Mini Task

This morning our class was given the mini task to get into pairs and take a portrait of each other in the studio, using a large format camera. I've decided to work in a pair with my friend Marissa for this task.

What is a large format camera?
A large format camera is any camera that produces images with a format of at least 4x5 inches. The main advantage of using a large format camera, film or digital is higher resolution. 

Today when we I take pictures using the large format camera I am going to use paper instead of film. I have decided to do this as it is cheaper, costing only 30p for a sheet of paper but it would have been £1.50 for a sheet of film. 

When using the large format camera you use the bellows to adjust focus. (Bellows are the part in the middle of the camera that look slightly like an accordion.) 

On this camera there are no automatic settings it's completely manual, meaning that when I take my portrait of Marissa I will have to carefully choose my settings. 

Here is an annotated illustration of a large format camera.
This allows you to clearly see what one looks like and the different sections of the camera. 

And here are some pictures of the actual camera we used for this task from all different angles...

When I took my portraits of Marissa and Marissa took a picture of me we both  used a 5.6 f stop, bulb setting for the shutter speed, and a manual exposure of 8 seconds, but Marissa counted 10 seconds instead to see how they differed.  The next step is to develop these pictures in the dark room to see what they have come out like.

Now that they have been developed and dried I can see what they look like.
It looks like Marissa's picture of me came out better than my picture of her. This must be because she let her picture have a few more seconds exposure than mine and therefore more detail has come trough.