Oren - (being Devil's advocate again - don't take it personally) - would YOU actually
carry a 24,000 dollar back very far off the road? Stuff happens in the mtns. Really.
Oren - (being Devil's advocate again - don't take it personally) - would YOU actually
carry a 24,000 dollar back very far off the road? Stuff happens in the mtns. Really.
That is precisely what this forum has resisted in the past, and what it needs to resist now.
Not so many years ago, there were people on this site who were vehemently opposed to discussion about scanning and digital printing.
Had those people prevailed, this forum would now be a small subset of APUG.
Now there are new developments, and this forum can either embrace them or get left in the ditch.
What does embrace them mean? it means giving people a place to talk about them, and all of us a chance to learn new things. Why is that a threat?
Ed, I've restricted myself to talking about people like Wall and Burtynsky and Jordan (and should add people like Greg Miller) for a reason. They are conservative. I saw an exhibit at the Victoria and Albert Museum last month (yes, the V&A) on bleeding edge digital developments that showcased technology that has huge ramifications for large format imagery, but we can't talk about techniques that are now mainstream, let alone what the V&A was showing. This is crazy and counterproductive. At least, it's counterproductive if this is supposed to be a serious forum, maybe even for some people a professional one, instead of a stagnant backwater.
Arca-Swiss 8x10/4x5 | Mamiya 6x7 | Leica 35mm | Blackmagic Ultra HD Video
Sound Devices audio recorder, Schoeps & DPA mikes
Mac Studio/Eizo with Capture One, Final Cut, DaVinci Resolve, Logic
let them go to digital, they will have to sell their good stuff to us. Less LF shooters, more good stuf for us.
I have no problem with people go to digital. Keep your stuff posted on Ebay. I take'em all!!! 30 years later when eveyone will try to come backto LF, they would end up paying ten times more!!!
Large Format Photography isn't about film or camera size, it's a state of mind.
Wilhelm (Sarasota)
There are many photographic topics I would like to bring up here, but I don't because they don't involve large-format photography. When I want to talk about ex-Communist cameras and lenses, I do that on the Kiev Report. When I want to talk about digital Canons, I do that on Photography on the Net. When I want to talk about manual-focus lenses, I do that on a forum just for that. If I was anti-digital, there is APUG. I don't mind that the Pentax Discuss Mail List doesn't want to hear me talk about my Sinar (or my Kievs, or my Canons). The Internet is a big place, with room for groups of people to specialize however they want. I have never been able to get much into Photo.net because it's just too general.
Rick "respecting the specializations, however arbitrary they may seem, of groups of fellow enthusiasts" Denney
No, quite the contrary. I can't afford to buy one, let alone run the risk of carrying it into the rough. And even if I could, I still like film better anyway, even after having used a 24MP DSLR for several months and also having tested a couple of (much less expensive) medium format digital cameras.
So far as I'm concerned, any photographer is welcome to use whatever materials and methods they want. What's best for them is their decision to make, not mine. From a purely economic perspective, though, I think it's fair to say that the kinds of outfits being chosen by these big-name professionals who are substituting for 4x5 are still not realistically within the reach of most amateurs. That was my point.
I am not personally anti-digital at all. Perhaps it will suit me someday. I have a friend who does all studio work digital Sinar for publications. He easily has a two
million dollar investment in it, but for him it pays. There are folks around here like
Stephen Johnson, Charlie Cramer, Joe Holmes, and Ctein whose techno-talk is either subsidized or incentified; in other words, it's part of how they make a living. Makes
sense. Other folks are just attracted to this end of the spectrum and do their best
work in this manner. Great. Maybe a few folks are independently weathly and can do
anything they want anytime; I'm not one of them. And the thirty or forty grand it
takes to get serious digital camera gear would buy most of us a lifetime supply of
film, even 8X10! Just in the past three years I've three accidents with my view
camera gear. Total repair bill - $90. Everything else I fixed in my shop. Maybe by
the time I'm too old to care there will be something more practical in the digital
realm and film will disappear. Or I'll just be printing the hundreds of negs and chromes I already have on hand. Who knows. I applaud anyone who can make a great image in any manner they prefer. But for me, the apogee of relevance is someone like Atget who could take virtually obsolete equipment and a nearly antiquated printing technique and make something enduring out of it. If the latest
and greatest allow you to do this, by all means go for it. I'm perfectly happy with my Phillips 8x10 and my all-mechanical Nikon. And as long as we're all having a fun
snowball fight over this, wonderful. It's good to get the pros and cons out there.
Jim - thanks for updating me. Be interesting to see how this is working out for him.
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