Film, A Dying Art, Really

[mesantacruz]

LF is overkill for the modest ambition of most hobbyists, yet so many take the plunge, with the excuse that - "for this much I could get this instead, which is better than this" - which is investment talk. It doesn't say anything for your reasoning to actually make pictures with the thing. There's entitlement and ego at play too - we believe we deserve the absolute best we can get, even though our talent as image makers might not warrant large format presentation.

The reality is, digital cameras offer more than enough punch for the photographic ability of everyone on this forum. Very few here are artists, so I never buy the colour rendition/tonality argument. I shoot film because I'm stubborn and partly believe that it inherently makes my pictures better. That might make people uncomfortable, but probably because it's just as true for themselves.

you wouldn't tell a painter his/her canvas is too big for her painting.

Or even as time has proven otherwise, why paint, when you can take a photo. I especially think the second part of your comments are way out of line, "Very few here are artists... "

I don't know how old you are, but as a younger person, i myself know the phrase, "if you have nothing nice to say, best not say anything."
Reading through weston's daybooks, he himself realized his betterment over the years, and threw away many of his earlier prints. Should he not have used LF then? Lets not let tools for an image of who we are or what we think of people, not to mention their work. If i can use it as a hammer, it a good enough camera for me.

 

[Sal Santamaura]

Sorry, Sal ...

No need to apologize; I was just curious.

...It's my Ebony 4x5 that has the titanium hardware...

I find the titanium on my Ebony cameras to mostly be a good thing. One place where it's not is the base plate. Too much flex when a quick-release rail is attached. Aluminum fixed that:

http://www.largeformatphotography.i...discontinued&p=1034620&viewfull=1#post1034620​

...I did change quite a bit of the minor hardware on my Phillips - a distinct improvement, after a few things broke from stress. I showed the modifications to Dick and he liked them, but had already begun his his model II design anyway...

My 8x10 is a Compact II from 1998. The only modification I made to it (after discussion with Dick) was replacing the nylon turnbutton machine screw with a stainless steel version. When heavy lenses were mounted, the nylon flexed, resulting in unintended tilt. That problem no longer exists with the stainless screw.

Dick apparently found this change worthwhile, since my 4x5 later arrived with a stainless steel turnbutton screw as original equipment.

 

[Aldo M.]

I'm sorry , it was my fault.... i don't speak very well english and writing( in english ....) it is a bit tedious!!!
Digital's art has done an enormous evolution in the last few years: Salgado use digital medium format but his works are on classic silver papers.
Or for example i can shoot Film , on large or medium format or 35mm , than scan and printing a digital negative for contact printing. ( this is important for the classic alternavive photography ... Vandyke , Ciano, CArbon ......... tri color carbon ...)

For me is a bit different : there are other reasons ! I have few money... i'm young and i love nature landscapes and architecture (i'm an architect ...)
In Italy is not like in usa , LARGE FORMAT is very rare .... my dream was a 8x10 or a 5x7 ... but cost too much for my pockets!

With LF (even in 4x5) you can focus with other tricks than lens aperture ... you can distort or correct the "prospettiva" , you can change the image plan... it's another thing!

....... only for this i use film ! and the problem is even in the format ! the deep of field of a 150(or 180) , the normal for 4x5,is not the deep of field of the 300 in 8x10 or the 50 in 35mm....

And i believe that there is another reason : a philosophical one!
I don't know ... it's difficult even in italian (big problem )
At the moment i'm not a photographer , not a real artist .... not a fomous one: nobody known what i am .... and this is perfect for me ! i have my project for some book in the future( one day ....) . My work is ten hours in front of the pc with stupid useful 3d program !

But i love to SLOW my life ( if mean something in english ... ) No phone , only for emergency, no time, no one ... silence ... only the river of my dreams, and the knocking of my heart! there isn't the fantastic shoot? the perfect one ?......it's not a problem i study , i play , i dream the perfect condition ... and i return !........ LF is waiting not shooting ... ! hours of waiting ...


Post scriptum: it's a bit embarassing ... i have learnt these things from you!

 

[David Allen]

LF is overkill for the modest ambition of most hobbyists, yet so many take the plunge, with the excuse that - "for this much I could get this instead, which is better than this" - which is investment talk.

Large format is a tool like any other in photography. If you want to control perspective / plane of focus, correct verticals, photograph a mirror without seeing your own reflection, etc, etc then large format is the correct tool. If you find viewing an image on a ground glass enables you to better compose in comparison to squinting through a tiny viewfinder then large format is the tool for you.

With over 60,000 members of this forum, I personally find it rather arrogant to suggest that only a handful consider themselves to be artists, serious photographers or whatever else they want to use to define what they do.

In terms of the long-term survival of analogue photography, the solution is very clear: the more people who use analogue materials (in whatever format, for whatever reasons, whether 'pure' or hybrid) the more products the manufacturers can sell and the more likely they will stay in business.

David
www.dsallen.de

 

[DREW WILEY]

Wear the shoes that fit you. I'm a bit of a format schizophrenic, and like switching things up from time to time, though I must admit my very
favorite format is 8x10, which is also the most useful in the darkroom, since I can make high quality prints relatively large if I need to. So there are some real logistical pros and cons to our choices. But none of it matters if you don't somehow synchronize with your gear to the point that all the techie aspects become instinctive, or relegated to the subconsious, and you can enjoy interacting with the potential image itself. The end result, when you finally mount and frame a print, is really only the tip of the iceberg. What is more important is your life experience. If you regard the experience of photography as bagging just another commercial or cute commodity, I pity you. For me, the hunt is just as important as the kill. There will always be more and more photographs accumulating out there, no matter what the technology. But your personal experience and memories of what you saw and attempted to capture and communicate are your own, and nobody can take that from you.

 

[batwister]

What I'm getting at is the thrift culture of analog photography has led to 'format gluttony' in my opinion. Even the best artists in the medium generally moved their way up to large format, because they didn't feel they were 'ready' - I've read this numerous times. There's a humility in that kind of discipline which seems to have been lost. And about the 'would I tell a painter not to use a huge canvas' - yes, if they were an amateur. A small shit is easier to deal with

 

[PKM-25]

What I'm getting at is the thrift culture of analog photography has led to 'format gluttony' in my opinion. Even the best artists in the medium generally moved their way up to large format, because they didn't feel they were 'ready' - I've read this numerous times. There's a humility in that kind of discipline which seems to have been lost. And about the 'would I tell a painter not to use a huge canvas' - yes, if they were an amateur. A small shit is easier to deal with

And many would disagree as they clearly have, it's not a ladder of gear that you *have* to use smaller formats first. Take for example someone who wants to do still life images with a lot of whimsical play on multiple focus planes, why on earth would they use 35mm or even medium format when they could get right to work with 4x5 and have more control? Hell it is not out of the question for me to loupe the focus screen on my Hasselblad, it and all cameras are tools to those who deploy and employ them as such.

And the last line..? You think you would be right minded to tell an amateur painter to not use a large canvas......seriously?

Are you ok man? Because your thinking is really narrow in view lately and seems to be increasingly disjointed...

 

[DREW WILEY]

I just find it interesting how small format machine-gunners seem to down a duck a lot less often than a large format sniper. But then when the
dude with large format discipline gets ahold of a small camera again, his shots become a lot more disciplined and efficient. It's got nuthin' to
do with a "huge canvas", Batwister. People can enlarge cellphone shots to the size of a billboard, if they wish; and large format practitioners
often make contact prints which haven't been enlarged at all. In the latter category, I personally find an 8x10 contact print somewhat more
satifying than squinting at a contact the size of a postage stamp.

 

[cliveh]

I just find it interesting how small format machine-gunners seem to down a duck a lot less often than a large format sniper.

When the man with a 45 meets a man with a rifle........................

 

[Chris Lange]

Seeing a skilled photographer use a motor driven 35mm camera to their advantage is like watching a good chef make a perfect jullienne.

Seeing a skilled photographer use a view camera makes you unaware of how complex the process can be.

Seeing a skilled photographer use a Hasselblad hand held with a waist-level viewfinder, weaving and following a subject, is like watching a choreographed dance.

It's not the size of the neg, it's whether or not you've got one at all.


...if you don't have it, then you don't have it.

 

[Ken Nadvornick]

There's a humility in that kind of discipline which seems to have been lost.

It's always dangerous to unilaterally presume to know exactly what it is that other people should be thinking and doing. And it's even more dangerous to express that presumption directly to those people...

Ken

 

[DREW WILEY]

Motor winders were invented to help people waste film as rapidly as possible, and to put static marks on the film in the desert. Ironically, we need them now more than ever, to boost film sales. But it's all becoming past history, because instead of wasting money on lots of film,
photographers have decided to spend all that money wearing out digi cameras one after another, taking thousands of even more redundant
shots. But out here in the wild West, choreography is best practiced when someone shouts "dance", and they start shooting AT you!

 

[batwister]

Take for example someone who wants to do still life images with a lot of whimsical play on multiple focus planes, why on earth would they use 35mm or even medium format when they could get [it] right to work with 4x5 and have more control?

You seem to be saying that it's necessary to stick to the convention of shooting still lives on LF - which I don't agree with. Many of Eggleston's pictures are technically still lives for example, just not formally concerned and not on big negatives, yet still seek to find the symbolic in the familiar. Yes, movements on a view camera offer more control of visual effects, but there's still the problem of content to deal with.*

And the last line..? You think you would be right minded to tell an amateur painter to not use a large canvas......seriously?

I do think to use a large canvas/negative that early on is brash. If a painter/photographer has so much to say that their work is bursting out of the frame, then maybe it's time to work bigger.

* The bigger the neg, the more description in the image and the easier it becomes to make banal pictures. Isn't the whole practice of photographic art about learning how to get around the medium's descriptive nature? It's a steep learning curve to use LF early on, yes technically, but more importantly for perceptual reasons. It takes a real power of observation to turn all that information into a strong statement. The bigger the field of view, the easier it is to take details for granted - each step up in format then should naturally come with an expansion of our observational skills? The vision of an infant isn't as strong as an adult. You have to learn to see, and isn't it best to educate ourselves in stages?

 

[DREW WILEY]

I have no problem with small formats. Use them often myself. So lets just forget every technical and alleged artistic argument out there, cut to the chase, and state that I shoot 8x10 because I want to. I enjoy it. Got an argument against that?

 

[removed account4]

batwister

no one is suggesting that you or anyone else for that matter should use
a large format camera. what i find sort of humorous is that you have decided
that most people shouldn't use a large format camera, "because you say so"

 

[PKM-25]

Batwister, sure, you can easily shoot still life's with any format, I see great ones from an iPhone. I get the feeling you are more into the debate than making images and if so more power to you. I understand vision my friend, I am a successful photographer who is well on my way to becoming a successful fine art printer.

I'll let the other cats play with you in the sandbox, I'm smelling too many bombs in the kitty litter...;-)

 

[batwister]

I have no problem with small formats. Use them often myself. So lets just forget every technical and alleged artistic argument out there, cut to the chase, and state that I shoot 8x10 because I want to. I enjoy it. Got an argument against that?

Of course not, but it cuts things a little short.

 

[Chris Lange]

My father has related to me on numerous occasions that when he entered RIT's photography program in the early 1970s that every student was told to put their 35mm cameras away for the first year and that they were to build their own 4x5 cameras. From scratch.

The progression he said, was inverse. Instead of slowly becoming more and more concise through format progression, they were forced to contend with the issues of large format first and foremost, and then had to bend each subsequent format to their will afterwards.

He ceased using large format almost entirely after that first year...very occasionally using a crown graphic...but 99.9% of his work was in 35mm and various medium formats from that point forward.

 

[DREW WILEY]

Of course it cuts things short. It is meant to.

 

[Aldo M.]

... the title is FILM a DYING art ..! ok we are people (someone is a real artist , someone is a real photographer , someone is only a younger dreamer without any experience but only great passion like me ) that are still using film ! PAX VOBIS...


Butwister ... what do you think ? i use 35mm film camera !... sometimes when i shoot in the street.... in the railway station ,... and i use an old pentax with a 50mm , and an old canon with a 35 zeiss distagon from contax sistem !


Sometimes i use the 120 film in the back of my LF ... 6x9 cm format and so it's not a problem of how big is the negative!
In october i'll watch a gallery of an italian mountain photographer, and he use all format , but for the recent works he decided to use only a small 6x6 rolleiflex !


It's always about personal feelings... only a little part it's tecnical a problem.


......that's all!


I love increase distortion and perspective of my mountains .. becouse a photo isn't the reality...... and my 4x5 is good friend in this field!


and i love to focus on ground glass , and move the focus plan without the limitation of the other camera ... God save the Queen ...?! of course .... but i'm italian and so God bless Scheimpflug ... and save the FILM!

 

[Ken Nadvornick]

OK... I admit it... I giggled...

 

[Chris Lange]

Aldo, you're thinking is sound, different tools for different purposes (as has been iterated ad nauseam in countless threads here...)

OK... I admit it... I giggled...

Me too...

 

[Thomas Bertilsson]

My father has related to me on numerous occasions that when he entered RIT's photography program in the early 1970s that every student was told to put their 35mm cameras away for the first year and that they were to build their own 4x5 cameras. From scratch.

The progression he said, was inverse. Instead of slowly becoming more and more concise through format progression, they were forced to contend with the issues of large format first and foremost, and then had to bend each subsequent format to their will afterwards.

He ceased using large format almost entirely after that first year...very occasionally using a crown graphic...but 99.9% of his work was in 35mm and various medium formats from that point forward.

I'm sort of like your dad, only it took me a couple of years to get into LF.
When I finally got there, I was excited. After a few years of trying, convincing myself it was the ultimate, I just couldn't go on. Not that the prints were not nice. I just wasn't taking the pictures I wanted to take, because I couldn't. So why struggle with something you don't even enjoy?!
So I got back to Hasselblad and 35mm again, and with the first roll I was very happy again.

There is no 'best format'. Only what we enjoy to work with. I'd much rather be limited by format than my brain.

 

[MattKing]

It isn't the Art, or the medium that is in danger.

It is the industry and the marketplace that grew up around film that is in danger.

And with it, the easy accessibility that we film users miss the most.

 

[Molli]

I'm sorry , it was my fault.... i don't speak very well english and writing( in english ....) it is a bit tedious!!!

You were perfectly clear, so not at all your fault.

And this below is beautiful in any language. Poetry transcends...

Digital's art has done an enormous evolution in the last few years: Salgado use digital medium format but his works are on classic silver papers.
Or for example i can shoot Film , on large or medium format or 35mm , than scan and printing a digital negative for contact printing. ( this is important for the classic alternavive photography ... Vandyke , Ciano, CArbon ......... tri color carbon ...)

For me is a bit different : there are other reasons ! I have few money... i'm young and i love nature landscapes and architecture (i'm an architect ...)
In Italy is not like in usa , LARGE FORMAT is very rare .... my dream was a 8x10 or a 5x7 ... but cost too much for my pockets!

With LF (even in 4x5) you can focus with other tricks than lens aperture ... you can distort or correct the "prospettiva" , you can change the image plan... it's another thing!

....... only for this i use film ! and the problem is even in the format ! the deep of field of a 150(or 180) , the normal for 4x5,is not the deep of field of the 300 in 8x10 or the 50 in 35mm....

And i believe that there is another reason : a philosophical one!
I don't know ... it's difficult even in italian (big problem )
At the moment i'm not a photographer , not a real artist .... not a famous one: nobody known what i am .... and this is perfect for me ! i have my project for some book in the future( one day ....) . My work is ten hours in front of the pc with stupid useful 3d program !

But i love to SLOW my life ( if mean something in english ... ) No phone , only for emergency, no time, no one ... silence ... only the river of my dreams, and the knocking of my heart! there isn't the fantastic shoot? the perfect one ?......it's not a problem i study , i play , i dream the perfect condition ... and i return !........ LF is waiting not shooting ... ! hours of waiting ...


Post scriptum: it's a bit embarrassing ... i have learnt these things from you!