Large Format Photography Books

[Shanta Plansinis]

Withthe full gang back together it was a pleasure to get to talk to Nick Carver about his love for 6x17 large format photography, his recent commissioned trip to Spain, other formats to boost the creative juices, his You Tube Channel and much more.

Nick Carver is a working photographer and photography instructor based in Orange County, CA. His professional work centres primarily on architectural photography for commercial properties (office buildings, industrial buildings, retail centres, hospitality), and through his online photography courses Nick delivers instruction to hundreds of students in over 30 countries.

We were talking about modern lights on buildings and how LEDs were ruining the character and atmosphere for us film photographers. Nick mentioned Technology Connections, an interesting You Tube Channel that picks apart and explains all sorts of modern and older tech ideas and explains them simply, they have some film photography videos there amongst a whole bunch of interesting topics.

One of the donors to the show mentioned Conflict Cameras who are making superb progress with an auto focus large format camera, I know, right! The mind boggles. Anyway follow along here whilst we see if they can be a guest on the show.

Erik explains how he loves to use orthochromatic film and how it fitted in well with this project as its close to the emulsion that would have been available at the time plus he was using his modified Kodak 3A till it broke, a camera that would also have been around back then over 100 years ago.

Erik also took with him a modified Polaroid roll film camera he 800 which can be modified to take 4x5 film here is a link but there are others out there if you are interested in doing the same thing. -Mahogany-Polaroid-800-conversion-to-4x5

Earlier in 2022 Simon shared some photos from a LF trip he had in Snowdonia, a bit of a turning point for him really as the blank images he returned with made him realise he had to make things a bit simpler and not try too many new things at once.

This project was initiated early in 2011 by Austrian artist Lukas Birk and Irish ethnographer Sean Foley. The aim of the project from the outset was to create an urgent record of the disappearing art of Afghan box camera photography and make that information freely available online for all. Funding for the project in 2011 as in 2012 came primarily via crowdfunding on the KICKSTARTER website. The Visual Anthropology Dept. at Goldsmiths University, London has also contributed funding.

I've have each of these books and have read all of them, so can comment on each. The 2 books by Roger Hicks and Frances Schultz are the same book. Every book I have read by these authors are excellent. However, this book has little information on the medium format, a large part of the book is on Large format photography and processing of film, so I wouldn't choose this particular book in this instance. The book by Lief Eriksenn is excellent, loaded with information on MF cameras and tons of pictures taken with different cameras, including hte Hasselblad, highly recommended and is the first book I bought for MF, and a bargain at $24.95. The Ernst Wildi medium format book is excellent, however not too much information about the different medium format cameras, and not many pictures at all. A good book to add to your collection later, but there are better books to get now. However, the Hasselblad manual by Ernst Wildi is excellent for the Hasselblad owner and is highly recommended, but is expensive at about $60 I think. Another book to consider if you're looking for another MF camera later on is: Medium Format Cameras:User's Guide to Buying and Shooting by Peter B. Williams $19.95 tons of information on all the MF cameras and lenses available...great book.

I just looked at my copy of Ernst Wildi, even though there isn't much on the different cameras available except spec sheets in the back on some of them, and there are only about 16 color photos in the book, it is packed with good info on medium format photography in its 290 pages, trade paper 6x9" book. It costs around $30.

It seems as if what you are asking is about photography and not about medium format photography per se. The best books I have found for any serious student of photography regardless of format size are the following:

As for film choice, read this forum and then test to find out your favourites. Oh yeah, I like the Ernst Wildi's Hasselblad Manual. All I wish to say is that beyond film size and handling issues there really isn't that much difference in medium format photography with a 500C from 35mm photography. The same fundamental principles of photography hold.

this is a very great understatement. photography, as the name implies, is all about creating graphic representations of light. as the old saw goes (approximately), the beginning photographer thinks about equipment, the journeyman thinks about composition, and the master thinks about light. IMHO, you cannot have success at photography unless you learn to concentrate on understanding light, and become adept at putting the light on your film in a way that will allow you to produce a print that matches your personal vision of how you want to convey a particular scene to your audience. to do this you need to master (at a minimum) two skills: (1) previsualization -- the ability to look at a real life scene, and then imagine how you want to portray the scene in your print (do you want to preserve shadow detail, do you want to preserve highlight detail, do you want to compress or expand the subject brightness range, etc.) and (2) determining correct exposure -- you need to develop a personal system for taking light measurements -- spot metering reflected light, measuring incident light at your subject, sunny 16, etc etc etc -- that will ensure that what you see in your mind makes it onto the negative. later you will learn (with b&w) that you can control the negative at the developing end as well to really get what you want on the film. now, as to your question, medium format is no different than any other film size when it comes to these basic concepts. you will need to think about a few issues -- e.g. since depth of field is entirely dependent on actual focal length, a "normal" lens (80mm let's say) on MF will have less DOF than a normal lens (50mm) on a 35mm camera -- but mostly good technique is relevant equally to all formats. therefore, i recommend that you focus on basic technique. two good books by ansel adams are "the negative" and "forty examples." both of these will help you get a good handle on how to control your camera -- i.e. to make it consistently produce images that conform to your vision of the scenes you photograph. good luck. you have chosen a great tool to get started!!

Just one comment regarding the book "The Hand Exposure Meter Book by Silverman, Zucker and Shell" someone suggested. IMHO, this book is a real waste of time and money, both of which I had the misfortune to spend on it. It is basically an advertisement for Sekonic meters, which are really first-rate (I have two of them). The book is repetitive, poorly edited, and full of errors (like paragraphs repeated almost word-for-word on succeeding pages). All three (very talented and knowledgeable) contributors make and re-make the same point: incident meters are way better than reflected. It's as though none of them read what the others had written, or even re-read what they themselves had written.

Unless you want to spend twenty dollars to have the same (perhaps valid) message thrown at you again and again, skip the book and spend your money on something that is not a glorified ad flogging one maufacturer's (excellent) equipment, like film.

I think there is a lot to be said for keeping things simple at the beginning. This means using films with good exposure latitude such as C41 colour print or Kodak T400CN or Ilford XP2 Super in black and white. This is contrary to what many people will tell you, but it will enable you to concentrate on composition and lighting rather than worrying if your exposure is out by 1/2 stop. You will learn much more if you also print your own pictures either by scanning or in a darkroom. The main barrier to good results is usually people's ability to frame and compose a photograph that conveys somthing of interest. An aesthetically pleasing but technically flawed rendition is usually preferable to a technically perfect but boring photograph. Formats only vary in aspect ratio, so if you can take good 35 mm photographs you can take good medium format ones as well .

Exposure measurement technique is indeed something you can pick up from a book. In fact I would recommend the Ansel Adams books as well as 'Perfect Exposure' by Roger Hicks and Francis Shultz. Ernest Wildi has an annoying tendency to state the obvious in 'The Medium Format Advantage'. Don't fall into the trap of immeadiately going out to buy a dedicated spotmeter and a densitometer on the basis of these books. If you can't take a good picture without these tools, you are probably not ready to use them. You will however need either a 35 mm camera or a good incident/reflective meter (which may include a spot capability) for exposure measurement. Look at books on the works of photographers that you admire rather than those concentrating on equipment. This is a personal choice, but any good bookshop should have a selection.

in fact, you could do much worse. spot metering, while time consuming and obviously not the solution for every photographic situation, is a great way to learn about how light works and how a scene is likely to be rendered on film. often only a narrow spotmeter will be able to tell you what exposure you will need to sho detail in your deep shadows. often only a spot meter will be able to measure subject brightness range and so tell you whether you have exceeded the range of your film. a spotmeter is a great, even indispensable tool. as for the "spot" meters built into gen'l purpose meters, they are not worthy of the name. seldom better than 7-10 degrees (regardless of what the mfr claims), they simply have too wide an angle of acceptance to be useful for most applications. simply put, there is virtually NO scene that cannot be accurately metered with a spotmeter. no other meter type can make that claim. every other type of meter has some significant limitation.

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