% of Large Format Users

[Michael Graves]

I check in here every day. Sometimes a couple of times; once in the AM and once in the PM. But I rarely contribute much unless I feel I have something intelligent to say. Which ain't all that often, I 'm sad to say.

[Robert McClure]

Thanks, Wayne Crider, for your survey!

I happen to be 57 and am not surprised that I fall into the largest age group of LF users. My suspicion is that the older you are the more willing you are to operate on the fringe with equipment and processes not "convenient" (or even "hip," to use the older term).

LF use appears to drop off precipitously past age 60 or so. I would assume at those ages for many convenience has become a necessity. For one, I have a hard enough time managing a cigar, my equipment, walking with a cane, etc.

Hope I get to keep going out in the field for a while longer.

Best

[Ben Calwell]

I check in at least twice a day to keep the LF juices flowing, so to speak. Sadly, the last time I had my camera out in the field was last fall. I've got a full-time day job and a family, so I don't get much free time to jump in the car and go looking for photos. From lack of use, my basement darkroom looks like Dr. Frankenstein's lab, with layers of dust on chemical bottles and cave crickets hopping about. For me, this forum helps to keep the last embers of LF interest burning until I can start shooting more again.

[Robert Skeoch]

I think LF is having a bit of a comeback... mostly with landscape/still life shooters. I think it's over for the pro studio guys, and mono-rail cameras have lost there appeal. It seems the photographers I see like the idea of using a wood camera.

I check the site once or twice a day... don't contribute much though. I also check the APUG site and lastly photo.net. I'm sure there are many photographers who don't check at all. I would have gone shooting this morning but it's pouring out.

I hope to shoot 200 sheets of 8x10 this year, which would be a good year. I turn 47 this summer and almost have the kit I want.... just need to update the tripod, camera, film holders, dark cloth, buy two new lenses, back pack, lupe, and get a new print washer. I guess I'm happy with my cable release, if I could only find it. I hope to have it all together soon.

Once I have the kit together I hope to use it for the rest of my life.... something I can't say about my Canon MKII.

-Rob Skeoch
BigCameraWorkshops.com

[paulr]

"My suspicion is that the older you are the more willing you are to operate on the fringe with equipment and processes not "convenient" (or even "hip," to use the older term)."

there might be something to this. i also think that things just go in and out of fashion. some pundit (christian d'or, maybe) said that "good fashion means rejecting the clothes your parents wore, and embracing the clothes your grandparents wore."

might be true about what cameras you think are cool, too. i see a lot of college and grad school age people taking up the big inconvenient cameras and alternative processes these days.

[Ted Harris]

"Is that elitist talk from the ULF corner?"

Nahhhhhh ... not me. Just that Michael is always telling me that I dramatically underestimate the number of folk toting around 11x14's and larger and I really am curious as to how many of these beasts are in use.

[Mark Woods]

I shoot 4x5, 5x7, and 8x10 with my Sinar P. I have a number of project that I'm working on, one about Berkeley '68-'73 (mostly street photography 35mm) and now (shot 5x7 and 4x5). I'm also shooting a series about Pasadena that is shot in the 3 formats I mentioned. I'm exposing only B&W and probably a couple of hundred sheets each year. I love the image quality of the 8x10!

MW

[CXC]

I check this site a few times a day here at the office to break up my workday and/or just to avoid working.

Whatever the numbers, LFers are few and far between -- I've never bumped into one while out shooting. The beauty of this forum is that it helps a small, geographically spread-out group become a community.

Unlike Rob, I hate my cable release. But I love my analog spotmeter...

[Scott Davis]

Although I don't shoot as much as I'd like to, I probably go through 200+ sheets of 4x5 b/w a year, 50 color, and 100+ sheets of b/w 8x10. If I got out on vacations of substance more often, I'd be doing double that. While there is some overlap here between LFForum and APUG, I'd say it is NOT a huge percentage. I think most people here post on APUG, but not the other way round. One nice offshoot of APUG's existence is that a lot of regional groups are forming up, in the US and elsewhere, and folks are starting to get together for social shooting. I'm helping to organize the mid-atlantic APUG group. There's a New England group, a New York /NJ group, a Southeast group, and a San Francisco Bay Area group is in the makings. There's at least one group in the UK, and a group in Scandinavia. I think we are going to see a significant renaissance in LF shooting as people grow disillusioned with the absence of craft found in digital, a renaissance that has only just begun.

[Herb Cunningham]

Kirk- I check apug and this forum regularly, daily most of the time.

I recently had a business trip to SF and took a 6x6 with me as a snapshot camera, but my favorite
is 8x10 when I have the time.

Having drunk the coolaid at Michael and Paula's camp, the AZO /Amidol prints have a quality
that takes me back to the 50's when I was able to shoot some decent stuff. I am still getting the rust off, but John at JandC knows me well (e.g. good customer)