I’ve been shooting 4x5 film for almost two years, but the pace of my photography didn’t really pick up until a year ago, when I purchased my own 4x5 camera, the Intrepid 4x5 mk III. The camera is far from perfect, but it is the only 4x5 camera (that I know of) that’s still being manufactured and sells for less than $1000. Furthermore, it’s significantly lighter than any other 4x5 field camera, making it well suited to my hiking and camping antics. Since my camera arrived, I’ve taken it on two trips to New York, one to Wyoming, and countless trips around Washington, mostly in the Cascades. While I started shooting black and white film with it, I pretty quickly switched to shooting color film, mostly C-41, which I develop myself using a Mod54 processor, as it’s so much less expensive (and faster) then sending the film to a lab for development.
My experience with 4x5 has absolutely been frustrating at times, but I keep finding myself returning to the format, which must mean I like it! It has taken some time to get the hang of various camera movements, but my biggest challenges haven’t been related to the actual taking of photos. I’ve struggled to get film out of my older Lisco Regal holders, which don’t have a depression to insert a fingernail into, making it difficult to actually get a hold on the edge of the sheet of film. More recently, I switched from using the Flextight scanner at UW to scanning negatives at home using a tracing panel and a digital camera, which is much more convenient and faster, until I started noticing strange yellow fringing on my negatives. At first, I thought this was a development issue, then I thought it was light leaks, but I finally discovered (with assistance from the folks at /r/largeformat) that it was actually a side effect of my scanning setup. Back to the Flextight until I can debug those issues further.
The Intrepid camera itself is great, although its build quality is noticeably at solid as the Toyo field camera(s) I used while I was at Cornell. I enjoy its light wight and simple, enhance-able construction, but find the rear standard to be especially prone to wiggling. The screws holding the ground glass in place were also made of very cheap metal, and I cracked the heads off of both of them while attempting to replace my ground glass. I simply glued the ground glass in place as a stop-gap, but really need to figure out a better long-term solution. I also probably ought to upgrade to a nicer ground glass, perhaps with a Fresnel lens, as my current ground glass is nearly impossibly dim, especially when using a polarizer.
Below, I’ve selected 20 or so of my favorite photos I’ve taken (so far) with the Intrepid.
