Regarding Bob Salomon's remark about large format and newspaper photography: I was surprised to see a B&W photo of MLK side view on the steps of ?the Lincoln Memorial--on the other side was a photog taking a picture of MLK at the same moment: He was using a Graflex 4x5. This in the middle to late '60s.
Peter Collins
On the intent of the First Amendment: The press was to serve the governed, not the governors --Opinion, Hugo Black, Judge, Supreme Court, 1971 re the "Pentagon Papers."
the bayonet remark was funny!
Once upon a time, about 5-6-7 years ago I was wandering through an antique mall and saw an opaque projector with an 18" f3.6 cooke triplet projection lens. I don't know that I ever weighed it, ?5 pounds?. I built a progressively more complicated 8x10 arrangement out of it to take pictures: lots of cardboard and gaff tape to use the projector as a camera, sliding box camera, then all movements 8x10 which I way way underestimated the need for rigidity, rebuilt it a couple times. I've take a few pictures with it, even a few I like. At this point I think it is going to become a mostly decoration in my someday "man cave" and I'll use either the Pressman D, the Sinar P, or the few movements wooden field camera I restored, with other lenses that don't look like sewer pipes or canons so much. I needed f8 to make acceptable portraits and an f5.6 of f8 18" lens would be a LOT more practical. I find I use an 8" diameter f6 astronomical telescope a lot more than the 16" f4.5 telescope for a lot of the same reasons I'm not sure that a huge LF lens makes sense: it's a lot easier to get where you need it.
I tried mounting a 300mm f2 projection lens on a studio camera. I lost interest after looking at the ground glass.
Speaking of huge, fast LF lenses, here is a setup with a giant custom made shutter for a deardorf 8x10 and two titanic lenses:
https://www.ebay.com/itm/Ilexpo-shut...4AAOSw-RJfhkv2
The only problem I see with this setup is that there is no aperture control. So you would be shooting wide open all the time (unless I am missing something).
We used to have members who converted Speed Graphic rear curtain shutter to mount to the front of LF cameras, for giant glass
We all learned from Jim Galli to shoot wide open almost any lens
BTW, Jim has gone silent here, but seems to be doing well on eBay
Originally Posted by Dann Corbit
Tin Can
I understand he found that the forum had become too toxic for him. Unfortunately also his web site providers went down and silent. A great tragedy we have to accept.
I too shoot wide open for portraits and I must say that 800mm f/4.5 wide open can be quite beautiful.
Great metaphor Vaughn. Almost spewed coffee through my nostrils.
Well, it's got holes all through it, but I'll file it for future use.
"Landscapes exist in the material world yet soar in the realms of the spirit..." Tsung Ping, 5th Century China
Aperture control for projection lenses: I made a collar/cylinders from cardboard which slip onto the front of the lens into which I can place various cardboard or plastic sheets with different sized circular holes. I was also given an iris from a stage light and mounted that to a home made wood lens board and put various close-up filters aka positive meniscus lenses on the inside of the lens board using a UV filter as the mounting ring. It works. All these require giving up the clinical sharpness of modern lenses though.
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