How Many Pros use LF?

[Tin Can]

Pro may mean 50% of income from business

Let's use LFPF definition of LF

Pros include our suppliers, that make emulsions and tools

Not asking anybody to out themselves or others, their business may be accountable

Hobbyist has evolved from essential in the history of imaging, to condescension

Discuss

[Ulophot]

Hobbyist, not to be confused with Hobbit (I never read the books, so I know only that it's a creature of some kind), has in part, at least, been replaced by enthusiast, if we can avoid splitting hairs here, and the latter has a positive energy to it.

I think your question about pros means, "use LF professionally," as opposed to those who use digital professionally and keep LF a pursuit of enthusiastic leisure. I look forward to ensuing data.

[Tin Can]

I think the original term was Amateur, which has changed meaning several times and now derogatory

Kodak and the Rise of Amateur Photography

The Rise of the Amateur Photographer 'threat'

The Amateur Tradition: Photography’s Second Self

[Luis-F-S]

Last time I used large format was when I shot 4x5 transparencies for architectural work 30 years ago. Now I use it for my personal work, in 8x10.

[Mark Sampson]

Well, I'm drifting into retirement after 40+ years in the business... I haven't used an LF camera on assignment since around 2010 (architecture was the last stand for LF in the professional world).
I was shooting LF for myself at least since 1981, and I have no plans to stop. I've shown my personal work a fair amount, and was represented by a gallery in NYC in the '90s. All that work was made with a 4x5 camera.
LF has been impractical professionally for a long time now, for all the well-known reasons; so be it.
"Amateur" means "lover'- all of us here are lovers of the 'craft and sullen art', whether or not we're getting paid for it.

[Tin Can]

Cell phones are great cameras

I seldom use as telephone

But always have a small iPhone in my ex-cig pocket

Lately as my sight fails I prefer my iPad 6 as it is nearlly exactly 4x5

and is an excellent copy camera on Leitz 35 enlarger, as it converts to copy

[Ben Horne]

In addition to myself, my friends Michael Strickland and Alex Burke also earn their livings from large format photography. There are still plenty of us out there. Landscapes are still one of the areas where large format shines.

[Tin Can]

Thank you Ben, I know not everybody has gone DIGI

Ben, I really wish your early ULF of people was avaiable

It is wonderful work of a lost era

In addition to myself, my friends Michael Strickland and Alex Burke also earn their livings from large format photography. There are still plenty of us out there. Landscapes are still one of the areas where large format shines.

[sharktooth]

I see that Cambo and Linhof still have "small" (2x3) digital technical cameras based on large format designs. When I spoke with the Linhof rep here in Canada a couple of years ago, he said that these cameras were still quite popular. I remain dubious, but maybe there is some commercial use for these, but I can't think what.

Is anyone still doing large format commercial portraiture?

[Thad Gerheim]

2/3rds of my income is from my sales of photos from large format film capture and inkjet photos that I sell from my gallery that is only open 4 and 1/2 months of the year. I know that there are some who disagree, but most people who come into the gallery can see a difference in depth and tonality between my drum scanned work and digital capture. Not that I'm wealthy, just satisfied.