180mm

Many photographers who were making images with medium and large format cameras switched to the 35mm format when we switched to digital. This was both to adopt some of the best, fastest advancing technology and because affording a 30K medium format digital back is just not easy. Even though the cameras we adopted are amazing in their abilities and sophistication, there is a critical difference between them and their larger format sisters. A larger sensor (or piece of film) allows a longer lens while still maintaining that same 'normal' field of view. So a 35mm camera uses a 50 mm lens to accomplish what a 180mm lens does on a 4x5. The vital difference is that the longer lens has more compression and less depth. A quality I appreciate in portraiture.

I'm still hoping for a larger sensor (not in megapixles but in physical size) - right now almost 6 by almost 4.5 is the biggest thing going. I would like a 6x8 cm sensor so I can start shooting with my Fuji GX camera again. Meanwhile Polaroid 4x5s are good diversion from shooting dSLRs

-Michael Winokur Photography

First Gowland Type 55 images

Finally I have some photos to show. The issue with going hunting around for old techniques is you have to create a whole new work-flow to accommodate old technology. In this case scanning film. There was a time when I owned three film scanners, it was a great day when I got rid of them. Scanning has a whole series of problems associated with it. The two that always caused me the most frustration were dust and color consistency between scans. In adopting the Polaroid Type 55 as a tool, I've brought those two old friends back into my life.

The Gowlandflex was ready to work with just in time for my friend's wedding in Michigan. So, we drug it and a bunch of Polaroid film through airport security - you should have seen the TSA they didn't know what to make of the Big Ass Camera. Anyway, here are some samples from that series.

Type 55 has a particularly pleasing set

of mid-tones and I love the way it
renders a blue sky with the
occasional processing mark.

Big Ass Camera

Here is a photo of the Gowlandflex so you can see why I'm calling this blog Big Ass Camera. The person shown should give you a sense of its actual size :P

Learning to work with this new tool has been a challenge. When the camera arrived I was having trouble focusing it. After a series of emails to Peter I found out how to calibrate the focus mechanism and I also discovered the focusing lens was loose in its lens board. Now that these problems are fixed I'm starting to experiment with the camera and having some success.

At the same time I have been having some fun at TechShop if you notice the top of the camera I've created an adapter to use a right angle view finder from my Fuji GX680 (the best camera I've ever used) on the Gowlandflex. This is a great solution for location photography because it means I don't need a dark cloth to see the ground glass in bright light. The adapter is my own design and the parts for it were cut out of acrylic with the TechShop laser etcher/cutter. A brilliant tool (check out Epilog).

Now that I have the camera working the way I want It's time to start making some images and I'll share those with you starting with my next post. As I said when I started writing this is about learning to work with a new camera but the blog is also about creating a new body of work with Polaroid Type 55 as a medium.