I admire the work of such 19th century landscape photographers as F. Jay Haynes, Carleton Watkins, and Darius Kinsey, and have been trying to figure out how to achieve a similar look in my own work. It was not hard to learn that the film t hey used was orthochromatic, not panchromatic; this explains why (for example) t he sky in many old photos is completely washed out. Information on 19th century printing techniques is not hard to find. Their compositional techniques are re adily susceptible to analysis (they are the same as those used by painters and w atercolorists at the time, and anyway are intuitively obvious). My difficulty l ies in recreating their equipement.
I have read books about these photographers, and studied their photos, but the b ooks I have read focus purely on the photos, or the historical context . . . non e that I have read describe the equipment they used in any detail.
I understand that 19th century photographers used a variety of cameras, includin g (but not limited to) half?plate and full plate cameras, and I know that a rela tively long lens on a 4X5 camera (for example) can be a short lens on an 8X10 ca mera (if it has the covering power). I'd like to know what lenses these photogr aphers used for any particular camera; then I may be able to estimate which lens es are approximately equivalent for the 4X5 format.
I realize that I will only be able to approximate the equipment used, since I do not plan to go to the trouble of getting antique equipment (which is probably b etter left in museums, for the most part). Furthermore, many of the landscapes they photographed have been changed. As I said, I only want achieve a similar e ffect. Thanks in advance for your suggestions.
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