RuariAliran
9-Aug-2015, 11:58
Hello Everybody,
I am another new guy, but actually a "new-old" guy since I am 72, and my first view camera was a Calumet 4x5 back in 1964... except for an Ektachrome and AV phase in the 80's I have had a darkroom all my life.
I write this from my home town of Cape Town, South Africa, a city of 4 million (like Rio - huge wealth and tourism, huge poverty) but with only one shop (a pharmacy) left selling analog cameras, film, Ilford paper, and mostly ancient darkroom goods. I write this also from my darkroom , surrounded by workable gear. For a decade my rule has had to be "buy it if you see it", because there's almost nothing to be had here, and it's getting more "Third World" by the month.
Most of it was has been cheap as digital hurtled in. A dysfunctional Durst Laborator 1200 (condenser 4x5), for $40, three Omega DII's minus baseboards for $60 the lot, an E6, Time-o-Lites on garage sales, so also pre-war Kodak and Dallmeyer barrel lenses, an Apo Ronar 360 and G-Clarons, a "Gene Smith" Leitz Valoy II, (wonderful, not the tin of the early Valoys) and any amount of strange large format stuff and enlarger lenses with\without fungus, leaking old 4x5 dd slides etc. Now most of that is clean, usable and\or plugged in.
My main 4x5 baby is "O'Sullivan", a Sinar P, rather worn but OK and lots of Sinar bits, plus some "newer" lenses (they have shutters...) . I seem to be using the 135 Symmar and a 210 Fuji a good deal. I still make up my own chemistry, from raw, since I cannot aford to pay crazy prices for one-litre packs of Ilford chemistry. Our currency, the Rand, was once R2 or R3 to the dollar, now it is R13. Enough said. But...
I will really need you guys, and your know-how, because I am painfully aware that I have not put enough work into 4x5 . Now I have to lift my game, focus hard and take advice. I have a possible exhibition looming and I now have to start REGULARLY printing 16x20. I am embarrassed to say that my work has been too erratic in quality and output, too "rough and ready" for a long time.
I see serious heavyweight knowledge on this site, almost daunting, but I am sure that this move will do me good.
Regards to you all.
RuariAliran... Rory in real life
I am another new guy, but actually a "new-old" guy since I am 72, and my first view camera was a Calumet 4x5 back in 1964... except for an Ektachrome and AV phase in the 80's I have had a darkroom all my life.
I write this from my home town of Cape Town, South Africa, a city of 4 million (like Rio - huge wealth and tourism, huge poverty) but with only one shop (a pharmacy) left selling analog cameras, film, Ilford paper, and mostly ancient darkroom goods. I write this also from my darkroom , surrounded by workable gear. For a decade my rule has had to be "buy it if you see it", because there's almost nothing to be had here, and it's getting more "Third World" by the month.
Most of it was has been cheap as digital hurtled in. A dysfunctional Durst Laborator 1200 (condenser 4x5), for $40, three Omega DII's minus baseboards for $60 the lot, an E6, Time-o-Lites on garage sales, so also pre-war Kodak and Dallmeyer barrel lenses, an Apo Ronar 360 and G-Clarons, a "Gene Smith" Leitz Valoy II, (wonderful, not the tin of the early Valoys) and any amount of strange large format stuff and enlarger lenses with\without fungus, leaking old 4x5 dd slides etc. Now most of that is clean, usable and\or plugged in.
My main 4x5 baby is "O'Sullivan", a Sinar P, rather worn but OK and lots of Sinar bits, plus some "newer" lenses (they have shutters...) . I seem to be using the 135 Symmar and a 210 Fuji a good deal. I still make up my own chemistry, from raw, since I cannot aford to pay crazy prices for one-litre packs of Ilford chemistry. Our currency, the Rand, was once R2 or R3 to the dollar, now it is R13. Enough said. But...
I will really need you guys, and your know-how, because I am painfully aware that I have not put enough work into 4x5 . Now I have to lift my game, focus hard and take advice. I have a possible exhibition looming and I now have to start REGULARLY printing 16x20. I am embarrassed to say that my work has been too erratic in quality and output, too "rough and ready" for a long time.
I see serious heavyweight knowledge on this site, almost daunting, but I am sure that this move will do me good.
Regards to you all.
RuariAliran... Rory in real life