Large Format? THIS is Large Format

I'd really like to see the tripod!

 

https://scontent-iad3-1.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t31.0-8/21994023_1719481618064562_6828393964200170003_o.jpg?oh=5fd6bd2c41be5c192e4b0951610b47ff&oe=5A4BC608

Mine's bigger than yours !

The World’s Largest Photo, Taken with the World’s Largest Camera

 

Jim

Mine's bigger than yours !

The World’s Largest Photo, Taken with the World’s Largest Camera

 

Jim

I saw that one a while ago, but mine would be great for street work.

I can just imagine the stealth factor! Would 10k people with their cell phones equal the neg area of that camera??

Long before they had enlargers if you wanted a large print you used a large camera. This one was used to take a photo of a train locomotive::

 

http://jdainis.com/bigcam1.jpg

F/256 and be there?

I'd really like to see the tripod!

 

https://scontent-iad3-1.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t31.0-8/21994023_1719481618064562_6828393964200170003_o.jpg?oh=5fd6bd2c41be5c192e4b0951610b47ff&oe=5A4BC608

I dunno. That thing is probably 24" x 30", not that large in the scheme of things.

 

I was just looking at a lens catalog from 1908. Don't ask. The largest format mentioned in it is 120 x 160. That's in centimeters. Twice as large in each dimension as that tiny little thing that takes two to carry.

I think it's an early copy camera for half-tone plate production. Hence the double bellows to get a high RR.

 

I can beat it on size. I once had charge of a 20" x 24" Littlejohn copy camera. It took up two rooms. The lens, bellows and copy board rode on rails in a 30 foot long copy room, while the film back was in a permanent darkroom. The film was sucked flat onto a vacuum platen that sounded like a jet engine in the enclosed darkroom. Maximum frame rate was about 10 an hour - that's if focus and RR didn't need adjusting!

 

BTW, that hangar camera looked like a lot of trouble to produce a big smudge.

Edited September 30, 2017 by rodeo_joe|1

too late to see the OP's image (expired), but here is a 19th c candidate for largest camera and negative:

 

Universal Cyclopedia

.....and then enlarging was invented!

Back around 2008, they renovated the 1930s building in my home town known as the "old State office building." It's a ~13 story art deco beauty. In any case, one of the things that was "free for the taking" was the a couple of ULF cameras(maybe 20x24, maybe larger) that had been used for aerial photography and the associated processing and enlarging equipment located on the top floor. The only caveat was "Come and get it" along with "bring your helicopter" as there was no way to even disassemble it to the point where you get it out otherwise. I think it ended up being scrapped.

 

When my aunt and uncle first went into the printing business around '97, I remember them having a copy camera. I think they could handle up to 11x14 in their press, so it would have been a size presumably a bit bigger than that. They went to direct-to-plate as soon as it was financially viable for them to do so. My aunt sold the business at the end of the year, and the new owner ditched litho completely. Still, though, I was talking to her not too long ago(November) and she said they still had film on file from older jobs and if they had a request for a decent sized reprint from one of those, they'd burn a plate from the film. According to her "the plates we burn from film last a lot longer than the direct from digital ones."

According to her "the plates we burn from film last a lot longer than the direct from digital ones."

 

- That would presumably be the difference between resist-coated and etched aluminium plates, and direct exposure photo-polymer ones. Not really surprising that metal outlasts a loosely polymerised plastic, but printing plates are a temporary intermediate though, surely?

 

- That would presumably be the difference between resist-coated and etched aluminium plates, and direct exposure photo-polymer ones. Not really surprising that metal outlasts a loosely polymerised plastic, but printing plates are a temporary intermediate though, surely?

 

They are, but for them it comes down(or came down) to the job size. If they needed ~20K impressions, a direct to digital plate would last plenty long. If they needed ~100K impressions in a run and could get that from a plate from film, it made a lot more sense than having to remake the D-to-D plate a couple of times.

I miss the old days of rush circuit board design when we'd do a tape-up on Mylar, drive it over to the repro house where they'd shoot it on the big camera, process it while we waited, then we'd drive the negs to the local circuit board house. If we paid a premium they'd work through the night and we'd pick up the finished circuit boards the next morning. It was fast and expensive, but today we can get a circuit board out of China, or even a local house, in a day or three for peanuts. I still have one of those big copy lenses in my stash somewhere.