I started shooting exclusively on film in 2015, when I only had two 35mm cameras in my inventory: A fully manual Pentax K1000 and a Pentax ME Super. I

Getting Started with Large Format Film Photography by David Rose

submited by

Style Pass

2021-08-28 12:00:13

I started shooting exclusively on film in 2015, when I only had two 35mm cameras in my inventory: A fully manual Pentax K1000 and a Pentax ME Super.

It wasn’t long before I was eyeing the next level up in my mind, which was medium format, and I acquired a square format (6×6) Pentacon Six TL in 2016, and later a Pentax 67 in 2017.

Recently, I was blessed with a mint 70+ year old Graflex Speed Graphic camera which shoots a whopping 4×5 size film format.

A large format 4×5 negative is over 2 to 3 times as large as the medium format negatives and over 10 times as large as a 35mm negative.

There are a few benefits to shooting large format, especially when it comes to image quality. The larger the negative the sharper the image with less grain and better tonal range.

It also has an incredible amount of detail retention when printed. A film print loses quality due to how many times the negative needs to be magnified to achieve a certain size print.