f/2.8 and be there, and let the EI float.

[markbarendt]

a style where wide apertures dominate sounds intriguing.

It is.

 

[removed account4]

It is.

Couldn't agree more mark . !
One of.my favorite things is to not only shoot wide open.. But front focus a little
so the lens can do its thing ... Personally I think.sharpness, extreme dof and excessive
contrast and /or gauche overly saturated images are over rated...
while I like fauvist painting fauvist photography ( unless it employs shallow dof ) doesn't leave
any room for the imagination.. and I'd rather someone.have.to think and not be run over.by a. Dozer...

Ymmv

 

[markbarendt]

Couldn't agree more mark . !
One of.my favorite things is to not only shoot wide open.. But front focus a little
so the lens can do its thing ... Personally I think.sharpness, extreme dof and excessive
contrast and /or gauche overly saturated images are over rated...
while I like fauvist painting fauvist photography ( unless it employs shallow dof ) doesn't leave
any room for the imagination.. and I'd rather someone.have.to think and not be run over.by a. Dozer...

Ymmv

I like thinking. Make art not documents!

 

[DREW WILEY]

Again, I am VERY certain that some of you are making stereotypes about the working methods of certain famous photographers that apply to very little of what they actually did. Somewhere at home I have a very rabid dialectic manifesto that Edward Weston wrote condemning everything that wasn't utter tack sharp and realistic, which of course, would have condemned him to eternal flames too by those standards.
For one thing, a major body of his own work was itself closer to pictorialism, and second, he mainly contact printed, and most of those
shots enlarged very much would look horribly imprecise. AA was a very flexible successful commercial photographer who knew how to use all kinds of gear and techniques as the situation demanded. And he didn't give up that option with his personal work. But talk comes cheap,
and various aesthetic movements back then tried to draw attention to themselves with ostentatious statements, just like today.

 

[Ian Grant]

I think what's being missed is we as photographers always need to explore the boundaries of our work.

In reality you need to explore and experiment, and then used whatever technique you feel is best in a particular situation, f2.8 and letting it float won't always work and maybe f4 or even f5.6 will be more practical. it's also about where you place the plane of focus. An example in my case is a shot made at f22 with a 210mm lens and the background is out of focus, I'd have needed f45 and focusing a third back into the image to get everything sharp.

So I'm agreeing with Drew. I cane see the point though in using shallow depth of focus and perhaps basing projects around it.

Ian

 

[DREW WILEY]

We large format photographers can get pretty nitpicky about lenses. A lens prized for high resolution reasonably stopped-down shots with a lot of depth of field might not render pleasant out-of-focus results for selective focus work, and visa versa. Lens performace is also related
to movements. With landscape of architecture, this can be crucial. A portrait photographer might get by with less in this respect, and this also
influences lens choice. It's a very different game than 35mm photography (which I also enjoy).

 

[pdeeh]

As a large format photographer, I don't give a flying f*ck about lenses.

 

[removed account4]

We large format photographers can get pretty nitpicky about lenses. A lens prized for high resolution reasonably stopped-down shots with a lot of depth of field might not render pleasant out-of-focus results for selective focus work, and visa versa. Lens performace is also related
to movements. With landscape of architecture, this can be crucial. A portrait photographer might get by with less in this respect, and this also
influences lens choice. It's a very different game than 35mm photography (which I also enjoy).

Hi drew... I was the person who asked what it has to do with lf photography
mainly because there are.as many working methods as there are
people with lf cameras. while some folks in this thread have generalized about
the working methods/ methodologies of people who labeled themselves "f64"
it is just as easy to suggest that large format photographers are picky or finicky
and are hyper critical about specific lenses, ways of exposing,DOF&c ..
when a lot of folks just enjoying lf cameras, and sometimes use them as if they were
brownie box cameras on steroids, or a big 34mm camera .. and others
just use whatever lens is handy .. ...
the main thing is to have a good time, otherwise what's the point

 

[pdeeh]

A 34mm camera?

I WANT one!

 

[DREW WILEY]

Well, sure.. One can approach this at various levels. There's a long-time customer who walks into here every few days with a lovely mahogany 8x10 fixed-lens handheld box camera and takes pictures of the staff, then gives us little gift prints. He's in it for the fun, period. But there are lots of things a box camera will not do. Some people care about the critical quality of enlargements. I'm one of them.

 

[removed account4]

Some people ....

exactly
it was the broad brush that was troublesome...
although I've.made some large enlargements
With 4x5 paper out of a fixed focus box camera
And they looked beautiful ... as they say ... Tomato tomato potato potato ...

34mm is fun

diffrnt stokes 4dif flks ...

 

[DREW WILEY]

There's the other ridiculous extreme too. Lenses don't matter. Film doesn't matter. Technique doesn't matter. "It's all about the image". Well,
one has a perfect right to say that it doesn't matter how you season your food either. "Hot sauce, salt, sugar, no difference.. It's all about the food", not the tools or technique. That's fine. Just don't expect to open a restaurant and stay in business for long!

 

[Ian Grant]

As a large format photographer, I don't give a flying f*ck about lenses.

Regardless of the format used one (we) should be aware of the capabilities and limitations of the lenses we used. For years (in the UK) there was a misplaced idea that LF lenses didn't need to be that good because the larger format meant it wasn't important. It was a post war thing and the lack luster Wray Lustar and Wary WA epitomise that lack of quality.

It's a horses for course thing, sometimes you want lenses which are as good as they come. that can be obsessional though. I've been very happy with my 1980's Rodenstock & Schneider lenses (all SH) but I'm just as happy with 50's & 60's lenses and use them regularly and no-one can spot the difference.

But maybe it's important to remember that many LF lenses in general have been of quite high quality for over 100 years. My pre-WWI 165mm f6.3 Tessar is a very sharp lens. It's only after WWII that a few 35mm lenses catch up and wide angle lenses took years to catch up as a whole.

Ian

 

[pdeeh]

Well, I'm not sure about 'should', Ian, because I don't think there are any rules about what one should and shouldn't do with photographic materials and equipment.

I'm perfectly well aware that my £5 barrel lenses would not be suitable for some lf shooters.

On the other hand if you handed me 3k's worth of Cooke, it wouldn't make a ha'p'worth of difference to the sort of photographs I make.

 

[DREW WILEY]

Most 8x10 and ULF shooters don't even know how to keep a sheet of film flat in the holder. I enlarge way more often than contact print, and am known for very high quality enlargements. That's MY game. I'm fine with other people playing their game; but you'll never see me with a Holga camera either. But lenses? I might travel with both sheet film and a roll film back. Well, some tiny little 6x9 negative does need a lot of magnification if it's going to pretend to lodge in the same portfolio and a large format image. The nice thing about really crisp view camera lenses is that you can sometimes use the same lens on multiple formats (for different respective angles of view, of course). But I also have certain barrel lenses for a different look entirely. I'd even be delighted to own a 3K Cooke. I just need to find someone willing to sell it to me at a tenth that price!

 

[Nodda Duma]

, salt, sugar, no difference.. It's all about the food", not the tools or technique. That's fine. Just don't expect to open a restaurant and stay in business for long!

Different photographers will have a signature style, similar to how different restaurants (or chefs) specialize in different food preparation techniques. I think that's the point mark was trying to make. He wants to be known for his photographic "Cajun cooking" so-to-speak. Just like you have your signature "perfect truffle" of LF photography.

And yes I am hungry so I'm really getting into the restaurant analogy. Sadly, I have yet to find a Cajun establishment in New Hampshire

 

[pdeeh]

It's also important to remember that pigs are used to find truffles

 

[Ian Grant]

It's also important to remember that pigs are used to find truffles

They were also kept in the house and used to warm beds in the winter

I used the word "should" in terms of knowing the capabilities of lenses and at different apertures because like you I think there are no rules and it's important to have tried out a lens to be aware what you can expect. That way you can make an informed choice based on your own experience in deciding what lenses to use old barrel lenses or modern MC lenses.

What it comes down to is consistency while also having flexibility. Some projects/bodies of work need far greater consistency than others which is the case in my landscape work where some projects are long running (25+ years). But I shoot outside those projects with quite different approaches and that's important as that in itself leads to continued evolvement overall rather than staying still.

Looking at the images you've posted on APUG I appreciate that the lens is less important in those images. In the context of the OP's original post I think flexibility is more important than sticking rigidly to f2.8, it should be more about working with a shallow DOF than one aperture.

Ian

 

[pdeeh]

Hehe is that something of a back-handed compliment, Ian ?

I suppose the few snaps I've put up here aren't entirely representative of all my "output", but yes I take your point.

For instance, I don't make portraits, but if I decide I want to, I might find myself being a bit more picky about what I stuck on the front of my cameras.

Making such an extreme statement (about what I don't give a flying about) was more about the absurdity of the kinds of positions some folk adopt regarding photography. As if somehow there is a natural and immutable set of laws which, if not followed, mean that the photographer is not doing it "properly" or "seriously".

 

[Sirius Glass]

One advantage of a slr is that one can see what the effect of shooting wide open will be. When I am using a slr I know if the minimum acceptable depth of field will be acceptable for the composition or if stopping down to increase the depth of field is needed.

 

[Chan Tran]

I think I very rarely ever used f/2.8.

 

[Sirius Glass]

It depends on the lens and the Hasselbald Zeiss CF 80mm lens at the maximum opening of f/2.8 still has a very good depth of field, better than some other camera lenses at the same f/stop. When I need to or want to I use that lens at f/2.8 without hesitation.

 

[markbarendt]

I think I very rarely ever used f/2.8.

So instead you ___________________ to make your photos _________________ and because of that you had to ________________________ .

 

[Sirius Glass]

So instead you ___________________ to make your photos _________________ and because of that you had to ________________________ .

Is this a test?


If so do you grade on a curve?


Interested readers want to know!

 

[Alan Johnson]

For sure shooting at around f2.8 is big business for selling clothes, look in any magazine store.But it's not on film any more.I did find one can identify which Canon film cameras will shoot with a modern high speed sync flash by looking up the EOS camera on this site:http://photonotes.org/
Unfortunately the site seems to be down at this time. hss saves messing around with neutral density filters, it has a different name for other manufacturers and most modern upmarket flashes have it.