Market size of amateur large format photographers?

[Christopher Condit]

I recently bought a Walker, and the serial number is 142. He's been making this model for 8 years. Sure, not the most popular brand in the world, but still, less than 2 a month? Gowland's website states that he's sold something like 1500 cameras (mostly 4x5 TLRs), but that's over 40 years, which only pushes him up into the 3/month range. There ain't many of us.

Perhaps Bob Salomon could give us some interesting numbers on Linhof, without giving away too many trade secrets? ;-)

I would have to disagree with TimO: most the LFers (amateurs like me) I know have reasonably new cameras, that they bought new. Many of those with older cameras also own newer cameras. It does seem to be a rich man's hobby, maybe because of the cost per shot.

CXC

[Herb Cunningham]

I have owned about 4 lf cameras in the last three years, now have an 80 year old Eastman, which is a lot of fun while Ron Wisner makes a new one. I expect the camera business is one of love not money

[shawn kielty]

If you were to call view camera magazine as an advertiser -- you might want to know how many readers you getting -- I am sure they will willingly tell you.

I'd be interested in seeing the numbers

Shawn

[Frank Petronio]

Thanks for your comments. I am considering getting more involved in the business and have been doing research. My thinking is that there are tens of thousands of photo school graduates from the 60s and 70s who never became professionals; now that they are nearing retirement age they may rediscover photography. I also think that the retiree and hobby market is much stronger than the commercial market at this point. The downside is that there is a tremendous amount of high quality used equipment on the market (I buy it myself.) The ironic thing is that a top quality precision Linhof monorail will sell for less than a wobbly third world wood and tin shoe box. And a $100 Graphic will often be quite good enough...

[neil poulsen]

Also, how many of us find a good deal? I own a camera and compendium lenshade that currently retails for about $2900. (The same model.) I paid $450 for it at a swap meet. Ditto on lenses.

Perhaps one can conclude that some of the market get's financed by people who spend a lot of money to give LF a try and then decide it's not for them.

[Jim Rice]

I bought my 4x5 Wisner tech about eight to ten years ago new. It is serial #120x, though i have no idea how long it had been on Del's shelf.

[RichSBV]

Sorry, but for some odd reason I just feel compelled to add some here.

Christopher: The people _you_ know own new cameras. To the group: It is very often taken for granted that people own new and/or extremely expensive used equipment.

I see it constantly is suggestions. Why not just buy this, it's only $900 and well worth it.... Or, it's only $13,000 and well worth it...

It's unfortunate. _Most_ of us do not own new equipment. I would even say that most of us see no need for new equipment. I own at least 10 Graflex cameras in 4x5 and 2 B&J in 8x10. The only lens I own that would even be considered decent in these forums is my Nikon 120/8. And the only reason I bought that (used) was because I couldn't find anything else that would do what I wanted and it was a decent price at the time. Everything else is at least 30 years old, some 100 years old.

It has looked to me for a long time that the "rich man's hobby" attitude has excluded a lot of people from participating. And there's an awful lot of us out here...

Again, sorry for the little rant...

On the other hand, if some company did produce a nice 4x5 or 8x10 that was _affordable_, I'd be real tempted to buy new too...

[Mike Buehler]

View camera's ad rate page list their circulation at 16,000

[Jonathan Lee]

The numbers must be small. I live in Ottawa, a Canadian city of ~700,00 people. There is not a single camera dealer in this city that stocks a new 4x5 camera. A few used ones for sale but no new ones. In Canada, population of ~30 million, I am aware of only one dealer (Vistek in Toronto) that has a new 4x5 camera in stock and that is a Sinar F1. In a country this size, there is no Ebony or Arca Swiss distributor because the market is too small.

Without any facts to back me up, I would guess that the total number of new view cameras sold worldwide would be somewhere in the low thousands annually.

[Chet Kwapisinski]

Jonathan---- check out: http://harrysproshop.com/ for new Wisners.

Cheers