If you can be patient buying the gear, a piece at a time, (like I did) there are plenty of bargain cameras, holders, & lenses.
If you process film yourself, 8X10 xray film less than 50 cents per sheet...Is less than shooting 120, or paper negs.
If you can be patient buying the gear, a piece at a time, (like I did) there are plenty of bargain cameras, holders, & lenses.
If you process film yourself, 8X10 xray film less than 50 cents per sheet...Is less than shooting 120, or paper negs.
Wow. A lot of replies.
I have tons of free lab time in NYC at ICP, and my school has 8x10 enlargers. I'd probably contact print and do 20x24 or something. Probably color, actually. 8x10 would be for shots that really benefit from it, otherwise I'd just shoot medium format, so I'm not too concerned with the cost of film because I wouldn't shoot all that much of it. (I'm shooting a project on migrant workers this summer, and it'll probably be mostly on a Mamiya 6 or 7.)
I guess I'll just go 4x5 and shoot more color.
I just quit smoking, so all I spend my money on right now is film, food, and gas. Everything seems affordable.
Edit: And paper. Ugh. This analog stuff is so expensive. I don't even use tilts and swings (I just cannot see them on 4x5, which is honestly a lot of the reason I want 8x10.)
ortho-esque wont put ypu un the poor house
plenty of paper to make paper negatives, even xray film
its just like anything
you need the camera a lens and a few film holders ...
paper negatives print ok, they scan ez too ...
X2 on the X-Ray film...I think I paid $30 for 100 sheets a couple years ago. You can get a camera cheap if you haunt ebay...the trick is just being persistent. You have to search...and search...and search. I think I paid about $250 for my Kodak 2D with a lens and three film holders a few years ago. I mix my own divided D-72, so the cost of development is almost nothing.
It can be done on the cheap, you just have to be patient .
I've build my 18x24cm (bit smaller than 8x10) camera for about $100 and got two Zeiss Tessar's: 210/4.5 and 300/4.50 for about $50 each.
I use only x-ray film: about $30 for 100 sheets. I made my own D-23 developer and simple fixer. Cost of 100 sheets of x-ray film and chemistry to develop and fix it should be about $50.
But I'm quite happy with 18x24cm contact prints (carbon and kallitype) and I don't really need anything bigger.
For me it seems to be quite cheaper than digital camera and modern lenses.
Well, that's until I want to try panchromatic film
Sometimes, people start school at Brooks in Santa Barbara and it doesn't work out and they sell or pawn LF gear. A guy I used to work with bought his 4x5 like that. As someone said earlier, patience. Good luck.
[QUOTE I don't even use tilts and swings (I just cannot see them on 4x5, which is honestly a lot of the reason I want 8x10.)[/QUOTE]
Get a pair of the strongest reading glasses you can find. I had 5x reading glasses custom made years ago. It will make it much easier to see the 4x5 screen and focus! I seldom use a loupe with my glasses. If you've only used medium format, 4x5 will be a much easier and cheaper transition, rather than trying to go to 8x10. 20 x 24 is a 5x mag from 4x5 which should print just fine. L
I had shot 4x5 for decades and had always deeply lusted for 8x10. Eventually, I gave into the urge and acquired a Calumet C-1 (the lighter magnesium version for which one pays a premium and is only ~twice your weight budget without lenses and holders.) In my limited experience with it, the best thing about 8x10 is the truly fantastic view on the ground glass. From there, for me, the rest was disappointing. To get the depth of field that I was used to with 4x5 and get the coverage I wanted from the 240 G-Claron that I was using for a wide (real wide angles for 8x10 are insanely heavy and expensive,) I was almost always deep within diffraction territory so image quality suffered. Also, one can reasonably print any size one wants to as long as it is 8x10. Not being able to afford film for weeks at a time was not any fun at all either. Admittedly, my foray was half-assed but the learning curve was not shallow.
Bookmarks