large format

magicbastarder

so, who has experience?
a friend is doing a course at the moment (not in ireland, sadly), and the scans which he's managed on a cheap flatbed are fantastic. plus, i've always been a fan of slowing yourself down when taking photos, and there's no better way...

also, how much does a secondhand LF camera go for, and will an exposure calculator cost much more?

DaireQuinlan

It's funny you should bring this up now, I just got my last consignment of bits and bobs yesterday. I'm going the ultra-cheap LF route, I'm going to build my own

So far I've gotten a brace of LF process barrel lenses from russia (300mm & 165mm) , a couple of different shutters (one enormous russian one and a sinar norma shutter which is quite nifty), and a bunch of 8x10 film holders.

Plan is first to build some sort of sliding box camera, I plan to use paper instead of film because I have a big box of it sitting in my wardrobe. I've built my own bellows and frames and stuff before for a 6x6cm monorail so I'm going to scale all that up in step two.

Unfortunately when I got the lenses in yesterday the very first thing that one of my work colleagues did was drop the 165mm onto my thumb whilst I was holding the 300mm*, crushing it between the two lenses. It was excrutiating yesterday, merely painful today. Once the swelling goes down I'll get to work

*in all seriousness, given the size of the 300mm (f/4.5) if it'd been the other way around I probably would have lost my thumb :eek:

Fajitas!

I have an old 4x5 press camera - a Crown Graphic, which is beautiful.

I also have a 4x5 pinhole camera, which I'm sure you're less interested in.

If you want to slow yourself down, then yeah, LF is without a doubt the best way. The quality, as you've seen is fantastic. What do you reckon you'd use it for most - The old press cameras are great, and much more portable than using a rail & bellows, but you're limiting yourself on movements straight away if you go down the press camera route.

DaireQuinlan

magicbastarder wrote: »

also, how much does a secondhand LF camera go for, and will an exposure calculator cost much more?

Incidentally, by 'exposure calculator' do you mean a lightmeter ? If so then yeah, but you can pick up cheap ones on e-bay, or use any other camera you have handy to do the metering. I'm not too sure what else you could mean, unless its something to do with calculating the exposure delta due to the bellows draw, there are a bunch of rules of thumb you can use to calculate this. Its no different to shooting with (say) macro tubes or bellows on a camera without TTL metering, just a matter of adjusting the exposure depending on how much more bellows extension you have, and doesn't really come into play for the most part anyhow.

magicbastarder

it was the latter i meant, compensating for bellows movement - i've a polaris lightmeter for my MF gear, which has done me well. except in woodland, it doesn't like cover.

fajitas - obviously the rail & bellows will allow for more than just basically a MF camera writ large, so i'd like to try one out.
then the trouble would be getting the damn things printed; i don't have a normal enlarger, let alone a LF enlarger.

DaireQuinlan

magicbastarder wrote: »

it was the latter i meant, compensating for bellows movement - i've a polaris lightmeter for my MF gear, which has done me well. except in woodland, it doesn't like cover.

fajitas - obviously the rail & bellows will allow for more than just basically a MF camera writ large, so i'd like to try one out.

Yeah the bellows thing is fairly easy to work out. For normal usage (ie infinity -> 10 metres or whatever) you wouldn't bother at all, its only when you really start stretching it out that you have to compensate.

Just doing a quick search for "bellows draw exposure compensation" gives me this thread ...

http://photo.net/large-format-photography-forum/003BWr

Which has a bewildering array of quick and easy ways to calculate the exposure compensation. Looks like everyone has their favourite method ...

then the trouble would be getting the damn things printed; i don't have a normal enlarger, let alone a LF enlarger.

Thats why I'm going to shoot paper. Easy to develop, and can be scanned and inverted on a normal flatbed. Couple of drawback to that though aswell, namely the fact that most paper is Ortho only, and the dynamic range of paper is pretty appalling so expect super contrast.

magicbastarder

cheaper than i expected:
https://secure.ffordes.com/Shop/Store/Itemdet.asp?Type=secd&sub=1&Code=LF&SubCode=MB&id=100518&promo=0

Fajitas!

Is a good price indeed!

Make sure to get yourself a good few dark slides - Changing can become the bane of your life - I remember running out in a train yard with trains flying past, in the rain... not a fun time to jump into a dark bag.

Also... I'm sure you have a tripod already... but trust me, you'll need something steadier.

DaireQuinlan

What about either of the two sinar monorails ? They look a little more compact than the cambo. OTOH you'd have to accessorize with them, and LF accessories do not come cheap ...

https://secure.ffordes.com/Shop/Store/Itemdet.asp?Type=secd&sub=1&Code=LF&SubCode=MB&id=97269&promo=0

The cambo does look nice

-edit-
forgot to add, what about a field camera ? They're a cross between fajita's press camera and a monorail in terms of movements and portability. Bit of a compromise in both respects, they normally fold up fairly compactly aswell. They tend to be more expensive than a monorail system though from what I've seen.

magicbastarder

will have to go talk to my bank balance before i make any decisions anyway.