesterday and it’s already 300% funded.
The other day, I posted on here about The Standard 4×5 large format 3D printed camera. I was a little sceptical about The Standard at first until I saw that the project files would be released into the open source world upon completion of the campaign and deliveries to backers.
Now, another new 3D printed large format camera has popped up on Kickstarter. The Cameradactyl. This one, though, won’t be releasing the files and doesn’t quite leave me with the same warm fuzzies.
I love that large format seems to be coming back in fashion. I really do. In the last couple of years we’ve seen some great new large format cameras come into existence, like the Intrepid, and the Chroma – the latter of which we saw in person at The Photography Show.
Now we have a new one, The Standard 4×5, which is made from 3D printed parts. It’s is being billed as a DIY 4×5 large format camera that you can build yourself – which is a really awesome idea. It’s being funded through Kickstarter, and the prices aren’t that bad, either (even though the early birds have already sold out).
When it comes to the discussion fo bokeh, we often hear of the “benefits of full frame”. There are many comparisons out there all over the web, extolling the virtues of a larger sensor, and how a full frame mirrorless or DSLR is the “ultimate”. It’s really not, though, if that’s your goal, which this video from photographer Bill Lawson sets out to prove.
In this side-by-side shootout, he compares a Nikon D7000 DX body, along with a Nikon D700 full frame DSLR and 4×5 large format. He uses 50mm, 85mm and 300mm lenses to achieve a similar field of view with each of the different cameras, and gets to work.
Regular DIYP readers will know that I’ve been researching 3D printing recently. My goal is to see how one might be able to help me with my photography and video tasks. Primarily to keep things organised. There’s SD card cases, battery covers, lens cap clips, charging station doohickies and all kinds of goodies on sites like Thingiverse. But I also want to have some fun, too.
One photographic collection over on Thingiverse that’s particularly cool belongs to user Schlem. He’s created a whole bunch 3D printed pinhole cameras. Most of them are medium format but there are one or two large format ones, too. One of them is even stereoscopic. He’s put all the models up so you can download and print your own, and the results coming from some of these cameras are just amazing.
There’s little question that getting into film photography can still become rather expensive, especially if you’re going large format. But it doesn’t have to be. Sure, you can spend a fortune on a large format view camera and complete darkroom setup, but do you really need it? I’ve been following Joe Van Cleave’s YouTube channel for a while now, and in this recent video he’s going to help answer that question.
Joe regularly posts videos documenting his adventures with film, with some great tips for the rest of us. From compact darkrooms to DIY 35mm film canister pinhole cameras, Joes videos cover a wide range of film related topics. In this video, Joe takes a look at the minimum requirement required for shooting 4×5 large format Harman Direct Positive Paper.
You can find out more about John on his website and follow his adventures on YouTube.
His videos have over a hundred million views, have been extensively published by news outlets, and has even received recognition from a few film festivals, such as International Ocean Festival
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