Featured History Tom Cobbs & The Savage Truth Of Large Format Film

Hello,

Shooting indoors with a background of incoming light is always difficult. The hand held light meters go immediately to the bright light coming in from the windows and will make the exposure reading slightly darker to compensate for the bright light. I always used a skylight filter on a fast 1.4 listed 50mm lens and with the meter set at very slow speeds, shot the Kodak Tri X for best results in low light arenas.

But, for everyday usage in B/W films for enlarging, the Plus X branded film was the slowest at the time and gave me the least amount of grain when enlarging the 35mm to an 8x10 print or larger. (Also, used indoors with a tri pod for less grainy enlargements) The largest poster I made was for my wife’s brother. It was a 3 foot long poster print of his OT Camaro. On a bright and sunny day, the Ektachrome color slide was perfect. The blue sky and green car came out perfectly. But, I also took some B/W shots and used those for the enlargement poster.

The hand held exposure meter was spot on, but a lot of the times, using the camera exposure readings were fine for prints for magazines and to give away as a thank you to the owners of the custom motorcycles and hot rod cars. Interior photos with just the light bulb for the glow was cause for a hand held meter reading. But, who carries around a meter in the pocket when a spur of the moment photo is taken? Ha!


Jnaki

But, the pesky bright light coming into this room was a problem washing out the original spot/photo composure. So, various angles and adjustments to the B/W film had to be made for a better focus shot of the reflection. YRMV

(50 mm lens 1.4 Pentax camera using the built in meter for light reading, using the B/W film camera)

The color slide film version was almost the same spot and angle photo, but the B/W version came out better in a print version.
The B/W version

Note:
The instant gratification of a larger film format gave me the clarity of photographs. The darkroom prints had the extra clear photos in B/W, when I used to go to normal size prints and enlargements beyond the 5x7 and 8x10 range. The average print was now able to go to 11x14 with clarity of the negative. Several 16x20 prints were tried, but even the larger film format has limits.

But, ever try to shoot a side moving hot rod on a street scene and get the clarity needed of the car and a moving blur in the background? The larger negative also requires a larger camera, not called a Hassleblad. YRMV