An upside-down image? You accidentally ordered the Southern Hemisphere model !
An upside-down image? You accidentally ordered the Southern Hemisphere model !
Part of the reason for using a LF camera is that it takes longer allowing more time to think about the image prior to pushing the button.
As for sun, my preference is for the quiet light of cloudy days, or prior to sunrise, or just after sunset.
Practice and perseverance will teach you how to overcome the blowing dark cloth, how to work during inclement weather, the beauty of moving water and blowing trees.
It is a different world and those who enter may benefit because it slows them down in their very active, too fast moving world.
If I still lived in the fast paced world every day, I'm certain I would never have lived for 92 years. in other words, large format photography has played a part in lengthening my life. I still attempt to do something in photography every day, and that does not mean I point my telephone and hit the button then maybe spend the rest of the day sitting in front of a computer. I don't do that, I get out a nice, large camera, or work with a large negative in the darkroom making prints.
As a biology major in college I often had lab classes that involved microscope work. That image is also inverted. This can be disconcerting at first, but with practice or experience up-side-down and backwards becomes more comfortable to work with.
The deliberate nature of the view camera work flow makes each exposure a deliberate act of creative expression. Reactive or spontaneous grab shooting is not done with a classic view camera. The press cameras got around that slow speed photography.
There are other grab-shot alternatives in LF though. The TrasvelWide and Will Travel cameras for instance. The wave of Polaroid 110 conversions to 4x5 of ten years ago was a step towards the spontaneous hand-held style that originated in the 1930 with the Leica/Contax/Zeiss rangefinder cameras.
Drew Bedo
www.quietlightphoto.com
http://www.artsyhome.com/author/drew-bedo
There are only three types of mounting flanges; too big, too small and wrong thread!
And that's why I picked up a film camera for the first time in 30 years about a year ago. Although I am amused by the process of setting up, composing, metering, checking, double-checking the settings, doing a test fire, pulling the dark slide, all for that 1/15th of a second long "CLICK"-- and then you tear it all down again. The actual act of taking the photograph is a bit of an anti-climax.
its not only limited to large format transitions. many 35mm shooters have trouble going over to medium format. upside down reversed viewfinders, no mirror return, manual film advance n if you got an RB67 you have to crank the body n film seperately for every frame. as a repairmen, ive seen stuck lenses on out of sync bodies, jamed cameras that were forced n almost totally destroyed. small things like getting use to roll film vs canistered film and now loading n unloading single frame holders in total darkness. new processes n habits... expectations? the only expectation is better sharper images on large format film.
so going over to large format has its own idiosyncrasies. what it all comes down to isnt expectations, its a new learning curve.
i made a living using a technical lf camera for 30 yrs, then went over to a studio n rb67 set up complete with strobes for 20 years. when i went back to lf. i just had to relearn n gain new shooting skills n habbits.
oh digital machine gun cameras... hahahaha you can blow 1000 shots in one session n never had to focus or adjust snything except my attatude in front of a computer going over all that junk in search of 4 good images.
I started in LF shortly after starting in 35mm and MF back in the 60's. There was less of a problem with the switch back then partly due to it all being analog. Eventually I shot less and less LF and more MF and then less of that with 35mm being an almost exclusive format just before the digital "revolution" began. Then when costs for film equipment went down I started the process again - 35mm, MF and then LF. Now the biggest challenge is the weight of the LF equipment.
I also find it interesting that digital shooters are forever trying to emulate the results that LF shooters get.
I'd have no idea. I think it has been at least ten since I spoke to anyone that also has a view camera.
For me, one thing for sure, when I first used a fone or point and shoot digi, had no problem with the LCD screen as it reminded me of a lit GG...
Until the light from behind me flared up the screen... ,-(
Steve K
I have trouble using small formats now. With LF I take a handful of shots in a day and its generally at a researched location. With an SLR/RF I can run through a roll of 36 in a day but still only end up with one or two keepers. And I hate printing those because I have to adjust my 4x5 enlarger to accommodate the smaller format.
With my rangefinders I especially have a hard time remembering when to cock the shutter, did I take the lens cap off, averaging meter vs spot metering adjustments, which f-stop for DOF, what film is in the camera. And I always seem to run out of film early. I bought a 6x9 back for my 4x5 but have only taken a couple of shots with it. I just don't like to do the "extras" as much as I did with digital. My DSLR has sat in its storage pack for about 2 years now.
The magic you are looking for is in the work you are avoiding.
http://www.searing.photography
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