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Labour Love

by Paul Gallagher

Following his introduction in the last issue, Paul Gallagher now gives us a candid rundown on the trials and tribulations of converting into large format camera work and the attendant processing. It acts as a wonderful foil to the frantic pace of the RAW workflow discussion in the earlier part of the magazine - it makes one quite nostalgic really!

When I eventually made the decision to move up a format from 6x7cm and leave my Mamiya RB for the Walker Titan XL, it was difficult to envisage how much all the peripheral gear would cost. Firstly I was now the proud owner of a beautiful, hand-made, large-format camera, a standard, 150mm Schneider lens, focusing loupe and cloth but that was about it. I was used to the versatility of having a standard lens and a wider Sekor 50mm f4.5 lens on the Mamiya, about as wide as I would normally wish to go. I was also used to heading into Scotland, miles from anywhere, with tens of rolls of Ilford Delta 100 and a few rolls of Delta 400. In a day, it was not unusual for me to shoot 40 to 50 frames. With 5x4 things were not going to be quite as straightforward.Paul Gallagher

Dark Slides

I transformed myself into an avid Ebay-searcher, with the large-format photography section saved, as a shortcut on my computer. The film holders were not the financial shock I had expected - it is easy to pick up a good quality, double film holder, such as the Fidelity Elite, for as little as £5. The one bonus I did notice at this stage was that the massive surge of people towards digital had generated a healthy quantity of film gear for sale. On this type of auction site this means the bids are 'diluted' slightly, which, in turn, means you can get a bargain. I eventually made a rough calculation of time to set up the camera and the photo opportunities it would allow in a day and decided on 20 film holders, in total. Now I had my film holders, all I had to do was load them with film and get out there, shooting to my daily limit of 40 sheets.

Lenses

Then I turned my attention to lenses and found, once again, that Ebay and its large-format section to be the best bet. I bought a spectacularly clean Schneider Super Angulon 90mm f8 for £240. This offered me the equivalent field of view that I was used to when shooting in medium format and the versatility I was anticipating from camera movements.

Film

When I was considering film some of my photographer friends suggested that I could now afford to move to a faster emulsion and use 400 ASA instead of my usual 100 ASA. This was a view that I could not entirely agree with. After all, I was now working slower than ever before, and governed by the amount of film that I was able to carry and the methods involved in large-format work. Why after moving to a large-format camera would I ever consider trading some of the quality of the image to get a slightly faster shutter speed? Furthermore I consider pressing the trigger of a large-format camera to be the least exciting part of the entire process. I took a friend of mine out for a few hours when I first got my Walker camera to show and, hopefully, impress him with the art and fascination of large-format photography. It was at the very stage during the proceedings, when I pressed the cable release, that he said, "All that palaver for that little 'click'?"! So this summed up for me the need to get everything out of the camera that I can and if it is too windy I will probably wait for calmer weather or go back on a better day.

I bought a couple of boxes of Ilford Delta 100 sheet film and fumbled in the darkroom with one 'sacrificed' sheet until I had the loading and unloading off to a fine art. Now all I had to do was make this fine art process extend beyond the darkroom and into the field and produce some fine, arty prints - which was the intention after all.

The First Trip

For my first excursions out I organised a safety net - Polaroid Type 55 film. This, in fact, is a fantastic film and one which offers you the opportunity to see your first cock-ups whilst still standing in front of the scene! Although Type 55 provides you with a negative and a contact print, I regarded it as a rough guide during the initial trips - the small-sized print is not what I would regard as an accurate guide. The one thing I was learning rapidly, at these early stages of large-format, was that it slowed me down considerably. I do not think that this was a bad thing, and, if nothing else, it made me stop and think of the mistakes I was about to make and save some money!

The Reckoning

So, considering what I had to purchase to get 'out there' with my large-format camera and make pictures, the bill was now running close to £2,000, but this was mainly due to the fact that I chose to buy a brand new Walker Titan XL even though it is, in fact, fantastically priced, compared to the likes of Gandolfi and Linhof equivalents (and in my opinion built to the same standards). If I was to have bought an alternative make of new camera £2,000 could have been the bill for the camera body alone!

Setting up the Darkroom

The next step for me was setting up, or as I saw it, adjusting, my darkroom to process sheet film. Stupidly, I first began by assuming that, if I adapted one of my large Paterson roll film processing tanks, I could get away with it and emerge triumphant from the darkroom with a negative to challenge anything done by the masters.

In short, the first attempts at this half-baked, cheapskate method bought results that I hardly had the heart to scan. Some emerged, from the wash, displaying streaks that would not look out of place on tie-dye clothing. Other faults crept up on me and were only seen in the dried emulsion on the light box. Some however did, astonishingly, make it to the scanner, only to be swiftly rejected when the first results arrived in Photoshop.

Paul Gallagher

I could not believe that moving up a format size and using the very same tank that I had processed the very same film in, with the same developer, could produce such astoundingly bad results. Baffled as I was at this time, I searched the photographic discussion forums for large-format workers and read accounts of people who were using 'proper' large-format processing equipment and still experiencing similar problems.

My Paterson adaptation-design would never work and it was down to ground with a thump when I realised I had a camera with a load of expensive supplementary kit that, to all intents and purposes, I could not, at this moment, produce a good picture with.

During one of those Internet reading sessions I noticed a repeated message that many of the people had bought a system called the HP Combi-Plan. This system, which sounded like a 1950's kitchen design, was, in fact, a light-safe tank that, once loaded, could be used to process up to six sheets of film in full daylight. This sounded amazing, so I tracked down the supplier in the UK and duly paid the £65 and a bit extra for express delivery. After all, I had film exposed using this new camera, which had not seen the light of day since the shutter was released. When I got the tank it comprised a negative holder for up to six sheets of film with a rubberised lid and funnel.

I followed all the instructions and the first negatives showed some promising results, but were still not reliable enough and showed streaking. At this point a friend visited, and brought an old book showing various processing problems, arising from different processing methods. Although it was agreed that my Paterson design was a complete non-starter, I was shocked to find that the main source of the problem I was encountering was due to pre-washing the film. But, I had always used this method and Ilford recommends it! In disbelief, and with a little trepidation, I began processing two sheets of film for the first time without a pre-wash and the results were a marked improvement.

After some further alterations to this essential part of the overall photographic process, I bought several other tanks and I now 'dip-n-dunk' process all my films, but still only two at a time. I arrived at this decision because I still found that, even without a pre-wash, the film was susceptible to streaking, because of the inversion agitation recommended for the tank. The reduction in this type of agitation was the only way I found I could be sure of reliable consistency and offer my films to a process I truly trusted.

Drying these negatives also proved to be something that I could not be quite as cavalier about as I had been with roll film. Because I have never had a drying cabinet, I used a small warm room in my house and placed a deioniser in it to reduce the airborne dust.

This part of the process was still good enough, but when I first hung the sheet films they developed drying marks because I failed to hang them from one corner. This, along with trial and error adjustments throughout the entire processing procedure, was one of the many lessons that I learned.

Scanning

The last, essential change to my photographic equipment was to upgrade my scanner to one that could take a 5x4 sheet film adapter. The scanner I was using was an Epson which had served me proudly, but would only scan negatives up to roll film width of 6cm. So I purchased the new Epson Perfection 3200 Photo which cost approximately £250 at the time.

I had made the transition from print production in the darkroom to scanning and inkjet printing a year or so before moving to large-format and, in a way, I was now even more pleased with that decision. If I was still a dedicated darkroom silver printer, then the cost of changing my LPL enlarger for one to accommodate up to 5x4 would have been a further chunk of cash to hand out!

The Final AccountPaul Gallagher

So, if I am to be honest the total cost of moving up from medium to large-format has been in the region of £3,300 and the question on everybody's lips is, "Was it worth it?". Absolutely! I relish in the slow and methodical way I now work and the way in which I allow time to think, assess and appreciate what I am trying to photograph. There is also the massive benefit of image control with camera movements and the increase in image definition and quality.

Some have asked me whether I feel that I have traded half of the quality away by not producing the prints in a darkroom and essentially completing the traditional process. I always reply by saying if over 20 years of working in darkrooms both professionally and for pleasure I thought this change from silver to ink-jet would be to the detriment of the image I visualised, or, if digital methods could not meet my standards, then I would still be in a darkroom now. I do not find this to be the case and as things stand now the combination of large-format camera loaded with sheet film, scanning and ink-jet printing are producing what I regard as a high quality print. My only piece of advice to anyone considering making the change up the formats is to consider that this process is one that renders all your reliable image production techniques null and void for a time whilst you learn from the top of the page again - and if this sounds like a lot of hassle and too much upheaval then it may not be for you.



Updated 27/04/2026 16:44:22 Last Modified: Monday, 27 April 2026