Thanks Richard. I actually never heard or seen (6 1/2 x 8 1/2) model, but when you buy it make sure to post lots of pictures!!!
I will probably decide on 4x5 because of the weight. The difference alone when you compare mahogany vs ebony is substantial but I like the look of the ebony better, so I guess I have to put up with a little extra weight.
Rob (and hopefully at least 4 others), I quote a reply from Ebony:
Dear Richard,
Hiromi says that if there were at least 5 orders (which I know is a bit of a tall order!) the price could be lowered a bit, but unfortunately not down to the level of the SV810. Perhaps somewhere about half-way between the SV810 and the SV Wholeplate?
$1250 savings (going by prices on Badger) is a few lunches out, no ? Are there four of you out there?
Perhaps one unnoticed consequence of digital will be of the baby/teen pics and family event images, in olden days a whole roll would be printed and given out to folks who would pop them in a tin or album and later on... many years later on that is, they would become 'historical'. Most folk are quite happy to share a Jpeg, maybe even spray an image out that will deteriorate like crazy as soon as water hits it etc so in effect we are becoming a generation that doesn't keep a record of itself in any permanent form.
We have seen the pace of technology work its way through floppy disks, Zip disks, problems of long term storage with CDs is becoming more apparent but nothing beats an image held in the hand to convey information so quickly and easily.
i think these issues will sort themselves out in time. archiving digital files is a big issue for businesses, and the lessons learned will trickle down to everyday life. it's also reasonable to expect even low end inkjet printers will achieve lightfastness that's more than competitive with c-prints. ink on paper is far from a new medium, and it's only a matter of time before the lessons of high end pigment prints (and lithography and offset) trickle down to the home printers.
i see a couple of advantages to snapshots going digital. one is environmental. digital filing and distribution encourage people to make far fewer prints than they used to. that's a lot less paper/ink/chemistry getting consumed.
and simple digital filing systems (like iphoto) help people actually find the pictures they want. i'm sure some families are disciplined and organized about these things, but in my house growing up we had a closet literally filled with overstuffed boxes of snapshots. the handful of chosen ones would end up on a wall, but finding any of the others required an archeological dig to find.
With apologies to Ian Wilson, the direct firm quote above may not be applicable. As a courtesy reply to me, he was really just guessing about the price. However, Hiromi did say that a price reduction would be possible, however the camera would still cost more than an SV810. The main problem is the expense of having high-quality titanium parts custom-made - even 5 sets of each won't bring the price down very much.
Also, there's no need to order through one dealer, each individual could order through their dealer, but Hiromi would need to get 5 confirmed orders from his dealers at the same time (or within a week, say).
I guess if there's interest, we should coordinate the orders so that they are placed within a week's duration (but not necessarily within this week!). I hope the interest is there! Can we sum up intentions here in this thread anf if we ARE ordering, perhaps do so the week of September 3rd and let our dealers know about the possible discount from Hiromi.
Richard -
it'd be nice if Ebony did what Lotus do, and buy up film formats for their cameras too. That way Ebony would support whole plate film and the Ilford ULF programme, supporting its own format.
I'm kind of thinking, that anyone in the UK who's interested in joining up for the whole plate SV Ebony camera, is automatically at a price disadvantage compared to the rest of you guys. Unless a US/Canadian dealer is willing to order for those in the UK and ship out to the UK. For the same camera e.g. a SV45U, it looks like UK photographers pay around £500 more for the same camera: and that's before VAT is added. I'm not sure how UK dealers would explain that anomaly (exchange rate issues?), although it makes it harder to want to support UK dealers with this kind of unversal price discrepancy here. Even the SV810e sells in the States for $6695 and in the UK for £4,295 before 17.5% VAT is added.
Go figure.
Well, I for one have found a few rays of optimism in this thread.
Yes, digital imaging will increasingly dominate the market. Yes, 35 mm film is essentially dead. (sigh....all my wonderful old Nikkors destined to become paperweights...sure wish they threw a bigger image circle.). Yes mass photography is changing fundamentally and for the vast majority images are becoming as disposable as cardboard coffee cups.
Still, it is gratifying to hear the passionate voices of so many, especially those who are a bit younger, so dedicated to real photography as a true art form. If the traditional, oft times superior photographic methods and materials are to survive it will likely be in LF.
Yes, the quote was depressing. I tend to disagree with the author. Still, we really must all try to keep the remaining emulsions going. Although I usually shoot B. & W, this thread has convinced me to go buy some sheets of velvia.
I've also enjoyed the many discussions re: the use of older equipment interesting. I, my Technika III, and one of it's lenses, all turned 52 this year. All are still great looking and imbued with wonderful character, though perhaps a bit tattered around some edges. The camera and lens at least, still work as well as they did 30 years ago. In this age in which so many products become obsolete within days of their initial release, that is gratifying.
By the way Brian, as a Canadian I just wanted you to know that I took your comment about us in the way it was intended, and that an earlier writer from some place called New York City had made the original offending comment. We Canucks are a great people fortunate to live in a wonderful country, but as we live beside the colossus of the modern world we have, in my humble opinion, tended to develop a bit too much sensitivity to the actions and views of our neighbour and usually good friend to the south. As one of our Prime Ministers once said in explaining this,
"Living next to you is in some ways like sleeping with an elephant. No matter how friendly and even-tempered is the beast, if I can call it that, one is affected by every twitch and grunt.".
Anyway folks, get out there and keep shootin'.
Twenty-seven year old lady here, very much enamored of my Sinar F1, 90mm Nikkor, and the lovely negatives and transparencies they make together. The above post resembles in large part the genesis of my own interest, that along with a love of architecture and the requirements of the Library of Congress. I don't think they're going to budge on their 4x5 or larger negative requirement anytime soon. Even if 100+ MP digital cameras become available they still need to consider archival integrity.
Something that I think will be lost to some extent is darkroom manipulation of processing and prints. It's easy and non-technical (at least to my generation) to scan negatives/slides, manipulate in GIMP/Photoshop, and print. If most of the younger large format photographers feel similarly, you might see darkroom lexicon survive as buttons on a program, but not so much a skill honed by experience.
Then again, these twenty and thirtysomething hipsters never cease to amaze me with what they are willing to do to be *authentic* or quirky.
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