James G. Dainis

Rick, I have to agree with Gary. The ones you developed in PMK Pyro had a much more silvery look to the grays.

Glass plate cameras would seem to be the answer to film bulge. No fancy-shmancy digital camera needed. I believe that up into the 1930s they were much more in use than one would expect. Old mystery books that I read often have the bad guy breaking the glass plate negatives that a detective had taken. The photos taken of the Cottingley fairies were taken by children using a glass plate camera in 1917. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cottingley_Fairies

"Expose for the shadows, develop for the highlights" (the Zone System) is good for individual large format films or 35mm film that is shot when the scenes all have the same range contrasts. Underdeveloping a frame that has a high contrast range will work well but if the next frame was shot of a low contrast range then the highlights will be very low resulting in a flat negative; good blacks, dark gray highlights. That last frame would have called for overdevelopment to brighten up the highlights but then the previous frame would have blown highlights.

I wonder if this is the same as determining max black exposure time for developing the paper. Place a blank (to account for film density) negative in the enlarger. Set the lens aperture to say, f-11. Place the photo paper on the easel covered with a cardboard. Turn on the enlarger and move the cardboard down about 1/2 inch per second. When the paper has been fully exposed develop the paper. If you see that maximum black was achieved at, say, 14 seconds (15 sec, 16 sec, 17 sec are all equally dark) then you know the desired printer setting for that film. All of the same films should be developed at f/11, 14 seconds. If a print comes out too light then the film was over exposed; if a print comes out too dark then the film was underexposed.

Here is a photo of me on my front porch: The camera meter exposed well for the background. In real life you would recognize my facial features easily enough but the camera just does not have more than 10 stops of latitude compared to the human eye/brain range. You would have to take a meter reading of my face and then open up one stop to get a good exposure of my face, but then the background would be greatly overexposed appearing almost white. You would have to learn how to use fill flash in a situation like this or else delve into The Zone system of development i.e. expose for the shadows, develop for the highlights. Ask you instructor about that.

rick_drawbridge, I bet if Ansel Adams was still alive he would be calling you and asking for advice.

If you actually use the film I don't think it could be called hoarding.

Most photos today are taken on cell phones. Dinner arrives and someone has to take a photo of the food to send to cousin Mary. Few people carried film cameras all the time and would not waste film on a shot of food and wait for the film to be developed before sending the photo to cousin Mary.

Ansel Adams, Dorothea Lange, Edward Steichen were good but our own rick_drawbridge does much finer work.

Wow. That camera takes some great pictures.

The famous nude calendar photo of Marilyn Monroe was shot on 8x10 inch Kodachrome. I wonder how that would look projected.

I would make up some Cibachrome contact prints from my 8 x10 inch Ektachrome film. I loved the shiny plastic like surface of the Cibachromes. I had a method to print the Cibs at room temperature but I forget how I used to do that. It was quite a long way back when I did that.

Rick. I no longer do darkroom work. If I did I would have to try that PMKPyro. to see if I could get such rich tones. The tones you show in "Solstice #1" above rival, if not exceed, anything I have ever seen by Ansel Adams.

I thought the OP's question was referring to a projected image of the sensor capture. With a 300mm lens on an 8x10 view camera a photo capture of a house may show the entire house with six windows, each one of which is 36mm on the negative. With the 300 mm lens on an SLR there would only be one window on the film frame and it would be 36mm high. Ergo there is no enlargement because of the different film sizes (or sensor) used, but there is a big difference in the photo produced. . I thought that was what the OP was asking about, if there would be a difference in a same size photo not in the sensor capture.

So if an 8x10 inch photo were made from each the lighthouse would be the same size on each 8x10 photo?

"Exceptions are giant film sizes used to display. Kodak displayed a giant 18 by 60 foot “Colorama” at Grand Central Station New York for more than 40 years." I would have like to see the camera that took that photo.

If you load one film on top of another film do the streaks line up over each other?

Cinematograper Gordon Willis (The Godfather, Manhattan, etc.) became celebrated for his ability to use shadow and underexposed film with a "subtlety and expressivity previously unknown on color film stock". Cinematographer Conrad Hall, named him "The Prince of Darkness" He would vary from brightly lit outdoor scenes to darker indoor scenes. He insisted on having the realativity of variance. I guess that could work with still photograhy as well.

I never saw so many black shadows on people's faces.

Anytime I look for a tintype camera I just see ordinary 4x5 cameras and film holders. I don't see the real button tintype street camera as shown above.A tintype camera for street use had a long roll of tintype inside. When an exposure was made a guillotine would cut off the exposed section and it would drop down into the developer. After a few minutes the tintype would be given a quick wash and handed to the client. Note: doing a quick search reveals that the photographer had a separate container of fixer that he would use after removing the tintype from the camera mounted developer tank.

An ambrotype is made by laying an underexposed or thin negative on a black background. I have a few underexposed film negatives (doesn't everyone?) and if I place them on a black background they look like positives. The #1 photo looks like it had been overexposed so it is letting less of the black background through making the photo appear too light all over. The #2 photo looks good, there is some hair highlight but the lighting of the face seems to be poor. There should be more light added to the left side. Maybe with a reflector card. I do have several ambrotypes and tintypes and to me the tonal qualities look about the same. If you prefer the results you get with (aluminum) tintypes I would stick with that. In the early part of the previous century street photographer would wander the streets with a pony and a tintype camera. Children would beg their parents to have their photo taken sitting on the pony. It seemed the tintype could be developed in camera, given a quick wash and handed to the proud child. I often toyed with the idea of getting a camera like that and going to Civil War reenactments. I bet I could have sold dozens upon dozens of "instant ancester" tintypes to the reenactors.

Adjusting the contrast in photo editing gets a result that could more or less be achieved by Zone system development. Or at least I think so. My guess is you are not using the correct development time for the exposure that you use.

The flesh tones in the #1 photo look good, about evenly balanced on both sides of the face. There are nice highlights in the hair. If you could darken in the hair dark areas and leave the hair highlights as they are that would make for a well balanced photo. The answer in film photography is to increase the development time to increase contrast. (Known as the Zone system.) Since an ambrotype is developed to a positive image, I believe that increasing the development time would increase the contrast, making the darks darker and leaving highlights where they are. That would have greatly improved the #1 photo.

The first photo makes it look like the bulb is very close to, almost touching the glass. The second photo shows that the unit is much taller and the bulb would be much further down from the glass. The white interior would help disperse the bulb glow more evenly, Comparing the red lid to the size of the hand on the front of the unit makes it look like it would take 620/120 film.

At the top on one story they show a Mamiyaflex but I think that was just a filler. Other stories mention an antique digital camera.I guess looking at a black box with dials on the outside could make an idiot think on a bomb. So the woman who started all this was okay to just walk away free but the innocent photographer left only alter finally not being "charged"?