Thanks for your ULF suggestions and sharing your knowledge. 
I would like to start out by thanking everyone who has offered help in my quest for the proper ULF camera. I started out in another thread seeking advice on whether to go directly to an 11x14 camera or to start with an 8x10 model. Your experience and advice could not have come at a better time or been more helpful. I was on the verge of bidding on a 8x10 last week but held my fingers away from the keyboard during the last minutes of the auction. The wealth of knowledge that you shared has caused me to carefully rethink about my needs, desires and photographic vision.
You all aptly pointed out that an 11x14 is a BIG camera to be toting around and that possibly a 7x11, 7x17 or perhaps a 8x20 might fit my vision and needs better. I believe that you may be correct so Ill be looking in the future to learn about possibly aquiring a 7x11 model. Once again my concern was film availability but a couple of you demonstrated that the film can be obtained. Baring that, because of size, film availability and cost of accessories like film holders the 8x10 has gone back to the top of the list.
Now to change gears . :upsidedo:
My real desire is to be able to create Pt/Pd prints. I would like to do this in a more panoramic fashion. This is the driving force for a bigger camera. I started out investigating the possibility of making digital enlarged negatives before I tried to acquire a larger camera. I guess I am back to the digital negative option. The advantage hopefully will be that I can tailor the size of the contact negative a bit more to my liking.
Another distinct advantage is as William Blunt pointed out to me, I can practice making Pt/Pd prints from my original 4x5 negatives until I learn the basics about the process. This will help to keep my start up costs reasonable. (Please watch for another new thread seeking some starting advice on Pt/PD).
After my long winded explaining of what I will do before Christmas, I actually do have a question. I have purchased Dan Burkholders book for making digital negatives but I see he has additional information on his web site. This is called the Inkjet Negative Companion.
Has anybody actually acquired this update? If so does it really work in helping a relative beginner to actually be able to make a very good digital negative for the Pt/Pd process?
I am quite willing to pay his asking price but I do wish to be successful in my endeavors and the book itself only served to confuse me. In fairness I did learn a great deal in general from his book (after many re-reads) about how these types of procedures work but not quite enough to get me doing it successfully.
Dan's Site
If you are interested I have an Epson Expression flat bed scanner with the transparency unit that will do a true 1600 dpi scan. I have bought and tried to use VueScan for my scanning software. I also have very recently purchased the Epson 2200 printer. As you can see I spent enough money trying to do this when I perhaps should have just gone to an 8x10 camera. Well there is no going back now so hopefully I can figure all of this stuff out and make digital negatives.
Kind Regards,
I would like to start out by thanking everyone who has offered help in my quest for the proper ULF camera. I started out in another thread seeking advice on whether to go directly to an 11x14 camera or to start with an 8x10 model. Your experience and advice could not have come at a better time or been more helpful. I was on the verge of bidding on a 8x10 last week but held my fingers away from the keyboard during the last minutes of the auction. The wealth of knowledge that you shared has caused me to carefully rethink about my needs, desires and photographic vision.
You all aptly pointed out that an 11x14 is a BIG camera to be toting around and that possibly a 7x11, 7x17 or perhaps a 8x20 might fit my vision and needs better. I believe that you may be correct so Ill be looking in the future to learn about possibly aquiring a 7x11 model. Once again my concern was film availability but a couple of you demonstrated that the film can be obtained. Baring that, because of size, film availability and cost of accessories like film holders the 8x10 has gone back to the top of the list.
Now to change gears . :upsidedo:
My real desire is to be able to create Pt/Pd prints. I would like to do this in a more panoramic fashion. This is the driving force for a bigger camera. I started out investigating the possibility of making digital enlarged negatives before I tried to acquire a larger camera. I guess I am back to the digital negative option. The advantage hopefully will be that I can tailor the size of the contact negative a bit more to my liking.
Another distinct advantage is as William Blunt pointed out to me, I can practice making Pt/Pd prints from my original 4x5 negatives until I learn the basics about the process. This will help to keep my start up costs reasonable. (Please watch for another new thread seeking some starting advice on Pt/PD).
After my long winded explaining of what I will do before Christmas, I actually do have a question. I have purchased Dan Burkholders book for making digital negatives but I see he has additional information on his web site. This is called the Inkjet Negative Companion.
Has anybody actually acquired this update? If so does it really work in helping a relative beginner to actually be able to make a very good digital negative for the Pt/Pd process?
I am quite willing to pay his asking price but I do wish to be successful in my endeavors and the book itself only served to confuse me. In fairness I did learn a great deal in general from his book (after many re-reads) about how these types of procedures work but not quite enough to get me doing it successfully.
Dan's Site
If you are interested I have an Epson Expression flat bed scanner with the transparency unit that will do a true 1600 dpi scan. I have bought and tried to use VueScan for my scanning software. I also have very recently purchased the Epson 2200 printer. As you can see I spent enough money trying to do this when I perhaps should have just gone to an 8x10 camera. Well there is no going back now so hopefully I can figure all of this stuff out and make digital negatives.
Kind Regards,
