How in the H LL do YOU shoot sharp large format portraits?

[Frank Ward]

I have shot a lot of 8X10 available light portraits in the field. The photographer has to have great timing to keep things sharp. As one poster said: work fast! I studied with Nick Nixon at Mass College of Art and he would shoot a lot of film, use wide angle lenses and work very quickly. No strings needed to keep things in focus if your subject doesn't have to sit there for 15 minutes while you fiddle.

The first picture on my website was done in a small open ferry boat that had a one cylinder engine. I had to shoot the 8X10 between cylinder bursts. The print starts to go fuzzy at 20X24.

http://www.culturalvisions.com/

Frank

[Alan Gibson]

47mm lens, fixed at 6-foot focus. Hand held, with what passes for daylight here in the UK. No problem.

[Andre Noble]

Gentlemen, thanks for the informative replies. I saved each to disk for near future reference. Andre

[Julio Fernandez]

In addition to the Crown, as Bruce Gavin very appropriately suggested, the Linhof Master Technika with a lens coupled to a rangefinder will also enable you to maintain fine focus right up to the time of the exposure. Lenses as long as 300mm in the Technika can be coupled to the range finder. Additionally, because of the much longer bellows extension, you can get tight face shots in the Technika even with 300 mm lenses. With the highly accurate rangefinder in the MT, you can shoot wide open even with long lenses. Unlike the Crown, which allows you to couple the lenses yourself, coupling must be done in the Technika by the Linhof rep. Furthermore, the Master Technika provides a full range of movements which also makes it the favourite of some landscape photographers.