Trolley Photography

[Fred Schneider]

I've worked with 4x5 Crowns and 4x5 as well as 3 1/4 x 4 1/4 Speed
Graphic cameras over the years.  It is surprising that anyone got
perfectly sharp pictures with them as sloppy as the machining was but
they were workhorses of the newspaper industry for decades ... until the
Milwaukee paper went to 35mm about 1953 and all the other papers soon
found that small format was better.

The problems with the old Crown Graphics included 1) a rather sloppy
lens board and Hugo range finders that were easy to knock out of precise
adjustment, large sheets of film that didn't always want to lay
perfectly flat in film holders, sports finders that aimed the camera in
the general direction but covered a lot more space than the lens.  There
was no double-exposure prevention ... you insert the sliver side of the
slide in the film holder for unexposed film and the black side for
exposed film (that was a convention that everyone understood).  You can
only take as many pictures in one day as you have sheets of film with
you in loaded film holders unless you like reloading them in a changing
bag (a black, light proof bag with two sleeves into which you put your
arms and double zippers on the other end into which you put the film
holders and film boxes.  

Film developing today has been mechanized to the point all most
commercial plants can handle is 35mm C41 (Kodacolor) process. A few are
set up to handle machine processing of 35mm black and white ... like
color, it is fed through tanks at a constant speed with no room for
adjusting developing time.  A very small number of labs can do black and
white 120 film.  Sheet film?  Hang it up Mac.  Only a very small number
of high priced, custom labs will process sheets of films ... If you
asked me to do it, I would want $2.50 a sheet in multiples of six before
I would even consider it (i.e. a $15 minimum) plus postage and handling.
I suspect that is cheaper than most labs would want.  So you learn to do
it yourself ... you go out any buy four or five hard rubber or stainless
steel tanks and at least six stainless steel 4x5 cut film hangers, a
good quality thermometer, a good timer that can be used in the dark, a
bunch of brown gallon jugs.  Then you find a suitable room, seal all the
windows, build some benchwork, install a sink, drains, hot and cold
running water.  Get the picture?  

I have some very attractive 4x5 negatives but they are a lot of work.  I
should point out that I also own a 4x5 view camera with several lenses.

Do I consider 4x5 a general purpose camera?  No.  Not any more.  It is
ideal for special use because of an almost infinite variety of films
that are available ... Super XX for making internegatives from color
slides, Kodak Pro Copy for continuous-tone copy negatives, line copy
films, all sorts of stuff for special purposes.  It is a professional
tool.

I dragged a 4x5 Crown to Seattle and back one summer ... my quarry was
the Milwaukee Road.  I also had two Mamiya twin-lens reflexes and a 35mm
camera along.  I created a few very nice images on 4x5.  But I had
better over-all performance on 2 1/4 x 2 1/4 negatives from the Mamiya
C220.  I came home with some great Ektachromes too ... but I later gave
up on 2 1/4 x 2 1/4  color because of the annoyance of them not laying
flat when projected.  

If you are looking for great, sharp black and white enlargements, I
would shy away from large format cameras.  Medium format is great.
Today's lenses are supurb.  I'm sure that, between Mamiya, Bronica,
Kowa, Hassalblad, there are some absolutely top quality optics.  I was
always satisfied with the old twin-lens Mamiya reflexes (C220, C330)
because I liked the ability to make horizontal, vertical, or square
pictures without ever turning the camera.  Bill Middleton also used
medium format equipment since the 1950s ... since the 1970s he has been
working with Mamiya 645 (produces negatives about the same size as the
old 127 films, 15 exposures on a 120 roll) ... the results were some of
the sharpest negatives I've ever worked with.  Herb Harwood is using a
Mamiya 6x7 (10 exposures on a 120 roll) with produces finer grained
prints but and slightly sharper than the 6 x 4.5 cm format.

Does 4x5 have a purpose today?  Absolutely.  Much advertising and
architectural work is done on 4x5.  You will note that the Crown Graphic
has locking screws on the side of the lens board ... loosen them and you
can move the lens up and down.  If you aim the camera up at a subject,
the subject keystones (narrows toward the top).  If you hold it
perfectly level and move the lens up, that does not happen.  A view
camera allows much greater movements ... typically the front lens board
and the rear film back are mounted on a rail, they can be moved up and
down ... any way you want ... co correct or create distortion.  By
rocking the back or the lensboard, you can bring near objects (on one
side, or the bottom) and far objects (on the other side, or the top)
into focus.  You can look down on a box of Kellogg's Corn Flakes and
make the box a perfect rectangle!  Or you can stand to the right of a
building, and photograph it so that it does not appear to be narrowing
as it goes away.   The Crown has mimimal adjustments.

The Crown Graphic is also a great learning camera, for someone who
trulywants to go beyond auto-focus, auto-exposure, auto-this, auto-that.
If you master the Crown, you will also know when and why to turn off
auto features on a modern 35mm camera.  It is a camera to help you see
the picture on a ground glass first ... to compose with deliberation ...
to adjust exposure and development times sheet by sheet to get the exact
contrast range you want in a negative.  I relish all my experience with
old press cameras ... I learned one hell of a lot that most people today
will never understand.  

It is not a point-and-shoot camera.  If you are not willing to think
carefully and critically about each and every exposure ... how it is
composed, how it is focused, about depth of field, about the tonal range
of the picture, then you don't want a 4x5.  

Sermon is over.  The collection plate comes next.    

  



-----Original Message-----
From: Kenneth and Tracie Josephson [mailto:kjosephson at sprintmail.com]
Sent: Sunday, December 05, 1999 3:33 PM
To: pittsburgh-railways at dementia.org
Cc: etb-list at sfu.ca; prn-list at sfu.ca
Subject: Trolley Photography


This is off topic, but I just inherited a Crown Graflex 4 X 5 large
format camera. Is this thing good for traction photography? If so, I
would like to hear from some of you who know the best application for
this beast. Please e-mail me privately to share your experiences with
this type of camera. Ken J.