Equipment can at best facilitate the physical expression of creativity IMHE. I buy equipment to help me express ideas not the other way around though I suppose one could work the other way. Equipment follows need. Otherwise I would have been broke financially and have a broken back to boot a long time ago......
Thanks,
Kirk
at age 73:
"The woods are lovely, dark and deep,
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep"
I thought religion and politics was outlawed from this forum. Are the mods asleep?? This whole discussion smacks of religious fervor. Political partisanism.
The real question is who gives a flying rip about any of these pictures? Answer: nobody.
2nd question; why, then, wouldn't you do exactly as you please with one lens one camera, or as George Eastman did, a small army of servants and a fleet of new Buicks to not only carry your stuff, but set up your sunshade and cook you dinner when you're done shooting and it's time for cocktails.
Oh, my 4X5 kit has eleven lenses in the backpack with the Cham, 3 of which give me options not only for focal length, but soft focus.
Yes!Originally Posted by Michael Alpert
As you gain experience you try different ways of working and eventually come to recognize your comfort zone - or maybe you intuitively gravitate toward a particular mode and find that you never need to look back. The "right" answer is whatever works for you, however you got there.
I'm gravitating towards Eastman's approach with the need to actually shoot anything before beginning cocktails diminishing. Alas, I haven't figured out how to make someone else pay for the servants and the Buicks.
Choice and timing of lubricant is up to you too.
At one of Michael Smith's Workshops a few year ago.....
MAS - you can never have enough lenses
Michael's assistant - that's easy for you to say, you don't have to carry them!!!!
While it's true there are infinite possibilities and one lens could suffice, I want to be able to make the image I want from where I want to make it. That makes multiple lenses necessary. I go with choice #1
I was with a Barnbaum workshop on a breathtaking ledge of the Colorado Gorge with the 90 all set up to make the image that would have made my name a household word, when suddenly, who should step in front of me about 8 feet and one ledge away but Barnbaum himself. Did I throw Bruce into the abyssos and make my photo anyways?? No, I put the Fuji 450 on and made a better photo that hangs on my wall to this day. Thanks Bruce. Thanks Fuji.
As you well know, Leigh, I know nothing about you. Until yesterday I thought you were a female, until you corrected me here on another post. It's not whatever handicap you have that is funny, it's your attitude that I find so amusing.
--Darin
My Technika IV came as a factory package with 90 Angulon, 135 Xenotar, and 240 Symmar, of course all cammed and properly scaled. I soon added a 180 Symmar and 360 Tele-Xenar, with cams and scales. This is a pretty formidable armamentarium, and is supplemented by several other cammed and uncammed lenses, including a beautiful set of 120, 150, and 210mm coated Dagors. But the fact is that I rarely shoot with any of them, having pretty well given up on 4x5.
Instead I shoot 5x7 with only a 10" Caltar on a Kodak 2D.
The most beautiful images I've made have been on a Whole Plate Gandolfi with a 6.5x8.5 Centar Series 2, Which I believe is probably a Wollensak Rapid Rectilinear of about 11.5" focal length F:8 (convertible to 23"). The images are just wonderful!
In short, I believe that only one or two lenses are all that are really needed.
Wilhelm (Sarasota)
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