Join me for my leap of faith into the world of 4x5 large format photography, where I take my Linhof Master Technika camera back to its Munich roots to photograph the iconic Olympiapark München.
After working my way through numerous 35mm and medium format cameras over the past few years and improving my skills in the analogue photography process from shooting, to developing, and finally printing images, I suppose it was only a matter of time before my curiosity for large format photography got the best of me. It is a leap I thought I would never take, but I stumbled across a deal I could not turn down and got that “buy something new and learn everything about it as if I had a phD in the subject” intensity that all analogue photographers go through at some point.
So here we are, me and my Linhof Master Technika 4x5 camera, with a ridiculous amount of additional accessories and a tent that isn’t big enough to live in but is useful for changing film (more on that below).
Tell me more about large format photography
Large format photography refers to any imaging format of 4x5 inches or bigger. By comparison, my Hasselblad shoots 6×6 cm (2¼×2¼ inch) negatives, so these 4x5 negatives are roughly 15 times larger than a 35mm image (fifteen times!). That is a LOT of surface area to capture an image on. Also, to add to the interest and complication, large format is only available as individual 4x5 sheets that have to be loaded onto film holders (with two sides one for each sheet) and then inserted into the back of the camera to make a single exposure.
A whole different ball game compared to throwing in a roll of film into a camera and closing the back cover. The camera is effectively a big box with a viewing ground glass on one end and a lens board on the other, connected with bellows that extend when the camera moves out onto rails for focusing. The lenses have the shutter in them (much like the Hasselblad lenses) and you can easily switch out a lens by slipping it out from the front of the camera setup.
I’ll go into more detail of large format photography in a future post, but for now let me introduce you to my chosen 4x5 camera: a Linhof Master Technika camera. I believe these were made from 1972 onwards, I should figure out what year mine was made in. This Linhof has an integrated rangefinder (that needs to be coupled to each lens, luckily it is), a groundglass for viewing the image at the back of the camera, and a separate viewfinder that sits on top of the camera (also extremely useful to walk around with and visualise your composition, it even changes the size of the view depending on what lens you want to use).
A bit more about the shots
I decided for the Olympia Park in Munich for my first outing with the Linhof. I thought it quite appropriate to be using a camera in the city it was designed and built in, especially in such an iconic venue. I also figured I would have enough space to set things up and be left alone, although I wasn’t really lucky in that regards and see why a lot of large format photographers end up in the middle of vast landscapes to have the time to work through their compositions.
A nice panoramic viewpoint of the Olympic Park for my first ever large format shot. I setup slowly and cautiously and for the most part did things in the right order. Shooting large format is very different to anything else film-wise I’ve shot (i.e. 35mm and 120 medium format film). Setup takes a long time and it is easy to make mistakes with how the lenses work and whether they are ready of not when you put in the film holder at the back.
A side shot of my Linhof Master Technika camera. Some paint cracking on the bellows, which is normal for a camera of this age. I’ve opted for a circular polariser and orange filter, as I was aiming for a strong contrasty black & white image.
It is hard to see anything on the ground glass viewfinder, hence why dark cloths exist. I probably look ridiculous inside one but as I can’t see what I look like it doesn’t bother me. This is what the inside looks, this shot does not do justice to how bright the image is, even though it is backwards AND upside down!
I did a little video going into the hood for a laugh - you’ll want to look at this full screen as I shot it on my phone so the aspect ratio is a bit strange.
My first large format shot! Ilford FP4+ graciously donated by my friend Conor. There is a crazy amount of detail in this shot, it is a pity all of these images get compressed for uploading onto my blog. I did some zooming in with the images in adobe lightroom and was blown away by the detail.
Some notes of my setup put onto the film holder. Each film holder holds 2 sheets of 4x5 film (one on each side). You slide the film holder in-between the ground glass and the back of the camera and when you are ready to take a shot you slide out the dark slide, leaving the negative ready to be exposed. In that regard it’s not that much different to shooting medium format film, just BIGGER.
My second shot, looking suspiciously similar to my first shot! Also shot with a 150mm lens, roughly equivalent to a 50mm lens on 35mm film.
That is a nice looking camera! It also has lots of movements, where the lens can move to accommodate different shots, e.g. architectural shots. I will probably explain this in a future post, that will give me time to learn the theory!
The final shot feels a bit tight, in retrospect I probably should have focused more on the pathway in the bottom left as I think that had potential for some nice leading lines. That being said, I still like the shot!
Panoramic shot taken on my phone. This stadium is quite amazing, even more so considering it was built in 1972! It has a capacity of 80,000.
All setup for another shot! I was waiting for a strong shadow on the lighting post. In the very distance you can see a main viewing point of the whole park, where a lot of tourists always flock to for photographs (small hill just left of the post).
Final image, taken with my 90mm lens (28mm equivalent on 35mm film) with both a polariser and yellow filter. The sky is still a bit overexposed, but I am still happy with the final composition.
Shot on Fomapan 100 film.
Taken slightly to the right of the above shot. I think I could probably have cropped this a bit to get tighter on the final composition. I can see why people spend so much time visualising a large format shot before setting it all up to take the final image. It is a very different experience to the flexibility of moving around with a handheld 35mm or medium format camera.
To give you an idea of the clarity of detail in a 4x5 large format negative (zoomed in from the above shot).
My last shot in the Olympia Park - a nice lookout straight down the lake towards the BMW museum.
I did crop the final image as it was much wider than I wanted and had a lot of unnecessary detail in it on the sides of the shot. Really nice Ilford FP4 clarity in this shot!
Bonus photo: test shot of the Highlight Towers, Munich.
Also with an orange filter, some nice contrast in this shot.
Tell me more about developing 4x5 film
In the past year I’ve had quite a bit of experience developing regular 35mm and 120 roll film black & white, so assuming the film stocks were the same or similar I was not expecting the development process to be too different. What is different though is getting the sheets of film from their holders into a development tank. I needed a new tank to start with, opting for the excellent Stearman 445 tank, capable of developing 4 sheets at once. I also needed a way to ensure full darkness to both load and unload film holders. Standard changing bags are not great because they’re not really big enough; enter a changing tent! Yes, an actual tent, and frankly for what these are worth you could buy a tent to sleep in, but that’s a different matter altogether. Thank goodness for second hand goods.
Harrison changing tent setup and ready to load some film.
The development process is pretty much the same as with other film, albeit slightly different volumes of developer and other chemicals as the tank is different. The final negative, where you can really see how big these 4x5 negatives are, they look like prints! Note: I was so excited my first shots worked that I took a photo of the negative back to front.
Fresh out of the development tank!
Who needs an expensive negative drying solution when you have some old school sock hanger at work!
Archiving the negatives as part of my beer-and-scanning work.
4x5 negative holders for my Epson scanner.
Overall observations
I’m glad to report that my first outing with a large format camera was not a complete disaster and that I managed to correctly expose (for the most part) all of the film I had with me. It is certainly a very different, and much slower, experience than my normal photography outings. They say that shooting normal 35mm film forces you to slow down and think about each shot, well this slows you down to a snail pace. And that’s without thinking about the whole setting the camera up and getting the settings right and all of that. But it is totally worth it when you pull out those developed 4x5 sheets from the tank. I’ve never seen that much detail in anything. I used to be blown away by detail in 6x6, 6x7 and 6x9 medium format shots, but this is a whole new level.
I enjoy writing these blog posts as much as I do taking the photographs, so I certainly enjoyed taking phone shots of the setup and documenting the whole process. And it is just as well, otherwise each post might only have 2 or 3 large format photographs. Not wanting to add weight to my already heavy bag, I could see having a smaller 35mm camera with me on longer trips to take postcard type shots and saving the Linhof for those real killer compositions. Let’s see, this has certainly opened up many more possibilities for me, not least ample opportunities for people to make fun of “that strange guy hiding under a hood in broad daylight”.
Long live photography freaks, and many thanks for continued advice, tips, and most of all patience to my fellow photo freaks Conor, Jim, and Volker.
See you soon for another ‘world in large format’ post!
Neil
