Handheld 4x5 - what an experience!

[Patrik Roseen]

I think the responses made are all very true, interesting and triggers a lot of thoughts atleast in my mind.

As for the quality of the pictures, I think I will not like to go below 1/25th of a second in the future and I will load EI400 to allow a small aperture for 'true' handheld. Joe certainly added very good advice from PERSONAL EXPERIENCE which allows slower films and slower speeds using a monopod or simply placing the camera on something steady. The quality is important as I too aim to enlarge the picture to 8x10" - 20x25".

I would like to distinguish between handheld and streetshooting. As Terence and 'CXC' both pointed out streetshooting is a game in itself. The camera obviously brings alot of attention and it's easy to get people to participate in a shot and ofcourse they also ask if they can have a copy...and I answer 'Yes, if the picture turns out well' ...and this is the difficult part...one really wants to live up to expectations (is this going to start another discussion about streetphoto??). (And what's the most common question - Is that a Hasselblad?) I did not go out to do streetshooting but I was overwhelmed with the possibilities as stated above.

With handheld it's like with many things - you simply don't know it before you have tried and you can not possibly imagine all things that might happen. ..but with trying comes experience. I did handheld for the second time yesterday and I did not make the same mistakes again because the procedure was now worked out. I will probably use my ShenHao 6x12 back with TMAX400 if setting up speed is important but then I need to depend fully on rangefinder focusing (as I do not want to switch between groundglass & rollfilmholder all the time).

So why did I try handheld in the first place?

I really enjoy (=love) LF because of the quality it brings in all aspects, the intellectual challenge, the manual work, the equipment, the reason to spend alot of money ;-). And I too use a steady tripod, focusing darkcloth, spotmeter etc and I spend minutes to adjust plane of focus, restoring perspectives, choosing filters etc with good result though I'm still learning.

Handheld to me is the opportunity to bring the camera in situations where the normal equipment might be too large and heavy to carry with me...or as a means to capture the changing light when the tripod would be too slow as 'CXC' pointed out. I happen to have a Linhof Technika which is capable of handheld - so why not learn how to? And it's great fun!

[Brian Ellis]

"Somehow the old press guys managed to capture a lot of fleeting moments when press cameras were the considered the best tool for the job. It's not as if they've become worse tools in the meantime. We've just become less practiced at using them."

I don't think that's entirely accurate. We certainly have become less practiced at hand-holding 4x5 cameras. But the "old press guys" were photographing for newspapers, where the photographs would usually be printed in a small size and the image quality was going to be severely limited no matter what they did. So they could pop a 127mm lens on the camera for depth of field and angle of view, fire away, then let the editors crop to their heart's delight without being concerned about the kinds of quality issues with which we're concerned.

[Frank Petronio]

I've printed old press photos from the old negs. Many, if not most, had a combination of poor lighting, motion blur, lousy exposure, and/or missed focus. The repro requirements were very forgiving. The average press photographer was a slob - the average newspaper darkroom technician was a talented and skilled craftsperson who rescued decent images from all the dreck.

Put it this way - I've bought and sold several old Graphics. They are great cameras, but several of the ones I had stunk from cigar smoke. The stereotype of a slobby cigar smoking wannbe-WeeGee type probably isn't too far off...

[David A. Goldfarb]

Weegee did say "editors demand and expect to get needlesharp photographs," and used flash even in daylight so he could always shoot at f:16 or smaller, 1/200 sec., mainly scale focusing at 6 or 10 feet. We've got faster film and better lenses than he did.

[Frank Petronio]

Well, I wasn't printing WeeGee's negs ;-) I was printing stuff from small town Upstate NY togs and they were far less skilled.

[Donald Qualls]

The stereotype of a slobby cigar smoking wannbe-WeeGee type probably isn't too far off...



I'll have you know I haven't smoked a cigar in close to twenty years!

[Brian Ellis]

"Weegee did say "editors demand and expect to get needlesharp photographs," and used flash even in daylight so he could always shoot at f:16 or smaller, 1/200 sec. . . . "

That's interesting. I'm far from being a flash expert, espcially with press cameras using flash bulbs, but I thought the usual practice of press photographers in Weegee's time was to use a shutter speed of 1/30 or slower since faster speeds tended to lose part of the light and hence the picture (the old bulbs extended the light output over a longer period of time than modern electronic flash).

[Walt Calahan]

Brian,

If you drag the shutter too long with strobe and particularly flash bulb ( but I thought the usual practice of press photographers in Weegee's time was to use a shutter speed of 1/30 or slower since faster speeds tended to lose part of the light and hence the picture ) you introduce motion and edge blur to the image. Something Weegee was trying to avoid to please his editors. Remember the dot screen of a newspaper at that time was large, so blur did not reproduce well.

At 1/200 sec the photographer uses the most intense part of the flash bulbs power without much ambient light, which then reduces the chance of edge blur from camera shake, or motion blur from the subject moving while the bulb burns.

That's why Weegee recommended the technique, for newspaper/magazine reproduction, not fine art gallery prints.

You are correct that the image would benefit from the fill of ambient light. As with everything in life, there are trade offs.

Now Frank, about your blanket statement "The average press photographer was a slob . . .."

What do you mean by "average"? What's your polling data for this observation? What are your resources? Most of the old timers I've met when I was a young pup where gentlemen and ladies. They kept their home neat, dressed well, and only one I knew smoked a cigar. Yes the stereotype in the popular press showed photographers in a particular light, but to say the "average" is this or that can't be substantiated.

What is the real number "several" (several of the ones I had stunk from cigar smoke.)? 5? 20? 100?. Did you buy from a small pool of photographers, or from all across American?

I met a wonderful photographer a few years ago. She was a Coast Guard photographer during World War II who taught Navy Combat photographers. She was an expert at using handheld 4x5 cameras. Did did not smoke a cigar. She dressed very nicely. Had a cheery personality. Nothing about this former military press photographer (in World War II the Coast Guard was part of the military) would say she's a slob. May be she left bread crumbs on the cutting board in her kitchen and she rarely vacuumed behind the sofa, but I don't know.

Thinking about the thousands of press photographers of the 1940s and 50s spread across America, all from different backgrounds, how can anyone sweepingly say the "average" was a slob? They are just folks like you and I trying to make a living, not a life style statement.

[GPS]

Patrick, a few more nights and you can get a nice 4x5 P&S Fotoman and enjoy the handheld 4x5 as never before - regardless of all the opposite philosophy.

[Frank Petronio]

Walter, I use a Super-D Graflex and dress appropriately, in tie and tails when I use it. It is the "classy" camera for sophisticated photographers. Maybe some upper-crust photographers do indeed have a Graphic lurking in their corner, but I understand that they only use them for rough work and dress down in dungarees and flannels when they do.

Heavens, the lack of decorum on this forum is atrocious! Where would polite society be without generalizations and proper boundaries?