Further Large Format musings…

I did another batch of contact prints from my set of Large Format (LF) negatives last night, mainly because I wanted to do a reasonable set of prints of the ‘family portraits’ I did of my sister and her family before they emigrated to Australia. The plan is to get a set of decent prints and send them off to their new address.

Yesterday also coincided with my receiving a 5×4 negative holder from ebay (I have a plan to construct my own 5×4 enlarger, so a neg holder seemed like a good place to start). The holder itself had two detachable 5×4 ‘frames’ which looked like they may come in handy – as indeed they did. Placing two LF negatives on a sheet of 10×8 paper, I was able to use the ‘frames’ to both hold down the negative without using a sheet of glass, and to give a nice broad white border.

The addition of the broad border really makes a difference which is quite amazing. The shots themselves are not all that great unfortunately (if I were able to do them again, I would – using a lens hood etc. – but that’s the way it goes I guess).

toucan (still life #1)
However, the real revelation was my first ‘still life’. The negative scan (reflective scan, so not a great start – shown here) is flat and lacking – but the print is full of bite and detail – perhaps it’s just the physical object, but I feel that it’s a promising sign for things to come 🙂