For a change I have to agree with Bob. I always buy the best and strive to be able to afford it. My Arca-Swiss and Technorama cameras has never been a source of complains, not even when I bought them for dear money. An excellent camera holds its value much better than a crappy one and what is more, gives you space to grow and learn as you go higher and higher.Originally Posted by Bob Salomon
"Fine tools contribute to fine work."
-Alexander Calder
My most esteemed camera is a Sinar Norma 4x5. Before me it was owned by 2 Pro photographers. The first one used it intensively for 17 years for commercial photography until he retired. The second one used it also intensively for 19 years more making most of critical forensic photography in a 3 million people city until he died.
And that camera it's still like new. A rookie amateur like me is not wearing it much, compared to my predecesors, but +50 years after it was manufactured it's still a refined piece of gear that can survive an additional number of hard shooters in a row, delivering nice negatives that were 300 mpix worth since the 1960s. Some would not belive it...
In my opinion there is no simple single rule to this question because the use for tools varies over a wide range from things that will be used only once to things that will be used everyday. The thing that will be used once must not break and must do the job but wear is not an issue, so the inexpensive version may be appropriate. Things used everyday will wear. Sometimes they can be "sharpened" or otherwise refurbished, and here the wise choice is often the well made tool for which replacement parts are available. For both reasons it is unlikely to be the cheapest choice.
Do you have photographs you wish to make again but you cannot because they require a 'better' camera?
Funny you ask - I used to wish to take pictures I could not, because at that time I did not have a good camera for it. It's not the case any more - I built cameras DIY way for just such cases.
You have received some great advice from others with far more LF experience than I. I include my own experience here as a reference, in case it may also be of help.
In 1973, I fortuitously acquired a Rolls Royce of 35mm rangefinders, a Leica M4, in excellent condition. I'm still using it, which is great, because today, I couldn't afford even a decent used one. About 15 years ago, I got a loan to buy a used 645 Mamiya, because I really needed it for the commercial portraiture I was doing at the time, requiring large prints without much grain. I still have that, too. About two years ago, getting back into LF, I found it increasingly difficult and unwieldy to haul my monorail 4x5 around, and was moving into location portraiture, so I sold a whole bunch of other equipment in order to afford a Tachihara, which someone on this forum was selling for about $475, a price I couldn't pass up, even though I really wanted a Shenhao. I had to get it serviced, and it works perfectly well for the work for which I need it. I wish it were a bit more solid -feeling and had another feature or two, but the design and materials have a good reputation. I have no doubt that it will last far into the future, doing what it is meant to do.
Philip Ulanowsky
Sine scientia ars nihil est. (Without science/knowledge, art is nothing.)
www.imagesinsilver.art
https://www.flickr.com/photos/156933346@N07/
Please show us the cameras and outcomes.
No interest in it, sorry.
If you have no interest in sharing your builds/inventions and outcomes then we should have no interest in your claims: a good argument for the ignore filter.
Last edited by Jac@stafford.net; 16-Sep-2018 at 18:37.
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