Visit to Lotus View Camera

[bglick]

Sorry for the elementary question here, as I only shoot 8x10 and smaller.....

Is the market for ULF camera stictly for B&W and mostly for contact prints? I never see any color film available in ULF other then an occasional 11x14 which if it has not been discontinued, it surely will be as Fuji won't even stock 810 Velvia in USA until the recent battle....

Then, the issue with lenses....so few modern lenses cover ULF formats, (Schneiders now introduction surely helps) so it brings one back to very old lens designs. Then the issue of diffraction softening out the gains of the larger format, quite often negating it's size benefits.... unless of course the shots are at infinity.

So is the appeal more for the novelty aspect of the large camera? I am not trying to start any flame wars, I just want to understand what I might be missing regarding the ULF appeal.

TYIA

[tim atherton]

wg

I'd guess a pretty good number of the ULF crowd do it so as to be able to produce larger B&W contact prints (of all the various sorts) from in-camera negatives

[Oren Grad]

so few modern lenses cover ULF formats

There's actually quite a large selection of modern lenses, with focal lengths starting at 210mm (200, if you want to include the monster Grandagon), that will cover formats up through 11x14/7x17. Beyond that the field thins out considerably. But if you want to shoot, say, 11x14 color with the ultra-clean look of a late-technology lens, all you need is a fair amount of money and potentially a little bit of patience, depending on exactly which camera and which focal length you want.

My own ULF tinkering is driven by an interest in B&W contact prints, and by the sheer entertainment value of playing with the toys - although the equipment is a royal pain to cart around, it's loads of fun to use once everything is set up. Playing with the image on a huge ground glass is a blast.

[Sass Quatch]

Lotus Cameras are now imported in the USA again. Please contact brucescameras@earthlink.net

[Marco Annaratone]

After almost a year I visited Lotus again today, in a much better weather, and I found myself confronted 'live' with the famous 20x24.

I had to take some pictures. You can see them in

www.resonantlink.com/lotus20x24/lotusX.jpg

where 'X' goes from 1 to 9 (i.e., lotus1.jpg, lotus2.jpg, etc)

The issues in designing and manufacturing the front standard to accommodate for very heavy lenses are tricky (well, "tricky issues" abund everywhere, I guess...)

The person in the picture is Herr Stroebele himself, (U)LF-builder extraordinaire...

Cheers!

[alec4444]

Hey, that's my lens he's got on the 8x20.... Well, what my lens would have been if it hadn't been dropped and then chewed on. Have to ask, Marco, did you schedule an appointment or did you just "drive in"?

>>So is the appeal more for the novelty aspect of the large camera?

Not for me. I bought a book on Alternative Photographic Processes (Christopher James) and was so enamoured with some of the processes that I had to have a LF system. The idea of producing enlarged negatives from smaller ones seemed to be a big PITA and reduced the quality. The next question I had to ask myself was what size print did I want, and I settled on 11x14. First LF camera for me and I haven't regretted it for a second. I'm printing in silver for now to learn the camera, but by summer I'l be contact printing in the sun.

It is indeed a heavy setup to carry around NYC (roughly 60-70 lbs) but as the saying goes, "If it were easy everyone else would be doing it." I can assure you they're not. =)

--A

[Marco Annaratone]

Well, the place is a few miles from Salzburg. If worst comes to worst you can always play tourist

Seriously, I think you'd better schedule an appointment. That's what I always did.

Cheers