Portraiture with shallow depth of field. A good old portrait lens which is relatively fast will lend a very shallow DOF and give the portrait a bokeh that is second to none (ie: 241 4.5 Raptar, 8 1/2" Verito, any Petzval, etc)
Portraiture with shallow depth of field. A good old portrait lens which is relatively fast will lend a very shallow DOF and give the portrait a bokeh that is second to none (ie: 241 4.5 Raptar, 8 1/2" Verito, any Petzval, etc)
Perhaps some street photography like urban landscape images? The detail captured in a well created large format image can be quite compelling.
Best,
Photojeep
Originally Posted by AChristensen
I have a couple of thoughts:
First, "Best" is a relative term and fairly meaningless when used all alone like this. It's like asking what is the best flavor of ice cream....I think this is important because, instead of narrowing the field I see it as opening it up. That is best can be what ever you want it to be as long as you have something to support your opinion.
Second, I spent many years in college - fifteen all together by the time I was done (no, I did not study art). Probably the single most valuable thing I learned is the value of the university library. I think it applies to your problem too. May I suggest that you do some research in the library...figure out what photographers used view cameras. Find out who still uses them. Look at their work. Try to understand why they use a view camera....William Henry Jackson probably used one because that is all there was. But in more modern times...many choose view cameras and large negatives over the alternatives. Even back in the 1950's there were already many alternatives to the large format view camera....and in many areas, the view camera still ruled...why? Why were playboy centerfolds all done with LF view cameras well past the time when they could just as esily been done with a medium format camera.....Why did Ansel Adams and all of his peers use a view camera? If you figure this out (and the library is the place to do it...NOT the WWW!) then you can choose any area that interests you and, and this is the important part, you will be able to support your choice.
Often times, professors want to see which students go beyond the spoon feeding stage and dig deeper on their own. They do this by making open ended and seemingly vague assignments like the one before you...
Last edited by BradS; 15-Apr-2010 at 10:47. Reason: typos.
BradS makes some good points, but it may be difficult to sort out why LF was once the medium of choice for certain applications that have been taken over by other things. For example, large color transparencies were easy to evaluate and offered incontestable proof of their own quality, but the advent of digital canceled the first advantage and color management has largely offset the second.
On the other hand, a view camera has---intrinsically---two advantages that are difficult or impossible to overcome by the use of any other technology (that I know of, anyway). The focal lengths and apertures of LF lenses offer control of the depth of focus (from negligible to enormous), and the use of swings and tilts allows both perspective control and focal plane placement. Beside architecture, the preeminent niche for these degrees of freedom is product photography. In the days when catalog merchandising was in its heyday, a lot of effort went into making superb representations of things like toasters, farm equipment, and hand tools, and most or all of this was done with view cameras. Having tried to make publication-quality illustrations of scientific and technical "products" with small-format and digital cameras, I am firmly convinced that nothing will ever replace a view camera for this.
In addition to what's already been recommended - e.g., architecture and product - I'd sasy that poitrature is best done with a view camera. Yeah I know - it's slow setting-up, no auto-focus or in-camera exposure meter - but the people posing don't seem to mind that too much and actually seem to pose themselves much better without coaching. Plus, you get a good negative from which you can easily make a good print.
When I first started taking photographs I would pick themes like. Fire excapes on buildings, doors, front steps, windows or what ever, just pick a subject, and take as many difference shots, of difference ones from differance angles at difference times in difference light. Then choose the ones you like the best. Just Do It. Thanks Richard
Google: George Hurrell
Kirk - www.keyesphoto.com
I interpret the question as: if a camera is a tool, and it's important to use the best tool for the job at hand, for what job is a LF camera the best tool?
My answer to that question would be; increasingly few, if we're discussing tools, dispassionately. As mentioned, architecture and table top product photography favor view cameras for their bellows and movements, but there are other ways to get comparable results, and which approach is to be preferred will depend on many factors, including the photographer's experience and training. Chris Jordan's work depends on 8x10 film, and therefore, a view camera, but I think the reasons most of us use LF view cameras are more personal than practical. As one who makes mostly portraits, in many formats, I would never say LF is the best format for portraits. I think there's a strong argument in favor of 35mm as the best format for portraits, but there are other arguments too, and in the end, it's a preference, like so many others. Good luck with your assignment.
it may be difficult to sort out why LF was once the medium of choice for certain applications that have been taken over by other things
I realize now that in editing a poorly worded sentence, I managed to drop a paragraph out entirely.
What I meant to get across is that many former uses of LF were superseded, not because unique properties of the medium had been taken over by new technology, but because unrelated developments made them irrelevant. The heyday of big transparencies ended along with the use of color separation negatives for printing, and the decline of 4x5 press cameras was probably hastened by the advent of offset printing for newspapers (which made pictures much less expensive to publish and led to demands for volume and spontaneity, both of which favored roll film cameras). You probably won't see issues like these discussed in the context of photographic history, although they might show up in the literature of photojournalism or publishing.
Architecture and product photography seem to be the last two genres where the view camera still has a unique advantage, even if in many cases the film has been replaced by a digital scanning back.
Large format still has a big advantage in wet plate.
Posting Permissions
Reply With Quote
Bookmarks