Getting started in LF

[wacomme]

Due to major debt consolidation, I have to sell close to 30K worth of 35mm digital camera equipment. As I forlorn the inevitable, I came across a large format photographer this morning. She said getting in to LF doesn't have to be all that expensive.

So, what equipment is needed? What are some good, inexpensive, large format gear? What are the material costs — film, developing, etc?

Michael

[Glenn Thoreson]

You don't say what you are going to use it for, which could make quite a difference in your outlay. You can get started for less than 500 dollars if you're so inclined.

[Brian C. Miller]

Things you need:
Camera: under $200
Lens: under $200
Film holders: $5 - $10
Film: $25
Chemicals: cheap, maybe $30 (developer, stop bath, fixer)
Trays: cheap, maybe $15 for three.
Light meter: cheap, maybe $20, and "sunny-f16" guestimation rule is free
Tripod and head: Big tripod, sturdy head, $100-$200. I use a Bogen 3036.

Nice to have:
Enlarger: From free to $200 used. Omega and Beseler are the big two. Usually comes with a lens. (You want 135mm lens)

Watch Craig's List, eBay, and our own buy & sell forum. Wait for the deals.

[Rafael Garcia]

Camera for under $200.00?! For someone selling $30K's worth of 35mm equipment, a beat-up press camera won't do! Thus my correction to the list: Camera $600.00 to $2,500.00. Lens $140.00 to $1,000.00. Enlarger: free (I've never found these enlargers being given away by labs gone digital, but the urban legend persists) to $2,500.00 plus lens (another $200.00 to $500.00). Spot Meter: $200.00 to $600.00, etc. etc.

Not cheap at all, compared to 35mm. Now, if you want to really 'slum it' you can do what I did and buy an old wooden half-plate camera for $140.00 and a KEH 'bgn" grade lens for $149.00 and convert them to 4x5 with some woodwork, or buy an antique 5x7 camera for $300.00 including lens, and build your own enlarger, and then you can get into it for under $600.00. 4x5 filmholders you can get used for the $5.00 apiece, but forget about finding modern 5x7 filmholders for less than $40.00, used. Don't expect to receive much info on cheap stuff in any website, though. The cameras and lenses being discussed for the most part are $600.00 and up to $5,000.00 cameras and lenses.

LF is a lot more expensive than 35mm. I love LF, but that's the truth.

[William Barnett-Lewis]

We don't know diddly about why he's selling off his digicams. So? What we do know is that he want's to know how cheap you can get into LF...

1) Have a friend give you a beaten but still very usable Anniversary Speed Graphic with it's original 127/4.7 still there. Glorious, Price $0.00 & impossible to plan for.

2) Troll eBay for freaking ever but end up in a single week a Calumet CC-400 for $66 and a 135/5.6 convertible Symmar for another $62. Totally functional system with two focal lengths for $128 total. Oh, and BTW, that Symmar is on a lens board that fits the Speed just fine. ;)

3) Needed Accessories: film holders $20 for 10, a cable release $10, a bath towel for a dark cloth, an old Sekonic Studio Deluxe L-28C light meter for $30 and some kind of bag to haul it all around in (cost is your guess)...

Yeah, you can pay lots of money for a Linhof. I'd like to be able to.

In the meantime I'll use this Calumet that is the same type of camera O. Winston Link used (albeit in the Kodak original form) to make many of his classic images of the Norfolk & Western. If you really want to, you can find a working (shutter accurate, etc.) Pentax K1000 & associated Pentax SMC 50mm for $25 if you keep your eyes open. I did and gave it to a friend for Christmas...

Once you have the camera & lens, go to http://www.freestylephoto.biz/ and buy a box of their Arista.Edu ULTRA 100 in 4x5. Stupid cheap it's a really great film from FOMA in the Czech Republic that makes me forget that Plus-X isn't available in sheet film...

Last is development. Get a cheap Patterson clone tank. You can "taco" two sheets of film at a time in it. Google for what that means. Then soup it in diafine. The stuff is a two bath compensating developer (use that Arista film at EI200 ;) ) that lasts for freaking ever.

Decide what you really want to do. Only then can you decide how to proceed.

Good luck & good light.

William

[cyrus]

If you want to spend more money than is necessary, that's your choice but a
A Calumet C440 monorail viewcamera is an excellent 4x5 studio workhorse camera with a rotating back, solid as a rock, and found on Ebay for less than $170. Sure you can get a more expensive 4x5 studio camera - but it certainly won't do anything that this camera doesn't already do (probably will do less, in fact.) It is heavy though, and not meant for field work but more and more landscape photographers pass on the folding field ameras in favor of these studio cameras due to the greater range of movements and stability.

35mm film cameras have evolved a lot of extra bells and whistles (autofocus, etc) but LF cameras are still just basic light-tight boxes with some movements & that's all - so you really can't compare the two.

If you have money burning a hole in your pocket, spend it on the lenses and a decent tripod. They're more important than the camera, actually.

As for enlargers given away for free by labs that are going digital: I got two that way - an 8x10 Devere and a Durst L1200. The labs weren' going digital - they were going out of business entirely. You can find very good deals on enlargers.

[Ben R]

I just bought into LF. With a new Tachihara 4X5 BR field camera, a Caltar (Rodenstock N) 90mm f6.8 and 210 f5.6, both multicoated and in excellent condition used from Adorama, two holders (2nd hand) and a film changing tent (2nd hand) I spent $1600. I have a loupe and am using my the spot meter in my SLR.

Lenses are stupidly cheap in comparison to modern pro SLR lenses.

You don't say what you want to shoot though, I'm assuming that anyone with that amount of digital kit is shooting big projects, either studio or location and although starting off with LF might be cheaper, a full commercial setup and the resulting development and drum scanning costs could well bring you pretty close to that sum within the first year of business. There is a reason why commercial photography has left LF, the pace is too fast now, the clients want the speed. I think that LF would be a false economy (especially when commercial clients should be paying for your digital outlay as they did for film and processing).

If you are not a commercial photographer then I can't really understand that amount of equipment but LF works for the kind of photography that LF works for. Forget wildlife.... :)

[Randy H]

Kinda like buying a car. What do you want?
A '67 VW, or a '07 BMW Z3, or the Ferrari Testarosa?
Decide how much you want to spend, and look and wait.
Me? I have the VW (really do) and a $30 8X10 Century view, a $20 Dagor, a FREE DIIVC Omega (from this forum) another "expensive" Conley View 5X7 ($20) with a free triple convertible, etc etc. In fact, got a pretty decent little 4X5 "Brand" from this forum really really cheap. Actually looks and works pretty good.
Like I started, check your wallet and wait.

[GhoSStrider]

LF is like anything else in the photographic world, you can spend as little or as much as you like. I recently got into LF on the cheap side this way:

Camera - B&J Grover 4x5 for $175.00 here in the Buy/Sell forum

Lenses - Scheider Super Angulon for $250 here in the B/S forum and Scneider Symmar 150mm convertible for $125 in "BGN" condition at KEH

Lensboards - Had a woodworking friend make a couple for me. Traded for taking care of pets while he's out for a weekend.

Dark cloth - An old black t-shirt (doubled up if I need to make it a little darker). No cost.

Film holders - Picked up from various sources. Generally in the $5-$10 range.

Beyond that, all you'll need is some film and a lab that you drop it off at (if you don't want to get into developing your own). I've actually just started learning about traditional dark room techniques, and I'm hooked big time. I picked up a set of BTZS tubes for developing film in (you could actually build something similar out of PVC pretty easily, though). Now I just need an enlarger, and I have a set-up that will serve me well for just about everything I could want to do.

Best of luck to you. Be sure to bookmark this forum is you do end up getting into LF. There is an amazing amount of knowledge around. I don't post a lot, but I do make an effort to read as much as possible here every day!

[wacomme]

Here's the scoop: I'm a semi-pro photographer who's gotten himself into debt. I've been hoping to bring in more money with my photography, but haven't, and the bills need to be paid. My only real asset is my photo equipment, so I need to sell. I plan to buy this equipment back when I clear my debt; I'll pay cash. In the meantime, I'd like to continue with photography and not abandon it altogether during my debt interim. LF sounds intriging, especially since I'm getting into large prints. Business-wise, my photography is on hold. No more youth sport gigs or school pictures. However, I'd like to build my portfolio of stock pictures; even with microstocks, I still think there's money to be made as my portfolio builds, and I can take the photos after work in the evening at home with controlled lighting. Thus, I'm thinking of not selling all my gear, keeping my Canon 1d MK II and my 90mm TS lens, along with my modest studio setup.

But I also love nature and beauty. So, if I'm not doing photography to make money, then I might as well photograph what "I" like. Large, detailed images are what I find most fascinating. Enter LF photography. Perhaps I could sell my MKII and 90mm TS lens ($3000-4000), and buy LF. Couldn't LF double both in the studio and out in the field?

One of my primary concerns with LF is the production expense. Shooting digital, I have no problem taking hundreds of photos. The cost/photo is negligible. This isn't so with LF. I don't mind taking fewer photos, spending more time for each shot, but the developing/scanning costs seem prohibitive. $1.30/4x5 to develop, and at least $2.50/image to scan. Wow! I know developing B&W is cheap and I'm able to do it myself, but what about color? Also, what's the talk with enlargers? Are you talking about B&W printing in your own darkroom? I enjoyed this as a kid working in my parent's bathroom, but I'd rather digitize my images and manipulate/print them from within photoshop. I'd also like to work with color. So, what are the costs involved now?

What I'm afraid of most with LF is the continual costs of developing the images into usable formats (digital) for posting to the web, viewing on monitors, and printing, or selecting (somehow) which image to print and showcase as a large photograph, either for me or for my customers.

Thoughts and suggestions appreciated. Thanks.

Michael

[Joseph O'Neil]

Hi;
Here's something only you can decide, but if you go with a good used monorail, and a decent used o lens or two, I think you can do a decent setup for $1,000. You'll have to hunt around a bit, and you will not get all your gear overnight.

If you want a field camera, then you are likely getting into close to $2,000, IMO, for your setup. Little things kill you - for example, I find lensboards cost twice as much for my Tachihara as they do for my old monorail. Those are the things you can really rack up money on.

Last, if you want all your gear right away, and are willing to buy some low end new or occational used frosm place like Mpex or Badger Graphic or others (the "shine" has worn off Ebay for me anymore, although the used forum on this site is very good), then you could get yourself into $3,000 to $3,500 - again, depending on wha tyou want. For example, I love my wood Tachihara, but for somebody fresbh to LF, and wanting some new, reliable gear, that plastic body Toyo that sells for under $1,000 (at least the ones I have seen) are a pretty nice camera. It does not have back movements, but sometimes too many movements can confuse a person when you are starting out.

For example, I started with both a monorail and a Crown Graphic. Even though the Crown had far less movements, I found it easier to use when starting out, and i still after ten years use that camera from time to time.

Anyhow, if you are not in a rush, take a few weeks to shop around, do google searches and take your time, you can get a pretty nice setup for not bad money.
good luck
joe

[Mike Davis]

I send my color our to a local lab and have them process it. I can then scan it on my scanner at home. But I don't shoot much color (10 4x5's trannies in the past 3 years). I develop all of my own Black and White (I don't trust anyone else to do it).

I also do my enlarging and contact printing in a darkroom that I built here at the house. Its only the size of a bathroom but it will handle 11x14 and 16x20. After six months of avoiding the darkroom. I'm back in it 2-3 nights per week now (four this week). I manually produce prints. I could scan my negatives and print them but I prefer to produce analog prints. I like the simplicity and the satisfaction of the work. I never have those feelings when I'm doing digital retouching and printing. After more than 7 years doing digital retouching professionally (1990-1997), I've had to work to get to the same point with traditional methods but I have and I prefer it. It's a lot more fun than staring at a computer monitor and give me a better feeling of accomplishment than paying someone else to do it.

I have 2-4x5 cameras (sharing 3 lenses), an 8x10 with two lenses, studio strobes (one 1600 monolight and two 250ws Norman studio heads), complete hot light kit (2kw softlight, 1k fresnel, 3 quartz light), 2 enlargers and I spent less $4k for everything. That $4k includes a brand new $1k cold light head from Calumet.

My point is that LF does not have to be expensive. It can be done with greatly varying levels of expense. You've been offered advice to start slowly and be patient. The more patient you are the cheaper the cost for everything will be. But the decision is yours.


Mike Davis

[cyrus]

B&W production costs are relatively inexpensive though of course not as cheap as digital - the chemicals are a couple bucks, and Arista.edu film is good enough quality. Then you need someplace dark like a bathroom, and a few plastic trays to develop the negs. From there, you can skip the enlarger entirely and just scan the negative. I think quality flatbed film scanners are under $500. You can then post your images online and have a photoprinting service print the images too (Shutterfly comes to mind) - or you could enlarge at home too in which case you'll have to pay for the paper and some more chemicals. That's about it - in theory.

In reality, photography is a slippery slope and once you start spending, there's no end. And it is an expensive hobby, without a doubt, where you'll be punished for cutting corners.

I don't mean to be a buttinsky but if you're having financial problems you may want to consider working with a small digicam (which nowdays are darned good and match DSLRs) or even a used 35mm rangefinder or hey, isn't this a great time to experiment with pinhole? Keep your money, substitute creativity for gear until you're out of hock.

[darr]

Keep your money, substitute creativity for gear.

:)

[Absinthe]

... <snip>
What I'm afraid of most with LF is the continual costs of developing the images into usable formats (digital) for posting to the web, viewing on monitors, and printing, or selecting (somehow) which image to print and showcase as a large photograph, either for me or for my customers.

Thoughts and suggestions appreciated. Thanks.

Michael

Here is a thought, if you still have access to a digital camera, and can be a bit handy, why not forgo the scanning process and merely make a light box and "digitize" them into the digi cam. You know how you see somethign and say to yourself I should remember that and come back to it... well I can't find the project. There is a fellow that has several projects on his website, mostly relating to forensic photography, and one of the projects is a flash driven lightbox that essentially flashes the 4x5's to the digicam... Maybe someone else knows where it is...

Ahhhh here it is:

http://csigizmos.com/products/photography/copybox.html