Hello !! ( from Besançon, France )

JulienPictures74

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Hello everyone

I'm Julien, I live in the most beautiful city in France, Besançon ! ( in the Doubs (25)).

When I was younger, vacation photos and the charm of color rendering naturally attracted me to photography.
the naivety of the photographic shot remains present despite all these years.
my parents' little Kodak now sits on a shelf because other cameras have replaced it. an OM 10 or a minolta X700...
and now a small 4x5 large format field camera...

photography is and remains a great playground and despite the years I still have so much fun...

Sincerely
Julien
 

koraks

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Welcome aboard, Julien! It's been ages since I was in Besançon - I must have been 12 or so! Beautiful region, as I recall. Did visit Dijon not too long ago, though.

JulienPictures74 said:
a small 4x5 large format field camera...
Click to expand...

I wouldn't call 4x5 small, per se! It's a nice format. I love making 4x5" contact prints.
 
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JulienPictures74

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hi
yes indeed the size of the negative is really large... and allows for a lot of detail... great image quality in the print is allowed...
4x5 is extraordinary...
( I'm sorry..
my English is not perfect.. I have to translate everything.. ) my feeling, my idea was: I only have a budget camera and certain very heavy lenses cannot be mounted...
Afterwards, if I may make a remark regarding your answer... the contact prints are nice and I try not to limit myself to this format... a 4x5 enlarger is not very expensive and allows beautiful prints .... your American omega d2 or beseler 45 enlargers are great...
 

koraks

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Yes, 4x5" is indeed a very nice format in the sense that contact prints are quite nice, and enlargers for this format are also relatively easy to find. Btw, I'm from Europe and I find it's easier to find a good Durst than an Omega or Beseler, although the latter are certainly also around. Just buy whatever you can find and that's in decent shape. There are very few bad 4x5" enlargers!

And I hear you on the 'small' 4x5 camera. I have a Toyo field that will also not hold very big lenses. And an 8x10" Intrepid and while it's not really small, it is also fairly light-weight, but it will not bear a heavy lens very well, either.
 

tjwspm

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I took this picture with my Minox LX in Reims last summer
 

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markjwyatt

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Do you live in Besançon (near Dijon and the Jura it appears) or Paris (as your profile says? I do love the southern alpine part of France near Italy and Switzerland the best. Such amazing country. I spent a lot of time in the area (mainly using Grenoble as a base) in the not too distant past.
 

Laurent

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Bienvenue Julien ! 4x5 is great, I sometimes regret having stopped shooting it. You found THE place to be
 
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JulienPictures74

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Paris is for the job but my heart is always in Besançon ( and most of my week end .. )
yes it's not far from Jura... really beautiful places to discover by hiking...
Grenoble is really the alps... but near Besançon is quickly haut-doubs landscape.. you can google pierre bichet ( 1922-2008 ) a famous painter to discover haut-doubs typical places and village or simply try " haut-doubs " ...
 

Dan Fromm

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Julien, galerie-photo.com and its forum galerie-photo.info are outstanding sources of information and help with large format photography. They're in France.

One of galerie-photo's gurus, Emmanuel Bigler, a retired professor at ENSMM, lives in Besancon. So you have a neighbor, more or less, if you need someone to talk things over with.
 

markjwyatt

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Bichet really likes the winter scenes. On one trip I drove from Luxembourg to Grenoble and chose to drive the national route (vs. the toll freeway), and enjoyed the changing landscape as I travelled south through the Jura and other parts (Mirabelle, Bresse, Comte, Dijon, etc.). It was a long day, and I stopped at a few places to explore along the way.
 
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JulienPictures74

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hi Dan, thanks !! yes this website is famous and mr Bigler too...
thank
 

Sirius Glass

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Welcome to Photrio!!
 

frost242

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Bonjour Julien,
I was looking for something else and remembered that I missed the opportunity to welcome a fellow french large format user.
The galerie-photo forum was pointed. There's also 35mm-compact with a little community of french speaking analog geeks.
 
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