I'd be interested in hearing your responses, both in words and through the multiple choice question.
For the challenge.
For the sheer image quality.
To take advantage of camera movements.
I enjoy the slow pace.
To be different from the crowd.
Something else entirely.
I'd be interested in hearing your responses, both in words and through the multiple choice question.
All of the above, but first and foremost for the image quality.
Brian Vuillemenot
Large negative for contact printing alt processes
Why do I still shoot LF? Because it still offers the highest specific image quality (image quality per kg or even image quality per $ USD [at the volumes I shoot]). I keep an eye open for alternatives, but I don't see anything on the horizon that will lure me away. But I can be lured...
Bruce Watson
For me it's primarily the availability of movements to control perspective and the large sensor/film area that gives shallower DoF (and better control of what's in and out of focus) for a given angle of view. The latter cannot easily be manipulated after exposure, either digitally or optically, and so this is what is likely to keep me shooting LF even as smaller-format DSLRs improve. (I suppose I'm bucking the crowd here, since many photographers seem to aim for as much DoF as they can get, in which case a smaller format is actually an advantage).
I wouldn't exactly say that I enjoy the slow pace but rather that I like the formality of it all. I like that I have to be considerate in a way that is not necessary when shooting film in rolls. There is also a certain amount of toil involved which to me feels like work which is a feeling that I like.
Also, seeing the image on the ground glass is not the same thing as seeing it in a viewfinder. You get to step back a bit and think. The upside down and backwards image offers just the right amount of abstraction as well. It offers perspective, like being removed from the scene. It's like looking back at an event after a period of time has passed, you get a new view of that scene because of that passage of time, you get a new perspective. That's what a ground glass view camera image does for me it lets me step back both physically and emotionally.
Is there another format? Grin.
Because a chimp can't operate a view camera....
Robert Oliver
LF is a completely different experience than any other kind of photography. To spend a day and produce five or six images, and that's on a productive day in a terrific place, makes each image special. While a good 6x7 negative comes quite close in quality, it is still not the same. It is hard to explain what is so engaging about LF image making even while standing next to a digital photographer who has shot 20 frames while I made have not quite finished setting up.
Eric
Bookmarks