Friday, August 21, 2015

5x7 Film

One of the reasons I bought my Linhof 5x7 a while back was because of my large stock of 5x7 Tri-x I got off eBay at a discount several years back. In fact I ended up buying 2 different large outdated or almost outdated film back round 2010 and 2013. The hope was that in the future I would be able to do large format portraiture in Asia. At the time I bought the film I had shot very little large format work in available light. That has now changed as I did the 4x5 work in Klong Toey a few years back and now feel more comfortable. I will be moving up in format this trip to 5x7, the goal being to eventually shoot my stock of $4000 CAD or so of 8x10 film in the same way. Available light portraits in South East Asia. First thou there is the matter of the using up all the 5x7 film.

I have been looking at my stocks of 5x7 in my freezers and have found outdated versions in 2009, 2012 and 2013. I will try to take 8-10 boxes of 50 sheet 2009 Tri-x this coming trip. The other newer versions of the film (less outdated) can wait frozen for future use.

Today I loaded up a bunch of 2009 to check it out. I am testing all plastic film holders for fogging and also the film for fogging. Am no anticipating any difficulties as I have shot the 2009 versions of the film before without issue.

Once I get the film holders tested and the film tested, all I need to do is play a bit with the 2 lens, the 210 and the 120 to see which I prefer for portraits. Things are coming around nicely.