Allowing Lens Availability to Dictate Format Choice

[jnantz]

Context matters... in relation to their cost when new at the height of production in the market, sure...

But 10 years ago on eBay you were seeing them being sold as near door stoppers.

The rise has been in the last 5 years , just tracking prices on forums, eBay etc.

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IDK before lets say 2004 when our own jim galli set up his website &c brass lenses were considered junque
and it was the reason to get something like a speed graphic or a graflex slr these were the days when you could spend
IDK 150$ on a 14" verito or vitax or less and people would wonder what you were thinking / what you put on your cheerios .

I can see what you mean though; sometimes its kind of fun to buy a lens and figure out what kind of camera you can buy that it fits on. I have a casket set
purchased a few years ago and I have wanted to put it on something to make a round image on paper.

[dodphotography]

I mean... my buddy sold a Wehman for 3300 (wow!)... I’ve seen Fuji 600C’s fetch over 3k.

Some stuff has dropped big time, others have skyrocketed.




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[jnantz]

A fourth point: if I could afford the film, and the right lens, I'd be doing all that too.

I hate to be a wet blanket but there are ways of making something look like it was made with a large format camera with beauqua
and everthing that looks large format with a smaller format camera or a smaller than 8x10 or 16x20 camera: it just takes thinking outside
the box and knowing what to do to make things look a certain way. That said, still there is really nothing like setting up an 11x14 camera and
hoping the wind dies down so you can remove your tin coffee cup and count to 5.

[Bernice Loui]

Assertion remains, proper image making with vintage soft focus lenses demands contact printing. This means 8x10 contact print from 8x10 film works. Enlargement degrades the subtle visual qualities of soft focus lenses. 2x enlargement is about MAX for prints made with film using soft focus lenses.

I've been subjected to less than appreciative comments about this on LFF and else where.


Bernice

One consideration is that the effect of soft lenses is best seen at the scale of the negative they make. Spherical aberration does not enlarge particularly well. Soft focus also goes especially well with the tonal gradations of a contact print, which for many is justification for format choice in itself.

[John Kasaian]

I hate to be a wet blanket but there are ways of making something look like it was made with a large format camera with beauqua
and everthing that looks large format with a smaller format camera or a smaller than 8x10 or 16x20 camera: it just takes thinking outside
the box and knowing what to do to make things look a certain way. That said, still there is really nothing like setting up an 11x14 camera and
hoping the wind dies down so you can remove your tin coffee cup and count to 5.

ROFLMAO! That's the way it always seems to go, doesn't it?

[Bernice Loui]

Been subjected to this with prints viewed in real life... does not pass the "eye" test.


Bernice

I hate to be a wet blanket but there are ways of making something look like it was made with a large format camera with beauqua
and everthing that looks large format with a smaller format camera or a smaller than 8x10 or 16x20 camera: it just takes thinking outside
the box and knowing what to do to make things look a certain way. That said, still there is really nothing like setting up an 11x14 camera and
hoping the wind dies down so you can remove your tin coffee cup and count to 5.

[Bernice Loui]

There was a time when LOTs of 12" Kodak Portrait lenses in shutter were dumped into the trash once the Kodak Ilex# 5 shutter was extracted for lens remount back in the day when a 12" Kodak Portrait was easily had for $50 USD or less. This was also the era when a 16" Kodak Portrait was easily had for just over $100 and the mass volume of soft focus lenses where homeless and discarded. Same was true for Heliar in barrel (BIG ones) and most all BIG barrel lenses. This was the time when modern lenses from the big four had high resale value, wood field cameras (Dorf and th like were an exception) and most field cameras in general had little market value while monorail cameras like Sinar P, Linhof and etc held their value extremely well. Keep in mind this was a time when the color film fridge was very common and it was a daily occurrence to see a working photographer purchase film by the case to be used that day.


Bernice

[John Kasaian]

My first 8x10 lens was an old 14"-er that cost more than my first car ($450, IIRC.)
I'd read here about guys with a couple or three lenses for 4x5 asking about which one to use or which lens to buy next, all the time reminding myself how grateful I should be just to at least have a camera, a lens, a tripod and three film holders. I found having a single lens was more of an opportunity than a limitation.
Slows one down---makes one think long and hard about where to place the camera to gather the light and stick it on a sheet of film.
I wouldn't trade that eddykayshun for the world!

[jnantz]

ROFLMAO! That's the way it always seems to go, doesn't it?

sure is !

Been subjected to this with prints viewed in real life... does not pass the "eye" test.


Bernice

Bernice
Obviously you aren't squinting enough, your bar isn't set low enough and you don't have enough instagram followers !
I shot some film today using a secret technique I won't pollute this thread by talking about, and I am certain that if I
posted an image printed via my Durst M601 and mailed you a physical print you would not have any clue what it was made with...
I also have a technique that allows me to expose a 8x10 sheet of film and you would think it was made with a crappy disposable camera.
John

[Bernice Loui]

Some years ago at a local LF print sharing event...

*Participant one, shared a print with me. Comment was the image was overly sharpened due to the lens being stopped down too much and this is a digital B&W print. Print maker told me the lens was stopped down to f90 then "sharpened" in photoshop before the digital print was made.

** Participant two, put up a print less than 30 seconds later it was apparent to me this image was made using a Dagor. Some discussion and information about the print followed by the print maker. At that point, asked the print maker if this print was made using a Dagor.. print maker's reply was yes.

There are those who have been at this for a l-o-n-g time and can tell visually what these difference are. In much the same way experienced musicians can tell if a Stradivarius is real or not by the sound. Developing this takes decades and looking at a LOT of images and making a LOT of images from loading film to dry mounting the print.

~Never underestimate the ability of human pattern recognition~



Bernice

Bernice
Obviously you aren't squinting enough, your bar isn't set low enough and you don't have enough instagram followers !
I shot some film today using a secret technique I won't pollute this thread by talking about, and I am certain that if I
posted an image printed via my Durst M601 and mailed you a physical print you would not have any clue what it was made with...
I also have a technique that allows me to expose a 8x10 sheet of film and you would think it was made with a crappy disposable camera.
John