Playing With Large Format cameras

fleur0002, originally uploaded by Toby Key.

I'm experimenting with a new camera for an upcoming project. I'm quite excited by the results.

Contemporary Large Format Photographers - Links to My Favourites

 Just a short list of contemporary work that I've found inspiring recently.

I'll be adding more soon. 

Alec Soth

Greg Miller

Richard Renaldi

Dan Winters 

Kwaku Alston 
Martin Schoeller 

Fleur de Guerre

fleur0006, originally uploaded by Toby Key.

One of the final images from my last shoot with Fleur de Guerre

Saffi Karina

Saffi, originally uploaded by Toby Key.

One of my favourites from my shoots over the summer. Saffi is currently in the Littlewoods TV ads, I must ask what Colleen Rooney is like!

Plagiarism ain't what it used to be

I was going through my old negative files the other day and I stumbled across some of my first medium format negatives. After leaving college I was advised by an old friend of mine, Stephen Mayes to buy a medium format camera, as this would suit the kind of work I was doing at the time (portrait series). I'd never used medium format before but I was a big fan of the hyper-sharp low depth of field portraits that were in so many magazines at the time, and I knew if I wanted the same grainless look medium format was the only way to go.

So I set about trying to get together a system and a working metod that would get me what I want. These days it's easy to dissect someone's technique, you can just go on to flickr, find a picture shot in the style you like and read the EXIF data. There you will find what camera was used, what lens was used and at what settings. Likely the photographer has some actions or presets to sell you so you can match the colours or a workshop you can sign up to and learn all you need to know.

Things were different in 1996. There was no flickr, no exif data, and a higher value placed on trade secrets rather than just monetising your technique so that Uncle Bob can take pictures just as good as you (sort of). Instead I had to pick a medium format camera, which basically boiled down to what I could afford whilst avoiding the 6x4.5 format which was, I was reliably informed at the time the sole province of wedding photographers, and rich amateurs who like to shoot glamour at the weekends. I know this wasn't true now but there wasn't much internet back them so your sources were rather more unreliable.

Anyhow I plumped for a Pentax 6x7 because it worked just like a big SLR, although it had several shortcomings I'd have to work around as I'd discover in due course, as indeed did all the medium format cameras of the time.

Next film choice, looking through magazines I'd decided that the work I liked best seemed to be shot on slower film so I plumped for FP4 as my slower choice with Tri-X as my faster film. Of course there was no way I could know definitively what others shot, and on top of that there was even less chance I could find out how those negatives were developed, or how or on what they were printed on to.

The upshot of this is that I couldn't just ape someone else as you can today. There was much more difference between camera bodies, film (or sensors if you will), and processing. Each decision that I made had to come to through a process of trial and error and a furthering of my own photographic knowledge. Each decision also took me further from actually copying others work and more towards making choices that would ultimately help define my own style.

So next time you are tempted to buy some actions or textures stop and think, is this advancing my photographic education or simply giving me a quick fix for average pictures?

When the weather is bad...

When the weather is no good I take the opportunity to shoot indoors

My Film Kit

My Film Kit, originally uploaded by Toby Key.

This is the my film kit. Biased towards portraiture but with a wide angle lens in there to cover all the bases.

If I'm shooting film this is my standard kit for a portrait shoot. It fits into one rather heavy bag.

2 x Pentax 67's with plain prisms. I load up both and alternate between them whilst the other is being reloaded. I've used Pentax 67's for over ten years. In many ways they're very basic cameras with obvious built in shortcomings, but I like very basic equipment it really makes you think as a photographer.

105mm Takumar - a great standard lens with a lovely rendering.

165mm Pentax - The portrait lens and the one that gets the most use.

55mm Pentax - The 28mm equivalent. Probably the sharpest and best wide angle I've ever owned and sadly probably my least used lens.

Set of extension tubes - because the 67's don't focus very close compared to a 35mm camera, not because I'm a macro freak

Silver/WhiteReflector - Pentax 67's only have a 1/30th Flash sync speed so most of the time reflectors are more useful.

Heaviest tripod I can carry (currently a medium sized manfrotto with a big Gitzo head). Despite what naysayers may say on the internet I never hand hold these cameras below 1/250th of a second because of the huge internal vibrations cause by the mirror.


I tend to rate both films at +2/3 of a stop when using a handheld meter, just seems to work better for me.

Minolta Autometer IVf.
I've had this meter for years and found it very reliable and accurate. When something works for me I'm very reluctant to change it

Waist level finder - Particularly useful if you want to shoot a horizontal portrait with the 55mm wide

Polarizing Filter - I actually mainly use this as a neutral density filter if I want to cut down depth of field

Yellow/Green Filter#11 for stronger skin tones.

Spare batteries
Lens cloth and Rocket Blower.
Black insulating tape

I also carry two other bags with flash kit, but one bag at a time.


Usually around 20 rolls of film

Some more filters that I rarely use but keep in the bag anyway.

I also have a large tripod which is pretty much essentail at everything but the highest shutter speed.

Most of this I'd keep in my car usually just taking out what I needed. Pentax 6x7 cameras are heavy weighing in at 1.75 kilos with the standard lens so carrying two with spare lens and accessories gets boring really quickly.

I don't have metered prisms so I have to trust my incident meter or use a bit of common sense to get the exposure right. I tend to give everything half a stop more than the meter reading unless I'm shooting transparency. One thing I noticed with these cameras over the years is how much the quality goes down if your technique is sloppy. If you shoot them right they are more than a match for 35mm DSLR (not bad for a system that came out in 1969). Get sloppy and the quality dips more quickly than it does with digital, especially when you have the extra steps that come with film like developing and scanning. Do one shoddily and you'll be wishing you took the 5d out with you.

I rarely shoot film for paid work with film these days, but use it to shoot for myself as it doesn't feel like I'm doing my day job and because it is demanding I think it makes me better both technically and creatively.

At the moment I'm trying to shoot seriously with colour negative for the first time, something I've never done before - I've always shot transparency and black and white. I'm always trying to learn new (or should that be old) tricks.