Welcome to LF forum, Radu. Hope you can manage the current weather. Agree with those that 4x5 is easier to deal with, more films and lenses available in this format. I've gone bit wacko with 5x7, but have the 4x5 reducer whenever I need it.
Les
Welcome to LF forum, Radu. Hope you can manage the current weather. Agree with those that 4x5 is easier to deal with, more films and lenses available in this format. I've gone bit wacko with 5x7, but have the 4x5 reducer whenever I need it.
Les
Welcome to LFPF! There are several large format shooters in New England so if you keep an eye on locations under our avatars you might be able to meet up with someone to shoot. I'd also recommend 4x5, but you could make contact prints with your current setup and an 8x10. The PHSNE show is definitely not to be missed.
Haha, ok that makes me feel better to know there's at least one other. At swap-meets I'm like a kid in a candy store.
Maybe we'll meet there. I'll wear a red carnation
Oh it feels like the bridge will always be under construction. But at least they opened one way. I'm riding the T over it every day and there are barely any people on the job site...
Last edited by radu_c; 15-Mar-2018 at 11:15.
Greetings from the outer suburbs of Boston. I agree that 4x5 is the way to start in large format. This is what I did almost 50 years ago, as a teenager. 8x10 was simply unaffordable then. Even now, everything in 8x10 is several times more costly than 4x5. On the other hand, when I finally started shooting 8x10 a couple of years ago, suddenly 4x5 seemed too small.
That's why I'm afraid to move up beyond 4x5
Newly made large format dry plates available! Look:
https://www.pictoriographica.com
I know it's not in the same ballpark but shooting medium format for a few years got me used to that size; now when I look at my 35mm slides they look like spy films like in the old James Bond movies
So I can totally see that happening when switching from 4x5 to 8x10.
So then the natural question would be, aside cost, are there any good reasons why I shouldn't just start on 8x10?
Parallel parking extraordinaire
The first LF camera I used on my own was an 8x10, mostly because I wanted to make contact prints and because due to fortunate circumstances I had the opportunity to borrow a nice one to try out. Within a couple of years of that initial trial I had acquired, and was using, cameras in four different formats - 4x5, 5x7, whole plate and 8x10.
For me, the magic of LF is in contact prints. If that's the goal, you can afford the cost and don't mind lugging a bit of extra weight, I'd say go for it. If you intend to enlarge, either in the darkroom for from scans, I think the argument for going larger than 4x5, and just how much larger, is a more difficult call.
If you're looking for a field camera, I presume you want to lug it to places for landscapes... If you're doing portraits, by all means get a 8x10.. If you want to photograph something a mile in the woods, 8x10 can get heavy and you might not be as eager to transport it.. Each film holder is the size of a macbook.. The Camera and padding might not fit in most photo backpacks. The lens is a solid sometimes 5 pound chunk of metal and glass. Tripods are bigger.
An 8x10 outfit certainly can be a large burden, but it doesn't have to be. My 8x10 field kit for much of my early shooting was a lightweight camera (first a Nagaoka, later an original model Phillips Compact), a 270 G-Claron, three holders, BTZS hood, Sekonic 308 and a 3-series Gitzo. Everything except the tripod fit in my large f.64 backpack with room to spare; the tripod perched on my shoulder as I walked. I couldn't hike for hours uninterrupted that way, but 20 or 30 minutes at a time to be able to photograph in places well away from the car was no problem.
An 8x10 field camera is ungainly but not necessarily that heavy. I have a Cambo 8x10 monorail that I really like but wouldn't take anywhere. I have a Kodak 2D and an Intrepid 8x10 and find them OK to schlep around a bit. Not nearly as packable as a 4x5, though, so as Oren said earlier, the question is probably more about contact printing vs. enlarging. I do some of both, though have a preference for contact printing.
That having been said, if you're amenable to hybrid workflow, you can always scan 4x5, enlarge digitally (it's only 2x, with careful treatment it can often be done pretty well), and print a digital negative to do contact printing. There are many options...
Robert Brazile
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