Hi All,
I have to confess upfront I have joined this forum in order to utilise the vast knowledge of Large Format Photography held within its bounds.
I have been involved with photography in one way or another since 1979, the only time until today I have held a 'Large Format Camera' was whilst at College in 1979 during a photography segment of my electronics course. We were given a grounding in photography as part of the course and whilst it concentrated on 35mm processing and developing there was an assignment for medium format and also large format.
It turned out that I was extremely taken with photography and have been involved with it in some form or other ever since. During the mid 1980s I became a 'weekend warrior' doing local weddings and portrait sessions this eventually became a full time occupation between 1994 and 1998, as cameras became more and more 'intelligent' and allowed the average Joe to take half decent images there was less work around and it became a bit of a battle between the social photographers in the area for the remaining work so when an opportunity came around to do something different I took it and walked away from photography for a while and along with it went my Hasselblads and superb colour darkroom.
As is usually the case though with something like this the lure of photography dragged me back and I bought a digital bridge camera, this then became a Nikon DSLR and then a Canon FF DSLR and then strangely enough a Hasselblad H1D before the lure of film drew me back. There is something about film that just cannot be felt with a digital image. So although I still have my Hasselblad H1D (on which I also use a film back) and a Fuji X10 (which is a great little snapshot camera) I now have a pair of Pentax LXs, A Fuji GX680Mk3 and as from today a Toyo C Monorail Camera which I had intended using with a 6x9 back as I did not think I currently had the means to process 5x4 film. This has all changed today as I am now aware of the Taco method of processing 5x4 film and cannot wait now until I can get some 5x4 film and have a go.