Graflex.org

[Dan.Stanger]

My wife shoots event photos, and is invited
to a trail ride where she will sell the
photos she takes to the subjects.
She may also want to make enlargments of
them.
I have 2 questions:
1) If she shoots 4x5 size film, can it
be copied and enlarged to 8x10 with say 35mm
quality?
2) Is there a press type camera,
(as opposed to a view camera) that
may be rentable in the Boston, MA area that
takes 4x5 polaroid film?

[Nick]

Doesn't one of the polaroid films produce a negative in addition to the print? If so you should be able to get much better then 35mm quality.

[t.r.sanford]

If you start with a good Polaroid print and work carefully, you might get a copy negative you could enlarge to 8x10. Polaroid used to offer this service, if you wanted enlargements from prints you'd made with its film. This would be a lot easier with black & white than with color print film.

Concerning equipment, a press or view camera would be used with an adapter that takes Polaroid film. Adapters are of three kinds. One accepts single sheets of film in paper sheaths (Type 52, e.g., a 400-speed B&W material). These adapters are the old "500" and later "545" and its variants. The second kind uses readily-available 3x4 filmpacks; it is called the "405." The third kind uses harder-to-find (but still available) 4x5 filmpacks, and is called the "550." This would be my choice for your application, if I could get the film I wanted. The "545" family will work with traditional spring backs, like the "Graphic," or on the "Graflok" back.

Polaroid films designed to yield a negative end in -5, e.g. "Type 55" (surnamed "P/N" for "Positive/Negative"). You peel away the print for immediate enjoyment, then immerse the film support in sodium sulfite solution and wash it (or store it in water until you can wash it). The negative can be very good. The material is rather slow.

There is a way to treat the film support from other Polaroid B&W materials for use as a negative. I've seen it done, but I don't know how it's done.

[Jack5541]

[RichS]

All the stores mentioned are good ones and I believe Calumet does do rentals.

I would suggest renting and trying before the trip though. Polaroids need very good exposures. They're about as picky as slide film... And color Polaroids are not for everyone and even pickier, very often needing filtering to look right.

The Type 55 P/N produces probably the best negative you can get on 4x5 in B&W. But you won't get a print and negative out of the same shot. They have different speeds. So that would mean two shots, oone for the print and one for the negative...

Enlarging a Polaroid is easy. Any good photo store would be able to do the work. Or you could simply use a drug store kodak Kiosk and get enlargments on the spot. I don't know about the quality though. Polaroid prints are not as sharp as a print from a negative!

I think the bottom line would be to rent the equipment for a weekend and do some testing...


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[t.r.sanford]

An interesting point! Does anyone know of a small scanner, probably designed for 3R or 4R color prints, with resolution sufficient to permit using the scans for 8x10 prints?

"Polacolor" materials (like the slow slide films of my youth) certainly require veryaccurate exposure, but they yield beautiful saturated colors, somewhat reminiscent of "Cibachrome."

Obviously, some superfine detail is lost in the diffusion transfer process, but I think the prints are plenty sharp to withstand 2X enlargement. The trick is maintaining color balance in the copying process, and digitizing the print would provide a solution to that.