Tag: 4×5

Making sense of Jobo daylight film processing tanks

Nicolai Grossman 1 Comment

The Jobo daylight film processing system seems confusing at first, and their web site is an unhelpful mess, but IMO it’s worth working through, because the stuff is good and does what it says it’s going to do well. Here’s what I have (all link to B&H):

#2561 tank with magnet base, holds 2 x 4×5 reels (12 sheets total), or 4 reels of 120, 220, or 127, or 6 reels of 135. You can get extension tubes for this tank to make it huge if you want to. There is a variant of this tank with a cog, which I’ve heard sucks for inversion and roller base processing, so unless you’re going to get the fancy temperature controller processor, stick with the magnet.

#2509N sheet film reel, holds up to 6 sheets. (Also holds 9x12cm.)

#2502 adjustable reel, fits 135, 127, 120, and 220 (you can gang up 2 rolls of 120 onto a single reel).

#1509 manual roller base, not necessary if you opt to use more chemistry and do inversion.

This gives me a nice, flexible system that will handle 135 through 4×5 in the same tank for not a lot of money. I’ve been really happy with it so far, I like it better than the Paterson system I was using for 135 and 120 and the dreaded Combi-Plan (of which I wrote a very profane review and follow-up).

There’s also the #2508 sheet film loader base (requires a film guide), which is meant to make loading sheet film easier, but I’ve never used it.

If you want to go fancier, there’s the Jobo expert drums, which are for sheet film only. I’ve heard they’re unbelievably easy to load, people seem to really love them, but they are more expensive, and I haven’t used them and can’t comment on them, either.

Polaroid 51 & 56 4×5 films discontinued

Nicolai Grossman 1 Comment

Two more Polaroid films are on the chopping block… this times it’s the super-contrasty Type 51 and the sepia Type 56, both 4×5.

The pages linked above say:

NOTICE TO OUR CUSTOMERS: Please be advised that Polaroid will be discontinuing the manufacture of its T51 [/T56] film within the next several months.

We realize that this is disappointing news for our loyal T51 users and we would like to emphasize that, although the circumstances made it inevitable, it was not an easy decision. We are very sorry for the inconvenience. We continue to manufacture and sell T52, T53, T54, T55, T57, T72 and T79 film.

Ugh. Stop the carnage!

Razzledog’s prototype 4×5 SLR

Nicolai Grossman 3 Comments

Australian Polaroid-to-4×5-rangefinder camera modifier Razzledog built a prototype 4×5 SLR! He says:

I have long had dreams of building a 4×5 SLR……so this prototype is currently under review. The advantages are finally the image is right side up, so I no longer have to stand on my head….. I don’t have to worry about any parallax issues so I get perfect framing without fear of any cropping……and interchangable lenses are no problem. It has bellows so awesome macro is also permissible…

Continue reading and check out photos at Razzledog’s site.

New large format P&S cameras

Nicolai Grossman Leave a comment

Oren Grad writes at The Online Photographer:

Check out the re-launched, much improved website of Fotoman Camera. This Hong Kong-based company is known for its well-made, (relatively) inexpensive, interchangeable lens, scale focusing, roll film panorama cameras in 6×12, 6×17 and 6×24 formats. A long-awaited second lineup of large format point-and-shoot cameras has now finally become available, including an ultralight 4×5, an 8×10 and—surprise!—a 4×10 panoramic P&S. Helical focus mounts, viewfinders, a comprehensive selection of regular and panoramic viewfinder masks and a dual-axis bubble level are now offered separately as well for users who would like to mix-and-match with their own equipment.

They actually are relatively reasonably priced. I’m not quite sure when $699 US because "reasonable" for a metal spacer with lens and film holder mounts, but it is compared to what else is out there (typically $1500 and up(!)). By Grapthar’s hammer… what a savings.

Check them out at Fotoman Camera

Combi-Plan 4×5 daylight tank still sucks donkeys

Nicolai Grossman 4 Comments

It turns out that when I reviewed the HP Combi-Plan T 4×5 daylight sheet film developing tank and called it a "dodgy, leaky piece of shit", I may have vastly under-stated my case.

It was nice today: the trees in a local apple orchard were flowering, it was warm but not hot, and the light was good. I loaded up some Velvia and FP4, grabbed my field camera, and spent half an hour waiting for a cloud to move out of the way of the sun.

It’s been a while since I shot B&W 4×5 and I forgot that I never actually ordered the rotary tube I was looking at to replace the Combi-Plan. Oh well. You know how sometimes you have a bad experience with something, time passes, and you start to think that it couldn’t really be as bad as you remember? The Combi-Plan can’t be that bad, can it?

It can. Now that I’ve given the tank another go, I think it’s still dodgy, it’s still leaky, and still a piece of shit, but that doesn’t really begin to cover it. This time, most of the sheets escaped their carrier channels and were floating around loose inside. One sheet had a few chunks of emulsion scratched out, which could be my sometimes questionable film holder loading skills, but my money’s on it floating around and scraping against sharp film carrier parts.

I’m frankly amazed that this thing is actually sold. If I hacked something this bad together, I wouldn’t even lend it to a friend, let alone attempt to charge money for it. Either the company who make this have never used it or they’ve got balls the size of the moon. This product needs to be melted, dunked in piss, and stabbed in the face with a fucking schoolbus.

UPDATE: The scratches are my fault. I forgot to affix the thing that holds the film in place to the top of the film carrier.