How Did We Come To LF?

[ImSoNegative]

I've only been shooting film now for 9 months. My first film camera was my RB67. Shortly after that, I jumped into 4x5.

Yep. I'm a newb.

Pretty much it.

I too have an rb67, i really like it alot, i have had it for several years and still shoot with it often.

[austin granger]

I photographed for a long time with a 35mm Olympus point and shoot that my grandmother gave me for Christmas. My eyes were opened to further possibilities when I got a job at a small photo lab, and I picked up a used K1000. When I see one now, I can't help but smile-I loved that camera! At some point a few years later, I moved on to another job, this time at a proper camera store, and it was there that I decided I needed a brand new Pentax 67, which was no small purchase on my meager salary, even with the employee discount. I can so vividly remember putting that thing together for the first time at my coffee table and thinking how exotic and well, 'serious' it was. "Man, this thing is no joke!" And of course the negatives were enormous, and the detail, astounding! Well, at least until I saw a show of Edward Weston's contact prints at the Oakland museum. My mind was completely blown. The prints were alive. They were frightening, actually. I hadn't known that something like that was even possible. But I decided right then that I wanted to learn how to make pictures like that, and do it for the rest of my life.

[jnantz]

notmuch of a journey, just a purchase ...
i assisted an old school portrait photographer who shot everything 5x7 and split 5x7
after 10months i bought a camera ...

[Drew Bedo]

Back in the late 198Os I began a new career in diagnostic imaging, called Nuclear Medicine. The technique involves isotopes and imaging with computer driven radiation detectors. Things are all digital now, but back then, the images were captured on sheet film from a CRT. Most equipment then used B&W 8x10 sheet film in conventional double film holders. This film was developed in an automatic, roller transported Kodak "X-O-mat" machine. Exposed sheets went in one end and came out as dry negatives in 90 secs. Almost like Polaroids!

About that time, I discovered camera shows here in Houston; a big show every six months. I managed to pick up a near ruined Speed graphic with a lens for a few dollars and then a couple of 4x5 film holders. I cut down film from work and made a few shots. Ran the film through the processor . . .and I was hooked.

Aty the camera show I found a table selling out of date film and took the chance . . .turned out OK. Got an 8x10 and that worke out too.

Never looked back.

[RockAndRolf]

Nice idea for a thread.
I myself ended up here like other people of my generation (I am about 30 years old). I started with a DSLR and after a few years I found out that analog large format cameras offer so much more "experience".

It started with a Canon EOS 500D on which I had put some old M42 lenses from the thrift shop. Because of the crop factor I bought an EOS 5Dc a year later, but that too quickly became "boring" as well. When I saw what very beautiful cameras and techniques were used with old technical cameras, I only had one goal in mind. Because I still lived with my parents, I didn't have the opportunity to develop film myself at home, and I had the idea that this would become too expensive and difficult. So the next step was to build a large format camera whose focusing screen I wanted to shoot with my DSLR. For this I used some recycled wood and a magnifying glass as a lens, the photos are still on my Flickr page(https://www.flickr.com/photos/rolfko...57629624422384). When I finished this camera I was already enchanted by the image on the ground glass, and I still am to this day. A few years later I bought my own house with space for a darkroom, and I finally had the opportunity to go all out with cameras, and it turned out well if I do say so myself.

I'm very curious about how others got here, especially people like me, for whom analog cameras aren't the only logical choice.

[abruzzi]

nothing particularly interesting...I decided I wanted to try shooting 4x5, so I bought a 4x5. Mostly, I just wanted to understand how they work. Unlike a lot of people here or on Photrio, I'm not really into photography as an art form. I'm not really interested in other people's photos, and I don't show my photos to any one. I do this because I like learning things, and LF has a lot for me to learn.

[fiddle]

Covid.
Ive shot 35mm and medium format for 20 some years, mostly street stuff, the lack of people around made me say, why not.

[Bernice Loui]

From a previous LFF discussion:
https://www.largeformatphotography.i...-We-Come-To-LF

Then why Sinar to this day after all these decades of doing LF, Been-done Linhof, Arca Swiss, Horseman L (excellent camera) and field folders, Various Toyo including 810M which IMO is the best of the 8x10 field folders used, Wisner wood field, and .... all back to Sinar pretty much with except for the recent Linhof TK23s.

~Post# 34 below has more story~

https://www.largeformatphotography.i...ar-Norma-(4x5)

Most used today, Canon digital & Canon 35mm.


Bernice

[Ulophot]

I’m delighted to see younger folks in film photography and interested to know their reasons.

Like John Sexton, it was watching a print emerge from a blank sheet of paper in the developer in the high school darkroom in 1968 that lit the photographic fire in me, though 35mm SLRs were the fire tools of the time and LF lay years into the future. At so-called art college in Phila., we spent some brief time in our junior year with 4x5 Calumets. (I never got to my senior year.)

In 1978, I had to produce a book cover for Dope, Inc. (still on Amazon and elsewhere) that required the tilts of a 4x5. The artist I was working with, my best friend, provided $1,000, with which I bought an Omega, a 75 Super Angulon, tripod, and the other needed items.

Soon I acquired a 210 Komura for other editorial/ad work as well as for portraiture, which was my primary interest. From especially the mid-‘80s until 2003 or so, I did all sorts of professional work, including a fair amount of interior architecture, for which the 75 served me well, and many LF portraits. LF is certainly my favorite for portraits, in part because of the aspect ratio.

Financial reasons obliged me to put away my cameras, however, and it was only 13 years later, in 2016, that I was able to return, though not professionally. The same 210 still graces my 4x5, now a Tachihara—portable for location work, which my former 26-lb rail camera/studio tripod combo led my aging physique to protest.

[BrianShaw]

In the 1970’s a friend, who was an acolyte of St Ansel, sold me an omega 4x5 enlarger and included a SuperGraphic in the deal. I wasn’t really interested in much more than 35mm at the time but quickly became enchanted.