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Thread: Confession of a digital un-convert~ and greetings from SW Ontario

  1. #1

    Join Date
    Apr 2009
    Location
    London Ontario Canada
    Posts
    1

    Confession of a digital un-convert~ and greetings from SW Ontario

    HI,

    I am the proud new owner of a nice Cambo SC with a Rodenstock 150mm Apo-Ronar lens!

    It is a bit of a beast to carry about in my little red wheeled carry on type suitcase, especially with my spot/averaging meter (read digital SLR) in it's bag on top and a tripod lashed to the side, but it is pretty easy to set and use! Not quite fast enough for those candid shots though, but I am not complaining.

    Before you get on my back about the lens, I know that it is a copy lens, and from what I can tell it doesn't have a vary wide angle of coverage (although this might be me suffering from a begginer's enthusiasm to use far more movement than required), but it could be worse... it could be a narrow-covering lens and NOT be apochromatic >_<

    At any rate, here is my confession regarding becoming a convert back to film:

    I turned my back on film with the advent of reasonably priced digital, and the D70s. It was and is a great camera, and while it didn't necesarily make for much improvement in my technical photography (almost invariably used aperature priority and matrix metering, with exposure compensation as needed).

    However, there were times when the resolution of the image were limiting (not often mind you, since I only rarely make any large prints). However this is hardly an issue, and unless my shutter finally siezes or they begin selling inexpensive 24MP bodies, I do not see myself purchasing a new camera. But this occaisional niggling finally did come into play when my friend Frank, a F4-toting film afficionado showed me some of his black and white negatives (after much friendly but sometimes fervent digital vs film debate). I was captivated. They were not all good shots (several were casual shots of his friends), but there was something magical about how b+w renders the world, and perhaps also in how wide the tonal range stretches.

    My plan was to try to get a medium format camera for film (rather than duplicating the 35mm digital system I had, but a little research revealed that 120 or 35 was not going to change much, except the size of the camera unless I was planning huge prints, which for budgetary issues, is a non-issue for me. Reading the available books on large format cameras was an eye opener, and I was really captivated by the possibilites inherent to the camera movements. Most photos I have taken would not have benefited much from them, but there have been a number of shots that I would have liked to have take, but were not possible or practical, never got made. Shots that a tilt to keep things in focus, or a shift to get the viewpoint around some rubbish or out into the street, would have really been made into keepers.

    A perusal of ebay (obsession might be a better term) revealed that my hopes for a nice field camera in good condition with ample movements and a good set of lenses, for a low price, was somewhat unrealistic. I then lowered my hopes to a graflex of some sort, but even this was out of my graduate student's budget. (To be honest it doesnt take much to be out of our budgets... my d70s was purchased in a bygone era of wealth and happiness before becoming a grad student...)

    I admitted to myself that ebay addiction was not going to conjur the required inexpensive view camera, so i settled for getting an old nikon film body to share lenses with my d70s. I had to admit that the mighty f4 was out, and was going to try for a cheap f55 or f65, when my father (an avid saturday garage sale guru) found me a f90x in nice shape for 50$. Unfortunately he was not interested in shipping it out, and was sending out with my sister who was coming to visit us and the new baby (she is just over 2months old now ^_^) so I would have to suffer with the somewhat questionable metering of my minolta for another month.

    At this point i realized that film too would be out of my grad-student's budget if I did not make some policy changes. A trip to a local camera store saw me outfitted with a bulk loader and a 150' roll of expired LPD-4 (an incredibly slow b+w film which i have discovered should be rated iso 0.75-1 and developed only 3 minutes in D76) It was during the investigation of how to use this questionable film that I was introduced to my SC. My bright eyed bushy-tailed interest (or fanaticism of a film convert) apparently terrified the owner enough to reveal the prized monorail camera and ask if i were interested. And with that I got a fully functional 4x5 camera (with useful revolving back!) for far less than I could have dreamed, with enough left over for milk, cereal and eggs!

    Fortunately I had recieved some monies for a recent birthday, and so I was able to get a tripod able to mount the camera, though the Manfrotto 055 was really more expensive than I might have hoped. Once again, from what I have seen in the forums, this is not the tripod of choice, but the camera sits solidly! (perhaps because with no head, there is less to wobble~~~

    I have made several shots, and for all that this is a copy lens, it seems to be quite sharp at distance. The negatives are terrifyingly huge! Unfortunately too terrifyingly huge to scan safely, and Henry's charges an outrageous 6-10$ to have a single 4x5 scanned, meaning that they will have to live in a photo album for the time being >_< Fortunately no one here is demanding proof of LF photography ^o^ although I could post a scan I made on the non-transparancy section fo the scanner, though it is incredibly dense T_T

    Thanks for having such a site,

    I will be reading about (hopefully about how to make an SC portable)

    Patrick

  2. #2

    Join Date
    Jan 2005
    Location
    Luxembourg
    Posts
    319

    Re: Confession of a digital un-convert~ and greetings from SW Ontario

    Welcome to the forum, Patrick.

    You are going to have a lot of fun, maybe some frustration and loads of satisfaction with your new LF challenge.

  3. #3

    Join Date
    Dec 2006
    Location
    Hamilton, Canada
    Posts
    1,879

    Re: Confession of a digital un-convert~ and greetings from SW Ontario

    Welcome. Perhaps you will be able to make the trek to one of Big Cameras Workshops gatherings. These seem to be a reasonable meeting place for areas around Burlington.
    Regards
    Bill

  4. #4

    Re: Confession of a digital un-convert~ and greetings from SW Ontario

    Welcome

    Consider getting some cheap chemicals and doing some contact prints if you have a dark space to work in. If you can't wrangle a dark room, consider an alternative print such as a Ziatype or Salt print among others. You can coat paper under low tungsten lights and expose with the sun.

  5. #5
    おせわに なります! Andrew O'Neill's Avatar
    Join Date
    Sep 2003
    Location
    Coquitlam, BC, Canada, eh!
    Posts
    5,134

    Re: Confession of a digital un-convert~ and greetings from SW Ontario

    Yay! Welcome fellow Cancuck!

  6. #6

    Join Date
    Sep 2004
    Location
    Gulfport, MS, USA
    Posts
    873

    Re: Confession of a digital un-convert~ and greetings from SW Ontario

    Welcome to group therepy! Seems like there are alot of you extreme northerners hanging around here!

  7. #7
    Blair N. Blair Ware's Avatar
    Join Date
    Nov 2008
    Location
    Toronto
    Posts
    87

    Re: Confession of a digital un-convert~ and greetings from SW Ontario

    welcome, perhaps we will see you at one of the Big Camera functions

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