The Large Format Kit (as of 10/20/2004)
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Introduction
Recently, Tuan Luong posted an excellent article to www.largeformatphotography.info which described, in detail and with photos, what Tuan carries.
I found that pretty interesting, as did others. Long ago, I wrote up what I carry in this review but it's way past time for an update. Here it is.
The Pack
I have abandoned the Lowepro OmniTrekker I used to use, and now I use a Tenba PBL pack, with the insides arranged in a fairly strange way that works well for me.
I like this pack because it's reasonably capacious, fairly easy to open and close, and has a decent harness (hard to see in this photo). On the back of the pack are two large pockets, which are ok but not great for holding various stuff. I tend to use the lower pocket heavily for various stuff and the upper pocket gets used for miscellaneous cruft like extra labels, etc.
Stored in a pocket at the bottom of the pack is a rain cover. The rain cover is very useful if you're away from the car in lousy weather. Lousy weather happens rarely if you have a rain cover, and all the time if you don't.
The interior of the pack is arranged with the camera at the top and the lenses at the bottom, the reverse of what most folks do. I have to be careful not to set the pack down hard on the butt end lest I damage the lenses, but it means that access to the camera is very fast and does not require opening up the entire pack, which is nice when sand is blowing around or it's raining or misting heavily.
The camera itself (a Linhof Technikardan 45s) is laying on top of the dark hood (one of the tubular things from the View Camera Store). I like the dark hood far better than a traditional dark cloth, especially when working in wind. I don't care for weighted dark cloths; I always think that in a wind they'd become a sail with lethal weights in the corners.
Under the darkhood is the bag bellows for the camera. I use the bag bellows quite a bit of the time and it's mere coincidence that the normal bellows is on the camera - my rule is to leave whatever bellows is on the camera when I put the camera in the pack. I've had no trouble with the Linhof regular bellows getting beat up in transit.
Because the camera lives with the GG against all that soft stuff and toward the relatively protected side of the pack, I no longer use a ground glass protector. I've never broken a GG. I have a BosScreen fitted in the Linhof and carry the original Linhof GG as a spare in the car.
Likewise, the last lens used is the lens that lives in the camera, with the shutter release attached. There are several dings in the camera from the metal end of the shutter release banging around but nothing more than cosmetic damage.
The white box in the middle is a box I made from mat board which is sized just right to hold a lot of Readyloads or Quickloads - I can fit some 80 sheets of film into the box.
At the bottom of the bag, you can see four lenses in divided compartments, complete with shutter releases attached. Somewhere in that jumble is the rear cap for the lens that's mounted in the camera.
The Pack Pocket
A surprising amount of really useful stuff lives in the pack pocket. Most of this stuff lives inside the pocket in a mesh zippered section. The two things in the upper left are filter wallets, which carry the 67mm glass filters I use.
I used to carry a Lee flexible compendium but found I never used it. I now carry two lens hoods, both threaded for 67mm. One is metal, the other is flexible rubber and can be extended to be very deep. I haven't had them long enough to venture a firm opinion on using rigid lens hoods.
Next, there's a spare cable release. Why, you might ask, do I carry a spare cable release when I have a release fitted to each lens? I don't know, but it's small and light so it rides along in the pack.
Upper right, there's a large lens pen, which is great for brushing off grit that blows onto lenses or into the camera focusing rack.
Below that, there's a Brunton compass. If I'm in a place where I find the place pretty exciting, but the light sucks, I'll take a compass bearing for what I think the good sun direction might be, to see what time of day and what time of year I might profitably return. I could probably stop carrying the compass now that I wear a Suunto watch with a compass built in. Old habits die hard.
Below the compass, there's a fresh battery for the light meter I prefer. I've been out photographing and had my meter battery die more than once, so I always carry a fresh spare.
The strange looking metal thing with the Rodenstock logo upside down is one of the flat, inexpensive Rodenstock lens wrenches, used to tighten the lock rings on large format shutters to hold them tightly into the lens board. I've never had to tighten a lens in the field but that's probably because I've always had this lens wrench on hand. I have used it to tighten lenses for other photographers, who were stunned that I actually carried a lens wrench.
Above that is an allen wrench, sized to fit the screws that hold my Arca Swiss plates on the cameras.
Next, we come to the ubiquitous pen (a Pilot .5mm, if you really must know), and then my trusty, much abused and much loved Pentax Digital Spotmeter, modified by Zone VI. (for info on whether the Zone VI modifications are worth it, see here) Note that the Pentax strap has been taken off, and in it's place is a bit of webbing with a Fastex buckle. The Fastex buckle's mate is on a webbing strap which I can put over my neck as a dummy cord. Sometimes I use the strap, sometimes I don't. By having the buckle there, I can remove the strap and replace it quickly, and I can use the same strap for several pieces of equipment (for example, my GPS receivers all have buckles on them as well.)
Finally, the white thing on top of the red filter wallet is one of the delightful white Leica lens microfiber clean clothes. I like the Leica ones because they're white and show when they get dirty, and they USED to cost no more than the regular ones.
Filters
I carry ten filters - all of them are 67mm coated glass filters made by B+W. The filters live in two fabric wallets.
Starting from the top left and moving right and down, there's a red (B+W #090), then a linear polarizer. Moving over to the blue wallet, we have step up rings to mount the 67mm filters on 52mm and 49mm threads.
Next row down, we have yellow (B+W 021), yellow green (B+W 090), then in the blue wallet, a three stop ND (B+W 103 filter factor 8x) and then a six stop ND (B+W 106, filter factor 64x).
The white patch under the 52mm step up ring is a note telling me which damn step up rings fit which lenses, because I always forget. I should take a page from Kerry Thalmann's book and buy step up rings to mount permanently an all the lenses that need them.
The next row down is a deep yellow (B+W 023) and an orange (B+W 040), and then finally on the bottom, a green (B+W 061) and a blue (B+W KB12) filter.
This many glass filters is heavier than I'd like but offer great optical quality and they're darn near indestructible. I've seen resin filters totally destroyed by getting dropped on the beach - the sand scratches them instantly. In fog, gels are just not an option, and I love fog.
When weight is a concern, I tend to pick just two or three filters and leave the others behind in the car.
Lenses
I carry five lenses.
Starting from the upper left, and going clockwise, we have:
Nikkor 90mm f/8.0 - I'm not a big user of wide lenses. This is the smallest and lightest of the current crop of 90mm lenses. Significantly, it takes 67mm filters, rather than 72mm.
Rodenstock 135mm f/5.6 Apo-Sironar_S - this is one of my heavily used lenses. I love it - plenty of coverage, very small and light, great contrast, great flare resistance (see notes about my laxness with lens shades above), and very sharp.
Rodenstock 210mm f/5.6 Apo-Sironar-N. Another great lens. Why not the Schneider Apo-Symmar or the Rodenstock Apo-Sironar-S? Because both of them, while they might be a better lens than this one, require 72mm filters. Ick. And they weigh more, too.
Next, we have the Fujinon 450mm f/12.5 Fujinon-C. I don't use this lens much, but when I need it, I REALLY need it. Again, it's small, light, sharp, great contrast and flare resistance. All the other choices for 450m are honking big, really.
Last, but certainly not least, there's the Nikon 300mm f/9.0 Nikkor-M. I hate to repeat myself, but hey, it's small, light, sharp.
Vest
God, it's embarassing. I admit it, I'm one of the sartorially challenged photographers who actually uses a photo vest, with a billion pockets, straps, etc. It's ugly, it's embarassing, but it's damn useful.
I have a Domke photographers vest. Laying on top of it are the usual things I carry in the vest. At top, tied to the vest via a purple dummy cord, are a pair of reading glasses. Yes, age has caught up with me, and I can no longer focus my eyes on the damn ground glass without using reading glasses. It's a damn hassle, I tell you. These are half height readers, so at least I don't need to take'em off if I want to check something in the scene.
Tied to the other side is my loupe, and Calumet 7x focusable loupe. I find 7x just about right when using the BosScreen.
Below the loupe, there's a pile of unexposed Readyloads in the pocket. Having film accessible without opening the pack means that you don't have the open the pack to get film for each shot - and thus don't expose the pack contents to wind-blown sand or rain.
On the other side, a trusty Readyload holder. Note that film is already in the holder, ready to go. If the light is going fast, I can make one exposure quickly.
Above that, a pile of labels to seal Readyloads closed, marked for N-1, N, N+1 development. I don't use the provided 'Exposed' labels, I use these instead and thus mark the film for development at the same time I mark it exposed. Saves time!
It occurs to me now that usually the meter lives in the vest, and not in the pack. Sorry about that.
The Domke vest is good - large enough to carry film, holder, and a lens, which means that you can set your pack in a safe place, wade into a stream or out into a precarious place, and make photographs without shuttling back and forth to the pack.
If only they didn't mark you as a geek.
Camera First Aid/Spares
I don't carry it with me, but I do have it in the car - a big of stuff to fix problems.
Starting clockwise from the upper left, we have:
A Mini Maglight flashlight with lithium batteries in it. I don't use this much, I prefer the headlamp which lives in the car all the time.
A Sekonic L-508 meter. I used to use this as the backup for my Pentax, and it still goes along for the ride.
A Toyo 4x long barreled loupe - this is the backup for the Calumet attached to the vest, and also gets used in cold or humid weather when my breath fogs the GG - the long barrel reduces fogging.
A spare Readyload holder - this one is an older version IIII two sided holder. On top of the meter is a small set of jeweler's screwdrivers.
A unmodified Pentax Digital spotmeter, the REAL backup for the Zone VI modified Pentax I use as my main meter. Yes, I do take three meters with me. No, I probably don't really need three.
A set of Allen wrenches, metric. Once I needed metric allen wrenches, and there was not a set for sale anywhere close to where I was.
A regular Leatherman combo tool.
A wrench that fits the nuts on my Gitzo tripod
A real lens wrench, this one made for me by Steve Grimes, the late and greatly missed Camera Machinist. It's easily the best lens wrench ever made, bar none.
Two AA batteries, to fit the headlamp (not shown) and the Sekonic meter.
A small lenspen, a spare pen, and yet another spare meter battery for the Pentax meters.
All this stuff lives in a zippered soft fabric case which goes into the car.
Film carriers and Tripod
Ok, I like Readyloads, but I also use both regular holders and Grafmatics when I'm working from the car. Transporting film is a hassle, because you want the film/holders protected. I carry film and holders in extra tall 50 caliber US Military surplus ammo cans, painted white to reflect the sun.
I have one can for Readyloads, one can for regular holders, one can for Grafmatics. The cans are heavy but indestructible, and water and air tight. They seal positively, they don't look particularly valuable (important since they stay in the car), and best of all, they cost me about 7 bucks apiece, plus the cost of painting them white. I buy them from Cheaper than Dirt (www.cheaperthandirt.com); the only downside that that now I get lots of junk mail from companies selling ammo, guns, knives, MRE's, and other survivalist gear.
To the right is my trusty tripod, a Gitzo Carbon Fiber 1348 with four section legs, and an Arca-Swiss B1 ballhead on top. My backup tripod, a Bogen 3221 with a Linhof Profi II head, is not shown because it's in the back of my car right now.
The four section legset is not the popular choice, but I like it because with only three sections, the tripod is exactly the right height for me, and with only three sections extended, it's extra rigid (I leave the slimmest section not extended).
Best of all, having that fourth section makes setting up on a slope, or in a ditch or uneven area (think stream bed) a snap, because I can extend the downslope leg and get the tripod level and stable without being forced to crouch to use the camera.
Finally, here's a photo of the interior of the film cans. On the left, we have the grafmatics (8 of them, at six sheets of film each, the can contains 48 sheets of film ready to go). In the middle, a pile of regular holders, all unexposed (19 holders, 38 sheets of film). Finally, on the right, we have four envelopes full of Readyloads, at the top of the photo you can make out the black fabric cases for the two single sheet readyload holders I have - one lives in the vest or pack, and one lives here in the film can as a spare. I can fit eight envelopes of Readyloads in the can, for a total of 160 sheets of film). Why so much film? I regularly make two exposures from every setup, so I use twice as much film.
I should probably line the grafmatic and regular holder cans with foam, to keep the contents from clanking around like mad.