A philosophical question about the # of lenses in your pack

[Vaughn]

Well, some of us have day jobs, but since my last post on this topic (Wednesday) I spent 7 hours with a floor sander (6pm to 1am) prepping the living room floor. Still need to do some touch-up sanding with a hand-held sander...hopefully get sealer and top coats on this weekend. Thursday night I spent with my girlfriend...I love her, but I also love her hot tub -- that floor sander was brutal! I am still closer to 59 than 60, but man, my back was wasted!

I was going to platinum print tonight, but my GF wore me out ...so tonight I went thru a huge stack of 2 1/4" negatives deciding which ones I want to platinum print tomorrow...along with some 8x10 and 4x10 negatives I developed Monday night. I'd like to squeeze in developing a few recent 11x14 negs this weekend, too. But no, no new negatives made since Wednesday. All the 4x10 and 8x10 negs were taken with my Fuji W 300/5.6. I did have a Fuji 250/6.7 in the pack, but I did not have a yellow nor orange filter for it, and the scenes called for it (Big-Leaf Maple leaves!).

The 11x14's were with the trusty 19" RD Artar, except for a portrait of one of my boys with a Suter Basle Aplanat B No.6 which is on loan to me (same focal length as the Artar.)

Me, my 11x14 and the Suter (in the backyard of my new place):

[ic-racer]

I always only carry a single lens. Photographs are created with the tools at hand. It is a naive, snapshooter concept that there is some magical 'right place, right time, right lens, right format, etc.' needed to produce a photograph.

[jnantz]

Coverage. A zoom that would cover 4X5 would be big as a house and cost about as much.

naaah, schneider could probably make a ultra modern and beautiful casket set ... for too much money, limited edition, comes in a gold engraved
ebony inlayed box ( or a rustic pine box to throw off the lens-bandits ). it wouldn't be a zoom, but you figure it would be only lens anyone would ever need to buy ...
9 or 10 modern coated cells on a modern shutter, piece of cake !
schneider made THE xxxL triple a few years ago and from what i remember reading everyone who used it was very happy with
even the converted focal lengths ...

[ROL]

I am still closer to 59 than 60...

Man, your age is showing. Nice legs (), but those Tevas (also the name of my black lab long gone since last century) are so 1980's. Chacos will get your closer to the new millennium, and stay on your feet in the river.

[Jody_S]

Ok I want to apologize to the OP for being so OT....


Since we are talking about carrying equipment... Although I use a real light meter, this "light meter" app is actually very handy...

Attachment 103965

It would save some space in your bag, as well as pre-planning your times in certain light with THIS app "reciprocity timer" made by a LFFer...

Attachment 103966

Version 2 coming soon. This one I use all the time!

I admit to using a smartphone-based lightmeter from time to time, as well as apps to do bellows extension factor calculations and depth-of-field. I will even duplicate a lf shot on the smartphone camera, because it's easier to email the result to my wife who is wondering why I'm not home yet. But I don't consider the result to be a 'photograph', it's a 'snapshot'. Although you could argue that snapshots are a subset of photographs.

And I'm not yet willing to leave the spotmeter at home in favor of an iPhone.

[Vaughn]

Man, your age is showing. Nice legs (), but those Tevas (also the name of my black lab long gone since last century) are so 1980's. Chacos will get your closer to the new millennium, and stay on your feet in the river.

So far, after many backpacking trips up Redwood Creek -- crossing the creek constantly -- the Tevas have stayed on my feet. And yes, I am known for wearing socks (white, but sometimes wool) with the Tevas in public, much to my teenagers' horror. But the soles are starting to crack...I might get another year or so out of them, so I'll look into Chacos when the time comes. On the backpack trips, I keep it to one lens (Caltar IIN 150/5.6) with the Gowland Pocketview -- to keep it light, and I only have one lensboard for that camera anyway.

I do have a partial casket set I could adapt to the camera -- a beautiful Zeiss Protarlinse VII...three lenses marked 35mm, 22mm and 29mm -- with a Compur shutter presently on a Speed Graphic board. I have never used them, but the notes that came with the set states I should be able to get focal lengths from 143mm to 305mm. I would just have to keep the notes with me to figure out the combinations and the resulting f stops (shutter's aperture is marked in millimeters). I suppose in use, I would get good with them, but the small Caltar 150mm is just so much simpler to use. It just stays on the camera, the camera/tripod over my shoulder (with a waterproof stuff sack over the camera to protect it from snagging on branches and from moisture), and the film holders and meter in a shoulder bag.

A scanned 4x5 carbon print from one of my Redwood Creek trips:

[Brassai]

I once only had three lenses, 90/150/300mm. This worked out very well. I still have that set of modern lenses but don't use it much. I also have a set of vintage lenses (1900-1928) and a set of historic lenses (1840s-50s.) I also have some misc. lenses such as a Prosch rapid rectilinear. This isn't working so well for me. The problem is I now have so many choices, it's hard to pick one.

PS Vaughn--anyone ever tell you how much you look like Uncle Si?

[Vaughn]

...PS Vaughn--anyone ever tell you how much you look like Uncle Si?

Fortunately, no...

[Leigh]

I once only had three lenses, 90/150/300mm.

I once had only one lens.

I learned LF photography in 1960 doing news shots using a Graphic with a 127mm lens, period.

There's nothing "wrong" with having one or very few lenses. It just limits the images you can capture.

- Leigh