Fuji Instax Meets 4x5 | The Lomograflok Instant Back

Fujifilm’s line of instant film, known as Instax, is all the rage these days. Introduced in 1998, Instax film stuck around while Polaroid died a slow death beginning in the early 2000s. And in an age of digital photography and camera sensors which can resolve an insane amount of detail, there’s still a certain thrill that comes along with watching a color print develop right before your eyes.

Some exciting things are happening in the world of film, from Pentax announcing the development of a new film camera to Fujifilm investing millions towards new film production at their factories outside Tokyo, Japan. Fuji even released my favorite 100 ISO black and white film, Across 100, in 120 format within recent years. Now if only they’d release it in 4x5…

Now instant film is fun and all, but the current line of Instax cameras just can’t satisfy my obsessiveness over controlling every aspect of the image-making process. Instax cameras are geared towards the casual photographer, and most models offer only the most basic exposure controls. But what if you want to push the film to the max with camera movements, varying depth of field, or off-camera flash? Clearly somebody else at Lomography had the same idea because they created this nifty attachment called the Lomograflok. If you happen to have a 4x5 camera laying around with Graflok tabs then you’re in luck!

Through the magic of the Graflok attachment system, you can easily shoot Instax images using your large format camera. Simply add a pack of Instax Wide film, throw in some AA batteries, and you’re on your way to instant color prints. Just don’t forget to bring a dark cloth with you like I did… you’ll still need it!

Sample Instax Images

NIkon 150mm @ f/32, 1/250 sec.

I’ll preface this review by saying that if you’re after absolute image quality, Instax will leave you disappointed. You won’t be blowing up an Instax shot to 200% in Lightroom to check for critical sharpness, and the prints are actually quite frustrating to scan/edit. Instax film resolves 10 lines/mm at best - for reference, Kodak T-Max 400 can resolve 10x the detail in B&W. Shooting Instax on 4x5 is just a fun, fast way to get a color image in the field. The images I took looked nothing like the advertising images you’ll see on Fuji’s website.

If you put technical details aside and focus on the fun then I’d say the Lomograflok back is a worthwhile purchase. Shooting Instax isn’t much more expensive than shooting 4x5 film at about $1 per exposure. As an added bonus, there’s no need to send any color film off for development if you’re like me and don’t shoot enough C41 or E6 to justify keeping color chemistry on-hand. You also avoid the tragedy of the USPS losing your exposed 4x5 Ektachrome in the mail… ask me how I know what that feels like.

The Lomograflok itself is a neat little device, and I feel the build quality matches the $175 price tag. To start making prints, you first compose your image using the ground glass and a special mask that’s provided with the Lomograflok back. The final image only takes up a portion of the 4x5 ground glass, and the mask also helps align your point of focus to the Lomograflok’s recessed film plane. Instax film comes in three sizes: Mini, Square, and Wide. The Lomograflok back uses Instax Wide film with an ISO of 800 that produces a picture of 4.3 in. × 3.4 in. in size.

Once you’ve squared away the composition and focus, you’re ready to install the Lomograflok back on the camera. Remove the ground glass and attach the Lomograflok with the locking tabs of the Graflok system, making sure the locking tabs are fully engaged. Next, open the back of the Lomograflok and pop an Instax cartridge in. Just like you would with a typical film holder, you’ll set the lens aperture/shutter speed, remove the dark slide, and make an exposure. Pressing the eject button spits out your image as small rollers in the back squeeze out development chemicals over the film. Within 90 seconds you’ll be able to see the results of your work!

Every pack of film gives you 10 exposures, which I found was just the right amount for a weekend of shooting. You’ll also need 4x AA batteries, and my Enloop rechargeables lasted me both packs of film I had on hand.

So what have I learned over my first 2 packs of Instax Wide film shot with the Lomograflok? Here’s some struggles I faced and tips I learned along the way:

  • Out of my first 10 shots, I had 6 successful images. I lost two by reason of over exposure, one to poor framing, and another to poor composition (completely my fault). Incident metering with my Sekonic L-508 seemed to produce more consistent results than reflective metering.

    • While Instax film is rated ISO 800, I recommend underexposing about 1/3 of a stop to protect highlight details. Crushed shadows look better than blown highlights with this film. It’s incredibly easy to end up with a completely white sky if you aren’t careful.

  • While Instax film develops in 90 seconds, I found it takes another few minutes for blacks to fully develop. Contrast vastly improves with time.

  • The high ISO of Instax film poses significant challenges with the comparatively slow shutter speeds that large format Copal shutters are capable of. Copal 0 shutters are capable of 1/500 sec. speeds while Copal 1s max out at 1/125 sec. The image of a sign post you see above was actually overexposed at 1/125 sec. and f/64, but that’s the best I could do without an ND filter. My Nikon 270mm f/5.6 just ran out of shutter speed and aperture to cut out the bright sunlight. Luckily the film is so low-resolution that diffraction really isn’t noticeable.

  • Be extremely careful with close subjects and leave a little room for unintentional cropping around your subject. The shot I lost to poor framing which looked right on the ground glass but was cropped tighter than intended.

Hopefully some of the information above and sample images here have helped you decide whether the Lomograflok is for you. The limitation of ISO 800 speed film, narrow dynamic range, and relatively slow shutter speeds inherent to large format is really the only thing that makes me second-guess the Lomograflok. Looking past the technical aspect, I think the fun of shooting Instax outweighs the technical difficulties of adapting it to a format for which it was never intended.

NIkon 270mm @ f/36, 1/125 sec.

Abenaki Indian Shop & Camp

Abenaki Indian Shop (circa 1900) as a Conway Scenic Railroad train heads toward Conway, NH.

Nestled in the woods next to the former Intervale, NH train station is the Abenaki Indian Shop and Camp. Preserved in 1989 and added to the National Register of Historic Places, the site is significant to both the history of the Abenaki people and the tourism that built the White Mountains region. Joseph Laurent, chief of the Abenaki and an entrepreneur, established the store and camp in 1884 to bring his people back to the region and generate income for the Abenaki tribe. Traditionally ranging from Maine to Vermont, the Abenaki were pushed northward to the current-day Odanak reservation in Quebec, Canada starting around 1660. Chief Laurent returned to the Intervale area and hashed out a mutually beneficial deal with a local hotelier, leasing land and drawing tourists to the area who would purchase ash-split baskets and other handicraft made by the Abenaki craftsmen who lived there seasonally.

The most visible element of the site, a yellow-trimmed shed which stands opposite the station platform, was the first of seven buildings which made up the camp. The shed changed hands multiple times, purchased from the Maine Central Railroad some time before 1900. The railroad used the shed to store a handcar and other tools for track maintenance. The Laurent family eventually added a sun porch to the shed between 1940 and the 1960s, expanding the overall retail space available. As of summer 2023, the shop and other buildings which remain stand in various states of decay, boarded up and nailed shut to keep out vandals. Based on my observations, the shop is in the best shape and would have the greatest chance of restoration into a miniature museum or some alternate use.

Cabin (circa 1884-1910) and residence of Stephen Laurent. The kitchen cabin and Cabin D, closely associated with Emanuel Laurent, stand opposite.

Set back in the forest, a total of three buildings remain of the six total (excluding the purchased shed) which Chief Joseph Laurent built at the camp between 1884 and 1910. These buildings are all residential in nature, as the basket storage shed and another cabin were destroyed some time before 1989 when the National Register of Historic Places paperwork was prepared. A contingent of 12-18 Abenaki men would travel to Intervale each summer from Odanak, living on-site for the season. Stephen Laurent’s cabin, son and successor of Chief Laurent, looks to be in the best shape with only minor vandalism visible from the exterior. The camp’s kitchen, centrally located and looking somewhat like a barn, is the largest building left. Meals were prepared there for the whole community, though cooking was done outdoors as well.

The Mount Washington Hotel, one of the tourist attractions which drew visitors to the White Mountains and spurred growth in Intervale.

A granite stone with a plaque presented to mark the township’s acquisition of the property in 1985. The site would be listed on the National Historic Register in 1991.

The last remaining cabin stands to the left of the camp’s kitchen. This cabin is 1 1/2 stories like the others, but looks to be in an advanced state of decay with plywood patching what must be a gaping hole in the rear left corner. Stephen Laurent, expanded the site to include a model Indian village which featured a wigwam and an authentic totem pole, dismantled in 1982.

At the peak of production, baskets and other handicraft would be made over the winter in Canada and toted to the US for sale. The booming tourist business, driven by opulent hotels like the Mount Washington Hotel, set up a steady stream of customers for authentic Abenaki goods. Beyond the shop, baskets were also sold on consignment at local hotels. Other Abenaki camps were established during the summers from the White Mountains to the Adirondacks, but none were as permanent as the Laurent family’s camp.

Chief Joseph Laurent operated the shop and camp for over 30 years until his death in 1917. Beyond his contributions to the Intervale area, Chief Laurent also published a crucial Abenaki to English dictionary which helped to preserve the Abenaki language in 1884, the same year he established the camp in Intervale. His widow continued to operate the business until 1960, when their son Stephen took things over. In 1985 the property on which the camp sat was gifted to Conway Township, who maintains the interpretive signs and historic structures. Clearly revered by the community even after his death, it was reported that 500 people showed up to the unveiling of an honorary plaque dedicated to Chief Laurent by his children in 1953.

Plaque donated in memory of Chief Joseph Laurent by his children, situated to the right of the old Abenaki shop. 500 people attended the dedication ceremony in 1959.

Looking North East down the railroad tracks towards Mount Washington from the former Intervale railroad station opposite the camp.

USS Recruit TDE-1

Just to the West of San Diego International Airport was once a large US Naval Training Center named Naval Training Station San Diego, known today post-redevelopment as Liberty Station. Scrolling over a satellite view of the formal naval base, one peculiar structure sticks out - what looks to be a Navy ship, somehow sailing on land? Affectionately nicknamed the USS Neversail for its lack of propeller or driveshaft, USS Recruit was built at the tail end of WWII to train recruits on naval customs and tradition before they set sail on a real ship. Commissioned, decommissioned, and recommissioned in 1982, TDE-1 USS Recruit had a hand in the training of naval recruits from WWII through the Gulf War, serving until Naval Training Station San Diego’s closure in 1997.

I was surprised by just how large the ship is when I walked alongside it. Originally designed as a 2/3 scale model of a WWII destroyer escort, she was reconfigured in 1982 as an Oliver Hazard Perry class frigate. This added the requisite CAS antenna and single OTO Melara 76 mm gun mounted forward which can still be viewed today. I can’t say I’ve ever walked alongside a real US Navy frigate before, but I can easily imagine just how large they are based on this model.

Believe it or not, the USS Recruit wasn’t the Navy’s first attempt at a land-bound ship. The first USS Recruit was constructed in 1917 in New York City’s Union Square as a recruiting tool to drum up enlistments for WWI. A fully rigged battleship, the original USS Recruit helped bring 25,000 sailors to the war effort. The 1917 USS Recruit featured a full compliment of six 14-inch guns and ten 5-inch casemate guns, all recreated from wood. Another landlocked ship, the USS Trayer, is still in use at Recruit Training Command on the Great Lakes in Illinois.

From afar, the starboard side of the ship looks pretty convincing if you can ignore the fact it isn’t afloat! The port side of the ship reveals USS Recruit’s dual purpose as a classroom and model, as six sets of doors are cut into the hull for ease of entry. Within the windowless hull were six classrooms to compliment the array of naval equipment used to train recruits topside. The little details like anchors, hatches, and radar equipment on the mast all match what you’d expect to see if you were sailing the high seas on a ship like the USS Samuel B. Roberts, another Oliver Hazard Perry class frigate. The ship remains in stasis today, maintained but not open to visitors. The USS Midway Museum is involved in the maintenance of the ship, and the landscaping which surrounds it is very well-kept. There isn’t an immediate plan to open the ship to tours that I know of, so for now we’ll just have to be satisfied with admiring this naval oddity from the outside.

The Ohio State Reformatory

The Ohio State Reformatory, an infamous prison and filming location of The Shawshank Redemption, is now a tourist destination which allows you to walk the cell blocks and get a glimpse of life behind bars for the thousands of inmates that once called Mansfield, Ohio home. The prison is imposing, designed by the architect Levi T. Scofield (who also designed the Athens Lunatic Asylum) and had an initial capacity for 1,500 inmates. While immortalized in The Shawshank Redemption as a maximum security prison, the Ohio State Reformatory was initially an intermediary facility intended to bridge the gap between the Boys Industrial School and the State Penitentiary in Columbus, Ohio. Only intended to house young, first-time offenders, the inhumane conditions that existed in the prison were enough to cause a federal judge to order its closure in 1983.

Starting in the administration block, the self guided tour route snakes through the various cell blocks and inner workings of the prison. In typical early 1900s institutional design fashion, a degree of ornamentation was included in the design of the trim, banisters, and other woodwork. One eye-catching architectural detail of the prison are the numerous fireproof staircases, which can be found throughout the administrative and cell blocks. These staircases imitate ornate wooden varieties, but are constructed of steel to maintain structural integrity during a fire. This also allowed the exclusion of unsightly fire escapes from the facade.

Despite these fireproof staircases, the prison still suffered a deadly fire on April 21, 1930. 322 inmates were killed when guards refused to open the cell doors of the burning sell block, trapping inmates in their 7x9 foot cells. Some prisoners who escaped were able to wrestle keys from the guards and run back into the prison, saving a number of those inmates who were otherwise left for dead. Built for 1,500 inmates and completed in 1910 (construction was delayed from the start in 1896 by the Bearing financial crisis), the prison held 4,300 at the time of the fire.

Sections of the administration block remain unrestored, but some rooms filmed in The Shawshank Redemption were left as-is by the production crew. There’s still plenty of peeling paint and crumbling plaster to see, but the Mansfield Reformatory Preservation Society has done a good job of stabilizing the buildings and preventing further degradation. Moving onto the cell blocks, it’s almost impossible to understand just how tiny each cell is without seeing for yourself. Stacked six stories high, sleeping one on top of the other, two adult inmates would share a cell designed for adolescents which included a toilet, small sink, and mirror. Gang-type showers were located just off each cell block.

Like many institutions of the day, the prison functioned like a walled city - food was prepared on-site, a small hospital provided a minimum standard of care, and a library gave inmates the opportunity to learn. Job training programs played an important role in the prison, and the land was farmed to provide fresh food for the kitchens. Most of the outbuildings that supported the prison were leveled when the modern Mansfield Correctional Institution opened as a minimum/medium security prison in 1990. Delays in construction of Richland Correctional pushed the court-ordered closure of the reformatory back from 1983 to 1990.

The Victor Talking Machine Company

Despite all the time I spend researching, reading, and digging up new leads, I’m always excited when a bit of interesting history just falls into my lap. With some time to kill in Camden, NJ before the Battleship New Jersey opened, I decided to walk around the city and take in the sights. As I wandered through downtown, I was surprised to find a building with “VICTOR TALKING MACHINE COMPANY” engraved above the main entrance. An abandoned warehouse sat diagonal to the what must’ve been the central office building, and another warehouse-like structure nearby (the defunct cabinet factory) had the trademark stained glass image of “His Master’s Voice” featuring Nipper, mascot of the company, prominently featured atop a central tower. I had my D850 and Nikon PC-E (tilt-shift) lenses with me for the battleship, so I took advantage of the nice skies and decided to shoot first then research later.

As it turns out, Camden was once the Mecca of phonograph production in the United States. Eldridge R. Johnson of Victor owned the patents to several key technologies needed to manufacture phonographs, which gave the company an edge over their competitors. The design of the lateral cut shellac record, patented by Emile Berliner of Victor, improved on Thomas Edison’s wax cylinders (invented 10 years earlier) by drastically simplifying the manufacture of playback media. The company started out making tabletop phonographs, but there were many competitors in this product category. Constantly embattled in expensive  patent infringement lawsuits, Victor looked to a new product named the “Victrola” to bolster sales. Priced at $200 in 1906, the Victrola took the best Victor tabletop phonograph and flipped it on its head - literally. The unsightly horn, at this time a massive size to improve volume and sound quality, was flipped upside down in a wooden cabinet. The unsightly apparatus of the phonograph could now be hidden in a stylish cabinet that looked at home in the most elegant parlors of neighborhood socialites.

The Victrola catapulted the Victor Talking Machine Company to success. Carpentry shops were added to the Camden factory to churn out Victrola cabinets by the thousands. Floor standing models proved most popular for Victor, and several low cost options were introduced to the market in 1911. The factories in Camden produced 500,000 Victrolas annually by 1917, and an electric motor variant was introduced in 1913. The hand cranked models remained most popular through the 1920s as adoption of that remarkable technology known as electricity slowly entered American homes. Along with electricity came the next evolution of home audio, which would eventually destroy the Victor Talking Machine Company - radio. Radio broadcasts meant no more pesky records, better sound quality, and endless variety which were just some of the selling points that made radio more attractive to the average consumer.

Victor’s balance sheets drowned in surplus inventory, with thousands of machines crowding warehouses when a literal fire sale was held at Victrola dealers in 1925. Near-worthless Victrolas were burned as consumers traded them in for radios, and remaining inventory was sold at 50% of list price or shipped to South American distributors. The explosive growth of the Camden, NJ factories ground to halt, but by this time the factories sprawled over many city blocks. If you look closely at the postcard above, you’ll be able to pick out the buildings in this post as they were in the 1920s.

Despite the sale of improved acoustic phonographs and phonograph/radio combination units, the end was near in 1925. The company’s stock was worthless, and audio technology had moved past the Victrola’s acoustic amplification technology. More affordable electronically amplified phonographs allowed for volume control beyond the basic “doors open or closed” method offered by the acoustic phonograph, a massive improvement for the average consumer. Volume control was such a problem before electronic amplification that we were given the phrase “put a sock in it” - referring to the act of stuffing a sock down the phonograph’s horn to lower the volume.

The Victor Talking Machine Company, makers of the famous Victrola, operated from 1901 until 1929 when a buyout by the Radio Corporation of America (RCA) formed RCA Victor. Over the years, the company would produce phonographs, records, radios, and other electronics. Through subsequent acquisitions, Sony Music Entertainment became owners of Victor’s back catalog. Through a cooperative effort with the Library of Congress, you can stream over 16,000 recoding of Victor and Colombia records via the LOC online catalog. Give it a try - I listened to some fox trot recordings from 1924 through the National Jukebox while writing this blog post!

USS New Jersey BB-62

Sometimes the project you have in mind just doesn’t work out, and it can be tough to let go. Whether it comes down to a matter of timing, lack of resources, or just a loss of motivation, it’s important to recognize when you’re spinning your wheels. The images you see here are what’s left of a canceled project focused on the Battleship New Jersey. I burned through two rolls of 120 Ilford Delta 3200, one roll of 120 Ilford FP4 Plus, two rolls of 35mm Kodak P3200, and one roll of 35mm Ilford FP4 Plus before I decided it was time to switch gears to a new project.

With limitless ideas and limited time, I have to prioritize the projects I work on. My main gallery projects on the “Work” page of this site usually involve in-depth research, travel, or otherwise extraordinary expenditures of effort to complete. They can take anywhere from a few months to over a year to document between shooting, researching, and editing. For example, I’m just now wrapping up research for an upcoming gallery project covering Endicott Johnson’s legacy in the Triple Cities - a project which I started in Spring 2022 and have been researching ever since. Blog posts are more focused on smaller subjects, things which I can shoot in a weekend or where the history is readily available.

So how did this failed project begin in the first place? Well I regained interest in the Battleship New Jersey through the museum’s YouTube channel. Like many potential projects, I jumped straight into the research without pre visualizing the end result. I soon realized that no matter how much research I did, I’d never be able to document anything about the battleship that the YouTube channel hadn’t covered. I like to focus on the obscure and interesting history that can be hiding in plain sight, and a battleship isn’t exactly “hidden or obscure history”.

Shooting more film is never a bad thing, and any chance to practice composition in the field leads to better pictures in the future. My Mamiya C22 and F6 had been (figuratively) collecting dust in my dry cabinet since the summer, and I did get to explore every inch of the tour route on my many visits to the battleship. The lesson to be learned here is it’s ok to pull the plug on a project before you finish it. Enjoying the process of shooting film and improving your technique is just as important to becoming a better photographer, even if the end result doesn’t work out as planned.