Why do you (still) shoot LF?

[Rider]

I'd be interested in hearing your responses, both in words and through the multiple choice question.

[Brian Vuillemenot]

All of the above, but first and foremost for the image quality.

[Vaughn]

Large negative for contact printing alt processes

[Bruce Watson]

I'd be interested in hearing your responses, both in words and through the multiple choice question.

Why do I still shoot LF? Because it still offers the highest specific image quality (image quality per kg or even image quality per $ USD [at the volumes I shoot]). I keep an eye open for alternatives, but I don't see anything on the horizon that will lure me away. But I can be lured...

[Matt Blaze]

For me it's primarily the availability of movements to control perspective and the large sensor/film area that gives shallower DoF (and better control of what's in and out of focus) for a given angle of view. The latter cannot easily be manipulated after exposure, either digitally or optically, and so this is what is likely to keep me shooting LF even as smaller-format DSLRs improve. (I suppose I'm bucking the crowd here, since many photographers seem to aim for as much DoF as they can get, in which case a smaller format is actually an advantage).

[Steven Barall]

I wouldn't exactly say that I enjoy the slow pace but rather that I like the formality of it all. I like that I have to be considerate in a way that is not necessary when shooting film in rolls. There is also a certain amount of toil involved which to me feels like work which is a feeling that I like.

Also, seeing the image on the ground glass is not the same thing as seeing it in a viewfinder. You get to step back a bit and think. The upside down and backwards image offers just the right amount of abstraction as well. It offers perspective, like being removed from the scene. It's like looking back at an event after a period of time has passed, you get a new view of that scene because of that passage of time, you get a new perspective. That's what a ground glass view camera image does for me it lets me step back both physically and emotionally.

[Walter Calahan]

Is there another format? Grin.

[Robert Oliver]

Because a chimp can't operate a view camera....

[D. Bryant]

I'd be interested in hearing your responses, both in words and through the multiple choice question.
For the same reasons I always have.

Don Bryant

[Eric Brody]

LF is a completely different experience than any other kind of photography. To spend a day and produce five or six images, and that's on a productive day in a terrific place, makes each image special. While a good 6x7 negative comes quite close in quality, it is still not the same. It is hard to explain what is so engaging about LF image making even while standing next to a digital photographer who has shot 20 frames while I made have not quite finished setting up.

Eric

[Jorge Gasteazoro]

Because a chimp can't operate a view camera....

LOL...you made my day.. :D

[lenser]

While I shoot 35mm and medium formats as well, there is just something about working under the dark cloth that is just more contemplative. You do have to step back and think about composition, movements, lens choice, and point of view in ways that aren't the same in the smaller formats. It does border on the spiritual in how you simply have to THINK!

There is also the sense of connection with the history of the medium, maybe a feeling kinship with the like of Adams, O'Sullivan, Jackson, Weston and many others.

Besides that, there is just something sexier about working with that big wooden folder and all the other toys that go with it.

[Robert A. Zeichner]

I find large format a contemplative way of making photographs. It's not so much the size of the negative as the use of a view camera. Everything you do has a purpose and when you get into that routine, I believe you become more connected to the subject.

[Brian Ellis]

Only because I enjoy the process of making a photograph with a large format camera, especially composing a photograph on the ground glass. There is no other reason. The reasons that originally got me started with LF have pretty much gone by the wayside. At my print sizes I can get about the same quality from a Canon 5D, movements are no longer a big deal because I can do essentially the same thing in Photoshop, and the ability to control the negative to a limited extent through development pales in comparison to the control over the in-camera image available through Adobe Bridge and Photoshop.

[sanking]

If you can not see the difference in print quality between 4X5 and 5X7 formats compared to DSLR up to about 16 mp, in any size over about 16X20, you may be suffering from old age eyes.

Consider cataract surgery if this condition continues.

Sandy King

[Daniel Geiger]

The limit to two options was tricky, so had to go with quality of image and movements. There is the challenge and doing something different aspect as well. Slow and deliberate work is also important, which interacts with quality and movements. It also teaches me to be more considerate when using 35 mm for "action" shots (insects, spiders, herps).

What about exercise? Compare a DSLR with 8-800 mm VRzoom [no tripod required, b/c built-in flash] vs. a LF kit with a few lenses and legs. One has to be a good sport to do LF.

It is interesting to note that for PhotoTechnique's serious photographer promotion, I submitted a range of images from SEM, to epi/trans LM, false-color IR, underwater macro, and LF. The two main images they chose are both LF. Although I have not done a chi-square, I bet it would be highly significant.

[Richard M. Coda]

Because it's better... end of story ;^)

[Alan Davenport]

I voted for "something else entirely," that something being my inability to afford the payments on a 100 megapixel digital camera...

[Capocheny]

For the sheer exercise in lugging around a LF camera and all the accessories that go with it! :)

Seriously, for me?

I'm in full agreement with Robert Z... and it's a GREAT way to slow down the pace of life in the fast lane! :>o

Cheers

[Ed Richards]

You left off sheer bullheadness.

[Charles Carstensen]

It's the challenge of self discipline in creating the image in my mind long before pressing the shutter release. Then, the wait to physically see the result. It is magical - every time.

[Lucas M]

I shoot large format because I really enjoy it.
Seriously, it fits perfect with me and my contemplative introspective view of the world.

[Jorge Gasteazoro]

It's the challenge of self discipline in creating the image in my mind long before pressing the shutter release. Then, the wait to physically see the result. It is magical - every time.

Ah.... I am not alone... :)

[BradS]

I think it is mainly because LF affords one so many exquisite ways to screw up. I get a thrill if I am able to produce a printable negative or slide.

[David A. Goldfarb]

Image quality particularly of contact prints, alt processes, control of development, camera movements, ability to use classic lenses for the formats they were designed for, easier to retouch big negs.

It's not all contemplative. I shoot Weegee style too.

[Norm Buchanan]

If you you want big beautiful prints you need a big negative.

[alec4444]

I wouldn't exactly say that I enjoy the slow pace but rather that I like the formality of it all. I like that I have to be considerate in a way that is not necessary when shooting film in rolls. There is also a certain amount of toil involved which to me feels like work which is a feeling that I like.

Also, seeing the image on the ground glass is not the same thing as seeing it in a viewfinder. You get to step back a bit and think. The upside down and backwards image offers just the right amount of abstraction as well. It offers perspective, like being removed from the scene. It's like looking back at an event after a period of time has passed, you get a new view of that scene because of that passage of time, you get a new perspective. That's what a ground glass view camera image does for me it lets me step back both physically and emotionally.

Well said. The only thing I'd add is that to me, shooting large format makes me feel that I'm practicing a craft again. Not "arts and crafts" mind you, but the type of craft that used to spawn "masters" and "apprentices". The type of photography where time, practice, consistency & patience yield true results; not in weeks or months but over years. And nothing like my day job makes me wish more that I practiced a craft for a living.

--A

[Jim Fitzgerald]

For the contact prints in 8x10 and 8x20. There is also something very special about a nice print from a good 4x5 neg that is enlarged. Also, it fits my vision.

Jim

[John Kasaian]

It's funner :D

I have hundreds if not thousands of snapshots made with lesser formats. A lot of them are pretty nice, but for the life of me I cannot recall much about how they were made.

OTOH each large format print I've ever made comes with a mental recollection of the day, the weather, the lens, the f/stop, the shutter speed, mixing the chemicals and what kind of beer I had with lunch.
Nothing else in photography that I've experienced is remotely like that!

[Brian Ellis]

If you can not see the difference in print quality between 4X5 and 5X7 formats compared to DSLR up to about 16 mp, in any size over about 16X20, you may be suffering from old age eyes.

Consider cataract surgery if this condition continues.

Sandy King

Thanks for the medical advice, I'll consider the source and take it for what it's worth. But just so you know - I don't print larger than 16x20.

[Uri Kolet]

And also because there's room for only ONE person under the dark cloth.

[Capocheny]

And also because there's room for only ONE person under the dark cloth.

Hi Uri,

Not always! :) :)

Cheers

[domenico Foschi]

For the quality of the approach.
It has taught me economy, discipline and strangely enough, freedom.
I can fit to my cameras 140 years old lenses!! That alone is enough.
Better tonalities and less grain than smaller formats.

[Daniel_Buck]

for me coming from 35mm film and digital, I like the slow pace of the 4x5, everything being deliberate. I'm not quite sure why I enjoy this, but I do. Maybe subconsciously it makes me appreciate the photos more?

[Bule]

Because it's so damned much fun! The cameras themselves are marvels of mechanical ingenuity and craftsmanship, and operating one is like a hands on lesson in optics and perspective control, while composing an upside down and reversed image on a large screen under a dark cloth is an exercise in psychooptical physics, with so many pitfalls along the way, making a useful exposure is akin to running the table in billiards. And if you like puzzles the way I do, calculating an exposure is a multivariable grinfest. In fact, every step of the process, from loading the film holders, to framing the print is accompanied by giggles, despite the multiple and accumulative errors and miscalculations that always leave perfection visible on the horizon, but seductively beyond reach. The gear, the materials, the processes and the expressive opportunities they present provide me infinite fascination and endless amusement. I suppose if I was the golf club throwing type, I might be less tolerant of my many, photoruinous mistakes, and seek a format less prone to failure, but I am failure-friendly, and love the format, warts and all. Besides, no one is watching, or keeping score, and I only show my best work, as if it was made as casually as a Polaroid snapshot, otherwise my sanity would be an open question, and my allocation of resources "under review". In short, large format = big fun.

[Narcissist]

Mostly because a digital back of comparable quality costs over £20,000 and even then I’m not sold on digital b&w. Sort these 2 issues and my camera would probably be on ebay.

6x7 cameras do not offer me movements and with it the freedom to use the compositions I often desire.

[Peter Lewin]

Aside from many of the other reasons already given, there is something about the darkroom process that just feels different with an LF negative, the tactile feel of a 4x5 for example, as compared with a strip of 35mm. I guess it is a subset of "image quality", burning and dodging and contrast choice seems more rewarding when its a large negative in the enlarger, and in some perverse way I enjoy tray developing...(is that the source of the phrase "enjoying getting your hands wet?")

By the way, I loved the response "because a chimp can't do it." Reminded me of the old VW campaign which showed a shift knob above the text: "It makes you feel needed."

[Ron Marshall]

If and when an approximately 40 MP digital back (not scanning) is available for less than $5000 I would probably buy one.

[ljb0904]

I don't like squinting through the stupid little 35mm eyehole. I can't focus well.

[sanking]

Thanks for the medical advice, I'll consider the source and take it for what it's worth. But just so you know - I don't print larger than 16x20.

Just so you know, my remark was not personally directed toward you, nor did I even have you in mind when I made it. I was already aware that you do not print larger than 16X20 because you have made that point several times in the past.

Sandy King

[mrladewig]

I'm newish to LF having bought a kit at a flea market for $100 last year with the intention of reselling it. I'd shot 35mm for a long time and had gone to digital a few years ago.

I tried out the gear to make sure it would work and ended up really liking the results and the process. But the camera was a Calumet rail that didn't work with my style of hiking and photography, so I bought a new Tachihara.

I'm not a professional photographer. It is not my main source of income. So I can't justify the purchase of something like a P45+ back with a ROI calculation, especially since I own cars that cost less than this piece of digital gear that will be obsolete in a few years.

Large format lets me get at least this level of quality at a very reasonable cost.

I have four used lenses, a dozen film holders, 2 cameras (one purchased new) and the other basic accessories needed to shoot LF. With my planned upcoming scanner purchase, my 4X5 kit will have cost about the same as the current price of a 5D.

Certainly there are times when the 35mm camera excels and I'll continue to use it, but the large format camera has wiped my thoughts of getting a 5D or its replacement clear off the table. When I do my part correctly, the image quality is just so much better.

[Richard M. Coda]

Oh, and there's NOTHING like walking into an 8x10 (or larger) contact print... and getting lost ;^)

[roteague]

I love the image quality that LF Velvia gives. Yes, I do shoot 35mm and 6x12 as well. I don't shoot digital for anything serious.

[Eric Woodbury]

Fun

[sanking]

I don't shoot digital for anything serious.


I try to keep all of my work with photography as non-serious as possible. If I were to find out that back packing LF and ULF equipment around was a serious proposition I would probably give it up because this is really much harder work than I like.

Sandy King

[BradS]

because, I'm not dead yet.

[gari beet]

'cos I can :-)

Gari

[walter23]

Fun thread to read. Ultimately I think it's just that I enjoy the process of working with the camera. It just appeals to me on some weird level that doesn't even have to be rational.

But I answered camera movements and "something else entirely". That something else is the ability to be completely free from the proprietary interfaces and marketing hype of contemporary digital SLRs (though I have one of those damned things too).

A large format view camera is a flexible system to which you can attach pretty much anything.

A digital hasselblad is just a digital hasselblad. A canon/nikon SLR is just a canon/nikon SLR. A leica is just a leica. Whichever system you're using, you're stuck with it (more or less - there are adapters for a few things here and there).

My wooden 4x5 is the most flexible camera I can imagine. The output I can get from it covers pretty much the gamut of photographic representations and printing options (except for maybe long telephoto images of action). It is a high resolution colour capture device for eventual digital scanning to 100s of megapixels, a traditional silver B&W photography camera, an alternative process negative generator, a pinhole camera, a macro camera, a home-made lens camera, a perspective controlled camera, a holga-esque smudge-machine, and just a nice looking piece of woodwork. It's completely non-proprietary. I can attach any lens I want to a home-made slab of wood and go take photographs with it. I can put any sufficiently photosensitive sheet of material (as long as it's the right rectangular size) into a film holder and put an image on it. Its only weakness it that it isn't high throughput - but I don't appreciate high throughput anymore anyway - snapping everything in sight, while liberating, at best just gives you a lot of nice images that you don't know what the hell to do with and at worst gives you a big pile of crap that you feel obliged to store and catalogue for the long term. At least a negative can go into a sleeve and be put in a drawer and thought of as a precious little jewel ;)

[walter23]

I don't like squinting through the stupid little 35mm eyehole. I can't focus well.

That's another reason! When I'm out with my DSLR one eye always gets all screwy from squinting so much. The corollary of this is that I tend to take too many images (I get greedy, because all images are free!) and that makes the photography a little more agitated and somewhat less enjoyable ("gotta get that one, and that one, and that one, and that one!"). And then I don't know what the hell to do with all those images anyway. I enter a photographic state of anomie where everything seems equally pointless.