Pinhole Day 2016

It's a darn good thing somebody goes to the trouble of organizing the annual Worldwide Pinhole Photography Day. I wrote about the tribulations I experienced during the 2015 WPPD while I was still shaking out some of the bugs involved in using the 8x10 pinhole camera I had built the previous autumn, the details of which you can also find back in the September 2014 archives of this blog. Consisting of a box with a teeny hole at one end, the camera itself wasn't the real issue so much as the here were no real issues with the camera itself on that day so much as dealing with the resulting exposures, namely the contrasty, highly scratch-prone x-ray sheet film employed. I was trying something new so it was the usual case of learning a few lessons and making a few adjustments. The trouble is that with everything else going on in my photographic life I didn't get around to trying out those new adjustments until WPPD 2016 came along and lit a fire under it.

My choice for entry in the WPPD 2016 on line gallery - image #1234 as it happens.

Worldwide Pinhole Photography Day itself is an event simply to celebrate photography in arguably its simplest form and to raise awareness of the power and expressive potential of photography done with traditional materials and tools. It's also a great educational opportunity. Grade school children can build pinhole cameras from materials as simple as a shoe box, baking foil and a bit of tape, load it up with a sheet of photographic paper then after making an exposure develop the image using a simple darkroom setup, all in the course of an afternoon. It's science and art all rolled into one. For me though it's simply a reminder that pinhole photography is something I have in my photographic repertoire, or it's supposed to be anyway. I shouldn't need the reminder, but there it is.

While WPPD falls on the last Sunday of every April my day job allows little consideration for weekends, so as had been the case with the previous two WPPD's I participated in I did not have the full day to work with. Just as well perhaps as with two 8x10 film holders to my name I was limited to making four exposures. I had a few locations in mind that weren't too far from where I work so it was a cinch to get it all done on the way home.

Making the exposures was the easy part though. I still had to deal with getting those large finicky x-ray negatives developed. I wrote about my results from last year in Pinhole Day Misadventures so I won't reiterate the issues I ran into here.  This year however I had the hangers and tanks at my disposal so I wasn't expecting negative scratches to be an issue and as it turns it wasn't. My second concern was the excessive contrast I have been getting from x-ray film with standard film developers. Though it can be developed by inspection under red darkroom lighting, the Xtol I used last year resulted in empty shadows despite developing until the highlights were as dense as I dared. My current standard, PMK Pyro, is a compensating developer and would probably give much better results. The 8x10 tanks however require a full 5 litres of solution, and while I probably had enough on hand to mix that much it would have left me short in short supply for other purposes. Having raw ingredients on hand I did a bit of research and decided on a particular Caffenol formula called Delta Micro. Formulated for low speed, high resolution micro films which have similar contrast requirements it seemed right for the job, and what do you know, it actually worked as well as I'd hoped.

Developing by inspection again I found that, unlike the Xtol which brought up a clearly visible image in about 15 seconds, it was several minutes in the Delta Micro before I could see anything happening at all on the film resulting in just a little bit of panic, holding the dripping film hanger up to the safelight to satisfy myself I saw some sort of image forming. Though I didn't time anything it seemed about 10 minutes until they appeared ready to move on to the stop bath. The negatives looked good, displaying a nice range of tones similar to those I expect from standard negatives. The only trouble I , could see were some areas, mostly towards the middle of the image, where they seemed to suffer from a sort of hazy fog. Maybe this was the result of having x-ray film, with its notoriously short shelf life, sitting in film holders for the better part of a year, or maybe it was all that close examination holding the developing negatives up to the safelight. Future experimenting will be needed to sort that one out.

It wasn't horrible but the negatives were denser and lower in contrast in these areas, creating a challenge in the darkroom, especially since I was contact printing which made it a little harder to judge exactly where to burn. For the most part they contact printed well on Ilford MG-IV RC with a #3 contrast filter which was replaced with a #5 filter when burning in those denser areas. The results were okay-ish, but I gave in and did a bit of extra work on the image of the railway tracks in Photoshop after scanning in the contact prints to help even things out a little more. There is still a little of the effect visible in the image below of the graffitied overpass pillars as it occurred to me the fogged area just happened to fall on exactly the right area of the image to resemble a slight mist, though no such mist was actually present.

Each participant can submit only one image each year to the WPPD online gallery. It's not a competition, there are no prizes, images are not judged or ranked in any way and there are not sort of minimum standards to be met other than that images must have been taken on the day of the event with a lensless camera of some sort. I would have been happy with either of the images here, but the perspective and foreground details made the railway bridge shot an easy choice. I filled out the online submission form and uploaded the image. In 2014, the first year I entered, my image came up as #888, and I was pleased it was something so easy to remember. This year I have image #1234. If I'm going to be lucky like that, why can't it be the lottery. (Answer: Because I don't play.)

There may be a few kinks left to iron out but with these results I can see the potential for achieving a unique look that is desireable and can't be matched using standard lenses. Yes I have plenty of other pots on the go, so to speak which I'll no doubt be writing about with equal enthusiasm in the weeks and months to come. Still, there's no shortage of things I hope to do and explore with pinholes, and there's still plenty of x-ray film in the freezer. Hopefully it won't take WPPD 2017 to get me out with it again.

Pinhole Day Misadventures

The last Sunday of every April is designated Worldwide Pinhole Photography Day (WPPD). To be frank I have no idea who decided this should be so or how they got the rest of the pinhole world to go along with it, but my hat goes off to them just the same. And what with all the bother I went through last year to build a nice hardwood 8x10 pinhole camera it would seem a crime for me not to participate. What follows then is an accounting of the misadventures that so ensued.

My work schedule doesn't heed traditional notions of what constitutes the weekend so I didn't have the day free as I might have hoped, so while having Pinhole Day on a Sunday may ensure as many people have the day free ad possible, for the second year in a row that hasn't included me. Making the best of the situation I packed the car up before heading out to work so I could make a few exposures on the way home. Of the two 8x10 double dark slide film holders I own I loaded one up with x-ray film, the other with Ilford MG IV paper. This would allow me to photograph two scenes on both materials. I also took along my 4x5 pinhole camera with a few film holders loaded with well expired Ilford Delta 400 in case other opportunities presented themselves, but was to put that 8x10 to use on this of all days.

It hasn't had nearly as much use I anticipated after all, not yet at least. There are a few reasons for this but for the most part they boil down to the fact I still don't have a clean reliable way to develop the delicate x-ray film it was my primary intent to use when I decided to build the camera. (Its construction was chronicled across several posts starting with this one last September.) This is exactly what you think it is, the sheets of film they might use at the hospital to see a fractured bone or find the house key someone swallowed in a not entirely well thought out moment. (Apparently these things happen.) These can be used in place of traditional film in large format cameras to yield results similar to orthochromatic emulsions at a price per sheet that can be 1/10th the cost of standard sheet film or even less. That's the case here in North America at least. I once suggested x-ray film to a UK photographer who said he was looking for a more affordable way to do large format and he must have though I had a screw loose when he saw what a British supplier was asking for the stuff.

Using x-ray film presents certain challenges however, not least of which is how easily the emulsion scratches. Try ordinary ordinary tray development and I swear the stuff seems to scratch itself. I experimented with a few methods to avoid this such as developing in extra large zippered freezer bags, but the gold standard is to use stainless film hangers in vertical tanks. Back in school hangers and tanks were the standard way we developed 4x5 film so the idea wasn't new to me, the problem was getting my hands on the hangers. Though used 4x5 hangers can still be found fairly reasonably on everyone's favourite online auction site (it seems like there's some sort of taboo against just saying eBay, and far be it from me to defy convention), this isn't the case with 8x10 hangers. They are scarce enough to require a bit of effort to find, and knowing many of those looking for 8x10 hangers will a) likely have a higher than average motivation to get their hands on such a hard to find item and b) likely have a higher than average disposable income as 8x10 photography generally isn't easy to do on the cheap, most sellers seem to believe it's worth waiting for a buyer to come along who is willing to pay an unruly asking price.

An example of what can happen when x-ray sheet film is developed in the sort of tray most commonly used for pints.
Standard emulsions, the T-Max's, the Delta's and what have you usually fare just fine in the same circumstances.

I got a bit lucky though. While looking for ideas from photographers who use x-ray film I found one who had a small surplus of 8x10 hangers they were willing to part with for a non-gouging price. (As said individual might not appreciate their name getting out there as a potential supplier of reasonably priced darkroom equipment I'll keep them anonymous, but should they ever chance to read this... huge thanks!) Hangers out of the way however, getting my hands on the tanks turned out to be a bigger issue than I anticipated. Even if I found someone who was giving them away shipping alone would have blown any idea of keeping the project low cost out of the water. After a months long search for something that could be remade or repurposed into workable tanks came up empty I got the notion to build a few from scratch. I'd worked with fiberglass for a few times for telescope making projects, and while the results were often not much to look at, if they make boats from the stuff I should be able to fashion a few functional if hideous chemical tanks. As a bonus the box they were shipped to me in had the exact dimensions to serve as a template.

Unfortunately I embarked on the project over the winter. The resin is supposed to be used at something at least close to room temperature and working with anything that noxious anywhere other than our unheated detached garage with the door open was unthinkable. I probably should have waited to even try but by spring I managed to fashion two horrible looking tanks that never the less fit the film holders perfectly.

These beasties may be hard on the eyes, but æsthetics aren't the concern.

If only they held water. My preliminary test fill revealed countless pinholes in both tanks, and a section of one of them that seemed little better than a tightly woven sieve. Some patching up with more fiberglass helped a bit, at least fixing that sieve problem, but it wasn't until I found a can of Leak Seal that an alternative to starting over seemed at hand. This is a spray on product designed to seal up various kinds of leaks and better still covered the fiberglass with a surface that seems very similar to the hard rubber that is one of the two materials tanks like these are usually made of. (The other is stainless steel.) One can was enough to cover both tanks inside and out completely.

It is at this point that our tank building story slams smack into WPPD. The exposures were made as planned, two scenes, each one made once on x-ray film and once on standard RC enlarging paper. I hope to experiment more with paper negatives but while I know I can get an image with the stuff I haven't done the leg work needed to get the most out of it. My hopes were really pinned on the x-ray film shots. While the WPPD site accepts submissions until May 31st so long as they were taken on April 26th, I like the idea of putting results up as quickly as possible while it's recent enough that there's still a bit of a buzz going on. I should hasten to add here that there isn't any sort of contest going on, just a gallery of submissions from around the world made using anything from the latest pro DSLRs fitted with pinhole body caps to taped up toilet paper rolls. Though last pinhole day was also a work day for me, an afternoon start gave me the morning to shoot a roll (using my 120 pinhole camera) develop the film and get it scanned and posted that same day before leaving for work.

My WPPD 2014 submission, arguably a more successful image than this years.

While I couldn't start until after work this year I had it in mind to at least try to post same day again. I even decided to forgo the chance to get a few more exposures with the 4x5 after dinner to get started in the darkroom. The plan was to develop the x-ray film first and hang it to dry, then process the paper negatives in trays which I could then use to make contact prints of the xray film negatives. Though I only had two tanks instead of the usual requisite three I figured I could also use the large tub of water that was going to serve as the final wash as a water stop bath between developer an fix. A chinzy way of doing things to be sure but I wasn't looking for world class results. Flaws can certainly be charming in the world of pinhole photography and the image I chose would be seen alongside ones made with toilet paper roll cameras. Chemistry was mixed, safe lights went up (x-ray film can be handled under dim safe lights) and I was ready for action.

The trouble started when I poured the developer into the first tank. After the Leak Seal treatment I tested for leaks by filling one of the tanks with water, but that was the other tank. I hadn't considered that just because one tank was fine the other one might still leak, but I had a steadily growing pool of developer forming and not much time to decide what to do about it. I'd be lucky not to spill more than half of the developer on the floor if I tried to transfer everything into the other tank in near darkness. The trouble was I had only one tray, the rest were outside the room. I managed to get a good amount of developer in without significant spills, pouring the rest down the drain as the tank had a much larger capacity. Problem number two was that the eco-pro developer (an Xtol equivalent) I had diluted 1:3 didn't seem to be having any effect, there was no sign of an image forming at all after several minutes. To remedy the situation I added what seemed like a reasonable quantity of Dektol paper developer that was luckily within easy reach. No sense measuring anything this off the cuff and I was developing by inspection anyway. The Dektol did the trick. I transferred to the tub of water, dumped the developer mish mash and replaced with fixer and finished up as best I could. The results, predictably enough, were a couple of nicely scratched up 8x10 negatives, though that aside they actually didn't come out too bad. After this I managed to develop wash and hang the two paper negatives, but with the disappointment over the negatives and a mess in the darkroom to clean up I decided to abandon the thought of getting anything posted that night. Making contacts of the scratched up negatives didn't seem worth the bother either so in the end I wound up scanning the paper negatives, inverting them in Photoshop and submitting the one that seemed to work best for me.

I had two to chose from. The image I put in is of a semi-derelict house not far from where I work. This isn't the image I envisioned, but maybe it's not so bad. There's something about this place I've always been drawn to. Nobody has lived there for some time though obviously the property is being kept up to an extent The house itself leaves me with the impression that until it was abandoned whoever lived there did their best with limited means to keep it up, small and humble as it is with its asphalt siding and a major highway running through the back yard. Its unadorned facade beginning to crumble, missing windows that haven't already been boarded up, it bears these inevitable indignities with quiet grace. If this house were a person I imagine it to be an aging man who towards the end of a hard life still makes an effort to present himself in his best suit even though its been patched in a few places and is a size or two too large for him now.

The image isn't clean. It's a little askew and there are numerous marks and other defects that are especially evident in the sky, possibly the results of my efforts to cram enlarging paper into the edge retainers of a film holder that wasn't designed to take anything that thick. It's contrasty as would be expected with a straight paper negative like this. The version done on x-ray film shows detail in the sky which has been blown out here, and much more detail in the foreground that has pretty much just gone to black. These are all things I hope I'll learn to avoid should I begin to explore paper negatives more, but here it all seems to work, Like its subject the image presents itself simply, unabashedly despite its humble nature and the ravages it has suffered.

I've been keeping my eye on this little place, intending stop and photograph it on a day when the lighting or the mood seemed to suit the subject. I may yet return to photograph it by more conventional means when the conditions seem right for it, perhaps when there's a good mist hanging about or some particularly ominous clouds overhead. I could also pass by it next time and find it demolished.

At long last we've started to hit pay dirt. This is a test exposure from the 8x10 pinhole camera which, although it reveals a few issues mostly related to handling sheets of the x-ray film I used, shows that we're really in business now.

What we're looking at is from a scan of a contact print made on Ilford Multigrade RC paper using a make-shift contact printing frame that consisted of a piece of 11x14 picture frame glass, taped along the edges and laid over a left-over sheet of the black felt used in the build. The long white scratch towards the top middle is actually a scratch in the glass I didn't notice at first or I would have chosen a different piece. The black mark in the lower right corner is a fingerprint. Though I handle the unprocessed film with surgical gloves I was having a time of it getting the exposed sheet out of the film holder that way and taking off the glove seemed less risky than continuing to struggle glove on and risking even more damage.

I knew going in that developing the film would be a challenge. Unlike more conventional film if the surface of the unprocessed emulsion is touched it will be permanently visible in the developed negative. To make matters worse the emulsion is coated on both sides front and back so there's no part that's safe to touch. Further, the emulsion is soft, especially when wet, and scratches (both sides) very easily in the development process. At nearly 1/10th the price of conventional 8x10 film though I'm willing to put up with a few challenges. It even has the advantage of being okay to handle under safelights. Handling film in total darkness has become so instinctive that I found I had to keep reminding myself that it was okay.

The preferred method of processing sheets of x-ray film is to put them in stainless steal hangers and processing in vertical tanks. These are hard to find these days and can be a fairly expensive proposition. The most popular way to process large format film generally is to use trays and develop them in much the same way print on photo paper are processed. With delicate x-ray emulsions however it's a virtual guarantee this will result in scratches, mainly from the ridges found in conventional processing trays. Some x-ray film users get around this by using flat-bottomed trays. The ridges are there for a reason though; it's easy for sheets of paper or film to get stuck to the bottom and with no way to work your fingers underneath you may have a time of it getting them out.

In the various forums where thing like photography using x-ray film is discussed I had heard of another method, processing in zippered freezer bags. A sheet of 8x10 film fits just right in a standard large size freezer bag. You can pour chemicals in, zip the top up and do almost anything you want with the sealed bag. I decided to try this. Unfortunately none of the people who mentioned this method went into much detail about how to implement it.

So began the learning curve. For my test shots I drove down the road to the International Railway Bridge between Fort Erie and Buffalo NY and made two exposures. I actually got three negatives as I had accidentally loaded one side with two sheet stuck together and the film is actually transparent enough that there was an image on the sheet underneath. This method requires processing one sheet at a time and I had three to practice with. I spent the first two (the two that were stacked) to learn that having a separate bag for developer stop and fix was not the way to go. The third image, this one, was processed by putting the film into a dry bag, filling it with developer which I poured out into the developer tray when finished, pouring the stop bath into the same bag and dumping it into the stop tray when finished and so on. After fixing I simply filled the bag with wash water, let it sit a few minutes with a bit of agitation and going through several changes of water like this before hanging to dry. This has the added benefit of washing the interior of the bag. I figure each one should be good for a few sheets of film.

I believe the major weakness with this method is visible in the odd density variation seen towards the lower left. Getting the bag closed after pouring a new liquid in can be a challenge. I got the kind that you can feel teeth meshing to confirm you have a good seal, but it can sometimes take a few tries under dim red lights to get both sides lined up properly and all the while the film is sitting only partially submerged in the chemistry. It also tends to float up and get in the way of closure so the operation is further complicated by the need to hold it down. I think what happened here is that the film was too close to the seal and even though it wasn't in the way of the seal it got pinched up there limiting the flow of developer around it. I found it useful to use only enough chemistry to keep the film easily submerged once the bag was laid on its side - about 500-600 mL. More than this made it harder to close the bag and increased the tendency of the film to float up. With a bit of experience I might be able to get reliable results with this method. If not I'll try something else. With a bit of luck maybe the chance to get my hands on some 8x10 film holders may come along.

A final note, getting back to the camera itself, I have given it one of the updates I talked about before. While making the test shot went fairly smoothly it was evident the camera would benefit from a better plan for the shutter than to literally use my hat so this was priority number one.

The idea of keeping the pinhole covered with a simple magnetic sheet, the kind typically used for refrigerator magnets, is so simple I can't believe I hadn't run across it before. All that's needed is a steel washer surrounding the pinhole opening. I thought I would need to replace the aluminium one I had used before this plan occurred to me, but a serendipitous find in one of my boxes of odds and ends turned up a large convexly curved steel washer that fit right over the existing setup. I epoxied everything in place since I didn't want screw heads jutting above the surface and even the large washer seems too thin to counter-sink. I have a large sheet of this magnetic material with peel away adhesive backing, left over surplus from the old family business, that I used to make the  custom magnet in the above photo, but just about any old fridge magnet would do for this. They have enough hold to keep the pinhole securely covered until everything is ready to make the exposure but not so much to worry about jarring the camera when it is pulled away to start the exposure. To end the exposure simply slap it back in place. What could be simpler?

Nearly There

This blog has only been going a few months so I'd be kidding myself to think anyone out there is waiting with bated breath for my next post, but if anyone's noticed it's been a while since the last one hopefully you've guessed the 8x10 pinhole project I've been writing about has been eating most of my free time. I'm happy to report though that things are nearly finished. There's just a few finishing details to worry about but as things stand now it's ready to begin testing. Here's how things have panned out since last time...

Here is how I solved the problem of attaching the cone portion to the rest of the camera. Those are elastic bands, the short thick ones grocery stores use to bunch vegetables. Standard office supply elastics, and other things I tried such as hair bands, just didn't have enough pull. Inside the cone they are wrapped around mirror hangers which are hard to see here since I painted them black. Inside the camera portion they attach to upholstery tacks I didn't drive in all the way. 

After considering a number of fancier options including leaf springs and rare-earth magnets I settled on these simple latches to keep the film holder in place. I wasn't able to find anything by way of ready-made hardware that was suitable for this, but by luck I had a just-right-sized strip of maple in the off-cuts from making the body which in the end is probably better.

I used the plug from a hole cutter as the disk for the tripod socket and after enlarging the central hole pressed in a threaded insert with a bench vice. It was painted black with the spray on Plasti-Dip I used to make the fiberglass cone on my 4x5 project light proof. It's sort of rubbery and you can see a layer sort of peeling off here from the friction of tightening then removing the the tripod quick release plate.  

Here's what it looks like from the business end. There is no shutter at all at this point and I should actually be able to get away without one. Since the film stays in a light tight (I hope) film holder there's no need to keep light from getting in until the dark slide is ready to be pulled. A hat or a dark card over the pinhole should make a serviceable shutter in the short span between pulling and replacing the dark slide. My concern is that the 8x10 dark slides sometime need a bit of coaxing to slide through their groove in the film holders and I may want two hands available for this. It occurred to me too late that a refrigerator magnet would cover the pinhole opening hands free if only I hadn't made that black retaining ring you see from non-magnetic aluminium. Oh well, should be an easy fix. 

I received a box of 8x10 x-ray film about a week ago, so whenever I get the time I should be able to take it for a few test shots. That's not to say I'm done, but barring light leaks or other unexpected issues it' now a functional camera. Finishing touches I'm planning include:

• Some aesthetic finishing touches, especially around the front "standard"
• Swapping out the retaining ring in the front for one made from a ferric metal to allow for my fridge magnet shutter idea
  (Am I the only one who wonders why there's a 'd' in fridge, but not in refrigerator?)
• Adding a second tripod socket to the short side to allow for verticals
• A detachable viewfinder
• Built in spirit levels

Hopefully I'll have results to show soon. As always I'll keep you posted.

Plugging Along - The 8x10 Pinhole Project.

In the September 4th post I had just gotten underway with a new project to build an 8x10 pinhole camera, having just received the film holders. Since then things have been progressing quite well, at least so far. As you were probably able to surmise if you read the first post I'm not one for starting out with an exact set of blueprints and trying to proceed in accordance with a set plan. I've done things like this enough times to know that along the way the need will probably arise to make allowances for things that didn't quite come out as expected and for new better ideas that only suggest themselves as the thing begins to take shape.Even if I had started with a clear plan it'd have been tossed by now.

The design I had in mind at the outset is based on the design of the 4x5 pinhole camera I made as a warm up project which itself was based on a completely original combination of design ideas I'd stolen from others. Rather than making a straight box my camera designs incorporate a cone out front like the Ilford-Harman Titan models, allowing front ends to be swapped out like lenses while keeping the weight down considerably. This last is particularly important with the 8x10 project as I'd say something the weight of a traditional solid box design would require a heavier tripod than I currently own.

The following sequence of photos should give you an idea of how thing have gone so far.

Here are the trapezoid pieces that form the sides of the cone cut from 1/4" plywood. As I suggested last time I did forego fibreglass construction used with the 4x5 cone. Working with the stuff was just too much hassle. Connecting the pieces to form the sides of the cone was as easy as Gorilla gluing the seams with masking tape to hold the pieces in place until everything was set. You can see the box that forms the main body of the camera in behind by the way. Since the Sept. 4 post they were glued up in a framing clamp and secured with L-brackets just as I'd planned. I may try fancier joinery someday. Maybe.

  

Once it was all a single piece I cut out a cover for it from a sheet of vinyl cloth from the local fabric store. I believe this stuff is intended for upholstery projects, The photo above shows the cloth covering on the back. The front is a burgundy colour. The pattern may seem familiar if you've ever looked into how bellows are made. 

The inside is lined with black felt. Normally of course a coat or two of black paint would do, but my current plans involve using the ends of the cloth to hold the cone to the rest of the camera from the inside, probably with Velcro. It remains to be seen how well this idea will work out, but even if it doesn't fly I have to say the inside seems much blacker than any paint would have rendered it. 

I capped it off with another piece of 1/4" ply covered with a maple veneer to match the maple body. Actually it doesn't seem to match as well as I'd hoped but maybe once everything is finished the difference won't be noticeable. Here at last you can see the burgundy exterior of the vinyl though it's in need of a good clean here. 

Inside the box is a bit of a ledge where it mates to the cone. The pieces are actually the leftover strips from cutting the slot on the back that the film holder slides into. Owing to the fact that I botched one of the sides early in the game, forcing me to cut another, I was left with enough to go all the way around the inside. 

And finally here it how the whole thing looks as of this writing.

To finish it obviously I'll need to add the pinhole. The box will need to be urethaned and painted black inside. Felt strips on the back surfaces that contact the film holder will serve a light seals. I'll need to create some means to secure the cone to the body which, as I said, will probably involve Velcro unless there are unanticipated problems with that. I'll have to add a tripod socket, which can be as easy as putting a t-nut in place but maybe I'll come up with something more elegant. Finally something has to hold the film holder in place on the back and allow it to be released. In the 4x5 version this involved Velcro straps but I'm thinking of changing this up too. Velcro strips seem like an affront the natural wood finish. I'm thinking of adding a vertical bar that can be tightened or loosened with something like thumbscrews or wing nuts. As always I'll keep you posted.