Why shooting large format in these times?

[E. von Hoegh]

When it comes to art, a perfectly valid reason is, "because I feel like it".

Yep, and I enjoy it to boot. I'm no artist, though - a craftsman is what I aspire to.

[DrTang]

It simple
The digital is great for low quality photos with fast turn around and low cost use for internet, weddings and news print/printing press. Digital quick use photo shop editing and on to upload or press .
LF is good for very low out put, but very high quality just look Ansel Adams work. LF is also good for sales as some other than digital this 15 years was the other way around when digital was new.
I use both LF film and digital both have there place.

Dave

If I shoot in a studio type situation - I use both..at least I know I got 'something' with my digital.. I can get the model something for her and I know I'm not coming home empty handed

then I can mess with the film - developing myself (sometimes), scanning, etc

Film is like a Christmas Present - maybe it'll be great..maybe it'll be horrible.. but half the fun is waiting to see

and with digital back up or 'addition' - it's not so nerve racking

[Stephen Willard]

You seem to all have accepted this false perception that a 36mp fullframe sensor has the same resolution as a 4x5 film. I am a kid who started photography with DSLRs and can't even decide where to start with Digital specific problems.

first of all, that 36mp sony sensor inside of a Nikon or Sony camera has a VERY high sensor aperture. 7360 photosites spread across 36mm. That's 7360/2/36= 102, let's repeat it in our heads again, hundred two line pairs per millimeter. Nikon is a good glass maker no doubt but still i would like to see ONE SINGLE nikon lens that can reproduce any acceptable contrast at that high of a resolution.

Oh wait a moment, that calculation is only valid if the photosites on the sensor are stacked one to one together without any wasted space between them. since in reality they do have circuits on the sensor the photosites are even tinier and more spread, requiring an even higher resolution lens.

Oh wait a moment, all this calculations were valid if the sensor was Black and White. Since these sensors are all Bayer patterned even with an IDEAL LENS which can resolve the required 200lp/mm they wouldn't output a 36mp picture.

On a Nikon D800 36mp Sensor YOU DO NOT HAVE STRAIGHT VERTICAL AND HORIZONTAL LINES AT ANY GIVEN WAVELENGHT. the closest they come is to making one straight horizontal OR vertical green line and THAT IS IT, ONE straight line instead of the required 6(required for reproduction of circular color patterns).

And now let's forget how much data we are losing while doing all the debayering and color guess game and hundreds of different processes that are going on at the same time inside of a digital camera to output a picture.

Ok so what about film? 4x5 inches, a good normal Large format lens has good contrast reproduction ratios at 40lp/mm and film responses fantastically to that. That is 40*2*120= 9600 and 40*2*100= 8000.
9600*8000= 76.8 Million.

That's 76 million output real RGB pixels, a Digital sensor that wants to match that has to have 3 photosites on the sensor for every output pixel, which means an RGB 230 megapixel sensor that would output a 76mp image.

So until the industry has made a much larger sensor that has over 200mp photosites on it, no digital is not equal to 4x5 inch film, even in resolution, let's forget the color, let's forget the 8x10.

I agree with Arash, but I do things by eye, and I wish all of you could see one of my framed 20x50 prints hanging on the wall that I have shot with my 4x10 camera. The tonality is so creamy, and the color fidelity will blow you away. I have never seen any digital photograph come even close. Just for the record I have only sold a few 8x10 prints and just recently a hand full of 11x14 prints. My biggest selling print by far is the my 20x50 prints. They fit real nice over couches, and the power of those chromogenic prints are absolutely overwhelming.

That said, many of my customers find digital landscape photography suspect of fraudulent manipulations. They want to know that the guy on the other end of the camera is a gifted photographer and not a gifted computer geek. They want to know it is about human might and not computer might. At $1500 a pop, most of my customers want to know they are buying real art and not computer generated images. The feedback I have gotten about this is so prevalent that I have stated on the front page of my website, "I use only large format cameras and traditional darkroom methods. Absolutely no digital intervention is used in the production of my work."

[Jim collum]

I love large format for the love of the process, for the craft it provides, for the vision that using it can enhance. I love the feel of wood and metal. I love the ground glass, and the window of the world it brings to me.

It has nothing to do for me with how good or bad digital is. whether there is or isn't a higher or lower resolution camera.

I'd love large format even if there weren't digital cameras around.

[ImSoNegative]

I like to shoot LF because I like to be asked by onlookers if I can still get film for the damn thing.

[Fred L]

I like to shoot LF because I like to be asked by onlookers if I can still get film for the damn thing.

lol ^^ this. so true and one I always get

[vinny]

I agree with Arash, but I do things by eye, and I wish all of you could see one of my framed 20x50 prints hanging on the wall that I have shot with my 4x10 camera. The tonality is so creamy, and the color fidelity will blow you away. I have never seen any digital photograph come even close. Just for the record I have only sold a few 8x10 prints and just recently a hand full of 11x14 prints. My biggest selling print by far is the my 20x50 prints. They fit real nice over couches, and the power of those chromogenic prints are absolutely overwhelming.

That said, many of my customers find digital landscape photography suspect of fraudulent manipulations. They want to know that the guy on the other end of the camera is a gifted photographer and not a gifted computer geek. They want to know it is about human might and not computer might. At $1500 a pop, most of my customers want to know they are buying real art and not computer generated images. The feedback I have gotten about this is so prevalent that I have stated on the front page of my website, "I use only large format cameras and traditional darkroom methods. Absolutely no digital intervention is used in the production of my work."

interesting. I've never been asked by a buyer how I make my prints. Never. Plenty of questions by tire kickers but that's another story.

[Bill Burk]

interesting. I've never been asked by a buyer how I make my prints. Never. Plenty of questions by tire kickers but that's another story.

How do you make your prints? Oh shoot, sorry, I'm just a tire kicker.

[vinny]

How do you make your prints? Oh shoot, sorry, I'm just a tire kicker.

that's the spirit!

[MDR]

Because of the live view viewfinder in the back, it's bigger than any digital camera mounted viewfinder I know.
Honestly LF tonality rules nothing beats LF in that department. The bigger the film the better the tonality. I also can't shoot Calotypes and paper negs in a digicam.