When the LomoGraflok 4×5 back was launched a few years back, I was surprised at my interest. While I never left the film-shooting world (I am a Gen-Xer and kept my ol’ Pentax around while going digital for work), I never jumped into the instant-film genre, even when the original cameras and film were readily available. More recently, I yearned for some peel-apart stuff to use in my grandfathers Polaroid Land Camera, but never could justify the ballooning prices for on eBay for discontinued Fuji pack film.
I was interested in part because I bought into the idea pumped by some I followed in the 4×5 world who said via their social media outputs it was a “good tool to have in the kit,” and some even said it could be a good for framing beforehand a shot one was about to take with an expensive sheet of film (especially color sheet film). The LomoGraflok uses Fuji’s Instax Wide film, which is widely (albeit inconsistently, especially the black-and-white) available. It’s not exactly large format, as images are 3-7/8” x 2-3/8”, but still a good size and, when shot understanding the films limitations, appeared to produce decent results.
Truth be told, I’ve never used color sheet film, and likely never will. Framing, or test metering a shot, was never a serious thought in my head. I just thought, mostly, how cool it would be to produce an instant image from my 1948 Pacemaker Speed Graphic—say, to pass along a portrait during the session (not that I did many portraits). So, in February 2023, I pulled the trigger and bought the LomoGraflok back.
As anyone who has considered one of these already knows, its use requires one’s camera to have a Graflok back (which originated with the development of Graflex’s Pacemaker Speed Graphic) or something of similar design with which to attach the Lomograflok to the back of the camera. The LomoGraflok slips into place as easy as any other attachment I’ve used on my Pacemaker Speed Graphic—notably a 120 roll-film back and, my favorite, a Grafmatic film holder.
A Grafmatic is a slick piece of engineering that holds six pieces of sheet film. Each piece of film in the Grafmatic is held in a metal “septum” that, with a pull-pash technique, get cycled through quickly, turning the large-format camera into an oversized hand-held—no need to swap out a film holder (for six shots, anyway). To realize the Grafmatic’s full potential, however, it requires one has a functioning rangefinder on the camera calibrated to a particular lens. Otherwise you must focus on the ground glass, remove the ground glass and replace that with the Grafmatic—its construction doesn’t allow it to slide under the ground glass like a regular film holder.
I mention the Grafmatic, because, having used often that piece of equipment, and comparing it with the Lomograflok, I thought the latter would be most effective—and enjoyable—if one could use it in conjunction with a rangefinder.
Why?
One has the exact issue with the LomoGraflok that one has with the Grafmatic: you need to remove the camera’s ground glass. The LomoGraflok has an additional step, if one is focussing with the ground glass: inserting a spacer (roughly 19mm wide, if memory serves) between the ground glass and camera like an extra-wide film holder to compensate for the additional distance to the film plane in the LomoGraflok. Once focus is achieved, one must remove the spacer and ground glass to attach the LomoGraflok back.
My beef isn’t with the extra steps—large format photography is a series of steps, all the time. It’s not about the equipment—the LomoGraflok back worked just fine and is a nice piece of ingenuity in itself. And I wound up measuring out the distance on my camera’s rail bed at which to lock the front standard, which allowed me to use the camera’s rangefinder and skip the spacer hassle. Also, I did the math on the Instax Wide film’s coverage and alignment in the back and made a mask for the Pacemaker’s viewfinder so I could frame accurately. All that adaptation worked great.
My beef was with the film. Not that I found it terrible, for what it was/is: it’s a film developed for Fuji Instax point-and-shoot cameras. It’s for instant results. While it can produce some good pictures, it’s not a film that, despite its marketing, allows for much range. It might be rated at 800, but that’s when the environment is studio perfect. For functionality, consider 800 a simple starting point—I never had what I consider a successful photograph simply shooting what I metered at 800; the problem is particularly challenging in low-light (but not at all dark) situations. Which can also be the fun of the film, if one understands its range (or lack thereof), and is willing to burn through film making adjustments.
To me, the results, no matter how proficient I was becoming using the film, were still not worth the effort when I know I could get much better—even stellar—results with (at the time) a similarly-priced sheet of Fomapan. Still, likely in an effort to justify the expense of the experiment, I purchased at a bargain price a mint-condition Polaroid 110A to dedicate to the LomoGraflok in hope of using it more. But, the process still didn’t grab me like when I started using 4×5 sheet film. What’s on the 110A instead? Adapted 4×5 film holders or that Grafmatic mentioned above.
I sold the LomoGraflok in June of 2024 to someone who was already producing great work with instant films, and would no doubt get better and more creative results with it than I ever would. I have no regrets that it’s off my shelf—I dedicate the time to the films, techniques, and cameras I like. And the LomoGraflok lives on, producing the results for someone with the interest in that genre.