Large Format Film: What's Great About Analogue Photography?
My parents, Mary and Fred Guy, Mornington Beach, Australia.
Talk about analogue photography and family history. Here’s a large format film image I made of my parents in 1989. Now that my parents have passed away, this photo has become a great way by which I can remember them.
My large format Japanese film camera gave me a taste of analogue photography from the late 19th century. It was a flatbed folding camera, accepting 4" x 5" sheets of film loaded, one sheet at a time, into a reversible double dark slide and then attached to the back of the camera prior to exposure.
I made this photo, featuring my dear old mum and dad, not long after returning from one of my first overseas photography trips.
I still have a selenium toned print of this image, which I’d made in the darkroom and had framed a few years ago.
My day, Fred Guy OAM, passed away on the last day of winter in 2005. My mum, Mary Guy OAM, passed away in 2021.
The photo was made on Mornington Beach a coastal retreat, south east of Melbourne, on one of just a few holidays my folks had together during 52 years of marriage.
It was great that a number of us kids were able to visit for a day or so during their stay.
I remember mum playing the piano in the holiday house they rented for that short break. She'd had a few lessons when she was very young and, with no practice since, was working things out by ear.
It was incredible just how well she was doing.
Large Format Analogue Photography Adventures
I remember the mixed emotions I experienced using this camera. I used to bring a couple of double dark slides with me on landscape photography adventures.
They were bulky and, being enrolled as a full time student at the time, I just couldn’t afford to buy any more.
The camera was quite cumbersome and slow, even tedious to use.
Prior to loading a double dark slide into the back of the camera, you first had to ensure image framing, composition and focusing was carried out.
On a large format film camera this was achieved by viewing the scene, upside down and back to front, on a ground glass screen.
And all of that had to be accomplished while draping a heavy black cloth over your head, and the back of the camera, to shield the ground glass screen from direct light.
On bright, sunny days, it used to get really hot under that cloth and considerable discipline was required to achieve accurate framing and focus, and a good composition.
A big day of large format analogue photography would result in me exposing around 6 sheets of film.
However, on a good day, I’d obviously want to take more photos.
The compromise I settled on was to bring along a portable film changing bag, enabling me to remove exposed sheets of film and replace them with unexposed sheets, on location, without the use of a darkroom.
My camera bag would also include two small film boxes.
One box contained unexposed film and the other, an empty film box, was reused to store the exposed sheets which I processed, a few sheets at a time, back in the university darkroom.
As it was difficult to stop dust from settling inside it, I found the film changing bag to be a pretty significant compromise.
Unfortunately, when dust settles on unexposed film, it creates a barrier to light preventing the area directly underneath it from being exposed.
On a processed negative these dust spots would appear as black spots or wiggly lines. On a light tone sky they were practically impossible to cover up through traditional methods of retouching.
Needless to say, this was before the days of Photoshop.
While it was a lovely camera, all brass and wood, it was a nightmare to use. It leaked light like the proverbial sieve, causing visibly ugly streaks over a number of the images I’d created.
Repairing such unsightly damage, after the fact, was often impossible before Photoshop entered our lives.
As a consequence I lost images that would, otherwise, have been quite successful.
What's more, the secondhand lens I’d purchased to use on this large format camera was rubbish and was always breaking down.
Nonetheless, I took this particular kit over the Himalayas on my second trip to Ladakh (Land of the Passes), on the Tibetan Plateau in Northern India, in 1989.
Sadly, I only managed to expose about 20 sheets of film before that lens stopped working.
Fortunately, despite this debacle and very little practical experience with large format cameras, I ended up with a couple of decent images which I plan to scan and publish down the road aways.
I particularly remember photographing a young, Korean Buddhist nun on the rooftop of the Palace View Kiddar guesthouse in Leh, the capital of Ladakh.
I stayed there numerous times from 1988 until the early 90’s. The accommodations were basic, in the extreme, but the family who ran the place were wonderful and I remember, with great fondness, playing with the three young children.
I also remember a game of badminton with their father, a fantastic guy and, if I remember correctly, a local badminton champion.
It was a great game and he (just) beat me. But it was the only time I’ve ever played badminton and I was at a disadvantage, given the high altitude we played at.
Tennis was always my game.
I also made great friends while staying at that guesthouse. In particular, I remember couples from America and Sweden, and a great guy from France.
The young, Korean nun I photographed was visiting Ladakh, on a kind of pilgrimage, with family members.
We were all staying at the same guesthouse, and I remember the concerned looks on the faces of her family when I told them that I wanted to photograph her because she was so beautiful.
Frankly, she reminded me of the female actor who played the role of Tripitaka in the cult 1970’s TV show, Monkey.
The fact is I’m drawn to beauty, whether it be the expression of unbridled joy in a child’s face or the wisdom in the eyes of the elderly.
Likewise, the transient, transformational and transcendental nature of light fascinates me.
All good photographers are consumed with the beauty of light and it’s ability to reveal, even for a moment, the most sublime experiences existing on the edge of our understanding.
It’s a pity how a simple attraction to beauty can, so easily, be misunderstood.
What Is Sharpness In Analogue Photography?
People often talk about medium and large format cameras, whether film or digital, and their ability to deliver sharper images than those from cameras with smaller sensors.
Strictly speaking, that concept is untrue.
Firstly, the term sharpness is a misnomer. The way to enhance sharpness is via an increase in local contrast.
Back in the day, in addition to contrast, sharpness, grain and resolving power, film manufacturers would also measure acutance.
Acutance is a measure of the relative sharpness of edges within a photographic image.
Imagine you're photographing a zebra crossing, by which I mean a portion of a sealed bitumen road marked for pedestrians to cross, not a mass wildlife migration over the Zambezi River.
(Sorry, couldn’t resist that one).
In this example your composition is a series of white stripes painted either side of dark bitumen.
Consider the demarcation between one of those white stripes and the black bitumen directly adjacent to it.
By increasing the local contrast on the edge where black meets white, the individual areas of black and white will appear to visually separate from each other, thereby providing the illusion of increased sharpness.
Analogue Photography Film Choice: When Higher Quality Results in Compromise
Back in the day, excluding brand bias, the choice of film you’d purchase would be based on a range of criteria, including grain and tonal responsiveness.
In the case of black and white film, your choice of developer would be dependent upon how it interacted with that particular film and the kind of negative you were wanting to produce.
Needless to say acutance and fine grain were important considerations for photographers driven by absolute image quality.
But, as was often the case, such improvements may have come at the cost of reduced film speed.
As a case in point, the film in question may have been packaged and marketed as ISO 100 film.
However, as a consequence of the kinds of quality driven enhancements achieved through the use of a particular film developer, the effective film speed (referred to as the Exposure Index) could be as low as 25.
Exposing your film at ISO 100 would, therefore, result in severely underexposed negatives.
This effect was most noticeable as a loss of shadow separation, with dark tones merging together, and the loss of fine details in darker parts of the scene.
To overcome this problem your new starting point was to set your camera or handheld light meter to an ISO of 25, which would result in slower shutter speeds and/or the use of wider apertures.
Sharpness, due to either camera or subject movement, was potentially compromised, as was depth of field.
Almost everything I learned during nine years of tertiary education, and the seven years I spent working in the photography industry prior to that, was based around analogue photography.
Indeed, by the time I’d finished my master’s degree in photography, digital photography was still, very much, the new kid on the block.
By the time I’d adopted a fully digital workflow I was, well and truly, steeped in the fine print tradition and the techniques surrounding it.
And that included testing any film stock I adopted to establish the actual film speed (Exposure Index), based upon the specific film developer and the time, temperature and dilution at which it was employed.
You see, by rating the film at a slower film speed to achieve better shadow detail and separation, a loss in fine highlight texture could result.
The way to resolve that problem, and produce negatives with a more moderate tonal range, was to reduce film development.
You’d achieve that result by further diluting the working-strength solution of the film developer or, alternatively, through a shorter development time or a lower development temperature.
If you’d like to know more about the fine print tradition check out the writings and photos by acclaimed analogue photographer, Ansel Adams.
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Analogue Photography and Resolution
When it comes to comparing different format cameras it's just not the case that the larger the format, whether film or digital, the sharper the resulting images will be.
The primary advantage of larger format, analogue photography is more to do with the higher resolving power (i.e., resolution) associated with the larger film area used to record the image.
What you get is not so much a sharper image, but a more highly detailed image where fine details and textures are rendered with amazing clarity.
Adding sharpening in Photoshop is fine, as it’s somewhat similar to using a higher acutance film developer in the days of analogue photography.
But it’s somewhat artificial and not the same as the extra level of resolving power delivered by medium and large format camera and lens combinations.
And that’s true for both film or digital cameras.
As a case in point, take another look at the photo of my mum and dad on the beach. That extra degree of resolution is evident in my mum's jumper.
The greater size of medium and large format images, compared to 35 mm film, means they're enlarged to a lesser degree to produce a print which, again, allows for greater retention of fine detail.
Far from the most convenient or user friendly cameras, large format film cameras did produce exceptional image quality.
In that regard, they were very much the king of the hill for contemplative analogue photography, particularly in the landscape and architectural photography genres.
I rarely think about issues relating to analogue photography these days. However, whenever I dig up and old negative or slide, memories come flooding back.
And that's not an altogether bad thing, now is it?
Beyond Analogue Photography
I quite admire folks who continue working in the analogue photography tradition. But it’s no longer for me.
Frankly, I gave up far too many late nights and summer days slaving away in chemical darkrooms to re-enter that space.
Actually, I’m due for a new camera and, this time around, I’m considering moving away from Sony and back to either Leica or Hasselblad.
I’m hoping that, later in the week, I’II be able to check out the Hasselblad X2D camera, but it may be that the Leica SL3 Reporter or the Leica M EV1 could be the way to go.
It’s a big decision and, in either case, I’d need to purchase new lenses as well. I have a few months to make up my mind and I’m looking forward to working through the process.
