Creating portraits with a large format camera can be extremely rewarding. From the posing to the fixed camera position, the procedure's clarity enables both the photographer and the portrait sitter to be in the moment. Beautiful images reward such patience, but it's not without its challenges.

One challenge creating portraits is not the camera but the amount of light you need. Coming from a 35mm sized sensor, the maximum lens apertures are much smaller than the format you're used to. With 35mm lenses, you can have a maximum aperture of f/0.95 or f/1.2. The amount of light to get proper exposure is easy to get. When dealing with typical large format portrait lenses, an f/5.6 might be as large as you can get. So you're losing about four to five stops of light using the lens wide open. That's fine outdoors in daylight, but you need strobes with power to create images indoors. Either that or you're going to have to have a very, very still portrait sitter.

The next challenge with large format cameras is using the bellows. Due to the nature of bellows-focusing, the distance between the lens and film plane can vary significantly; this needs to be compensated. You usually lose additional stops of light. With macro work, the light loss can be even more significant. To compensate for less light using speedier film like 400-speed-film and or pushing the film is a solution.

Pushing your film in development is always an option. The benefits of large format film are minimized by pushing; namely, increased contrast and graininess are not so much a problem. Different films respond to pushing better than others, so get a film known to perform well when pushed. Using the correct type of developer is also a way to compensate.

When dealing in black and white film, the type of developer matters. Rodinal, for example, is well-known for the enormous amount of grain. That makes it less ideal for pushing film. Standard developers like XTOL, Microphen, and DDX are suitable for minimizing the grain when pushing.

Doing everything right, the results can be different from anything captured with a smaller camera. Bring out your gear and get creating!