Instruction Books for Large Format

Vaughn · Oct 7, 2023

My teachers for learning how to pack mules had long legs tipped in steel. Learning anything beyond the basics of 4x5 and LF was taught to me by getting kicked in the head by my negatives. Gear scattered across the mountainside, light just plain scattered.

Have fun!

Pioneer · Oct 7, 2023

Vaughn said:
My teachers for learning how to pack mules had long legs tipped in steel. Learning anything beyond the basics of 4x5 and LF was taught to me by getting kicked in the head by my negatives. Gear scattered across the mountainside, light just plain scattered.

Have fun!

Thanks Vaughn. I will! I am actually looking forward to this. Lots of plans already. I am practicing with the Cambo in my office but I haven't run any film through it yet.

One of my first trips will be into the Snake Mountains near the Idaho border but I think I'll use the Intrepid for that. It is a lot lighter camera and I already have a backpack that will hold everything I need for it.

I would also like to go into the headwaters of Lamoille Canyon but I'm afraid snow will be falling up there by the time I get the time for that one. They close the canyon once the snow flies and I don't really want to hike all the way in. Besides that, hiking at 11,000 feet in snow is no fun. At least in the Snake range I will be able to get most of the way up in the Jeep. The highest elevation in that range is only about 8500 feet so it isn't bad. It isn't the Sierras after all. Still some good photo opportunities though.

I grew up part of my life on a farm in Northern Minnesota but I am an absolute wuss when the snow starts falling. Shoveling the farmhouse driveway after every blizzard will do that to you if feeding the animals every morning doesn't.

Vaughn · Oct 8, 2023

I just spent a few days camping on a local lagoon with some friends. A boat-accessable camp...we had kayaks plus a small boat w/ motor to make a couple ferry-trips with water, firewood, food, alcohol, and other important stuff. Wimped out and did not take the 5x7, but had fun with the Rolliecord! Woke up early to paddle on the lagoon at around sunrise today in a heavy fog...pretty sweet. My shoulders a bit sore tonight -- too sore and too tired to agitate a double 120 tank tonight!

MTGseattle · Oct 14, 2023

What town in MN? I was born in MN and lived in Fargo/Moorhead until I was 27. I miss some aspects of that region (not the winters), and have some ideas for a road-trip circulating in the old brain pan. Plus, my folks are still there.

Pioneer · Oct 14, 2023

We lived on the family farm between Georgetown, which is on the Red River, and Felton, Minnesota. Flat, flat, flat country, and cooold in the winter. The wind really knows how to blow up there. I certainly do not miss those winters.

My folks are both buried in Moorhead. We don't get back there often but my wife and I were up there in August to visit family. Her family lives further south around St Cloud.

Pioneer · Oct 14, 2023

Strembicki said:
I taught photography and LF for 42 years and IMHO the best. easiest to read and most useful book for beginners is: A User’s Guide to the View Camera, Stone, Jim. Longman, 1997. ISBN 0-673-52006-4

the Stobel book that has been mentioned is very knowledgeable but, its dense and again IMHO and experience with University students, hard to digest.

I ordered Jim Stone's book and it just arrived from abebooks. After a quick glance through it I think I am going to enjoy it. It starts almost immediately with the Calumet/Cambo monorail which is the exact same camera I have set up on my old Majestic Tripod right now. He obviously covers other types of cameras as well but it appears he focuses a little more on monorails than some of the other books I have picked up. It certainly struck a chord the minute I opened the book.

Thanks

MTGseattle · Oct 14, 2023

Not too far from Moorhead. I was born in Crookston. I have family in Duluth, and my grandparents lived in Big Lake (about an hour outside Mpls)

Here's one of those statements where I need to practice what I preach; don't forget about your backyard if you're just practicing. Large format brings some options to the table as far as finding images that you may not even think about if you're standing there with an slr.

Pioneer · Oct 14, 2023

MTGseattle said:
Not too far from Moorhead. I was born in Crookston. I have family in Duluth, and my grandparents lived in Big Lake (about an hour outside Mpls)

Here's one of those statements where I need to practice what I preach; don't forget about your backyard if you're just practicing. Large format brings some options to the table as far as finding images that you may not even think about if you're standing there with an slr.

Interesting. My Dad attended the Ag School in Crookston.

Agree whole heartedly with remembering what is in your own backyard.

What I have been doing with the Cambo over the last couple of week is moving the camera around the house and yard and looking at what I see in the ground glass. I have also been going back through some of my old MF photos going back to those places looking at what I think may be good options for LF. I am also looking through things that have been posted here and on the Large Format Photography Forum. I feel like a complete novice at this but one of the skills I think I am trying to develop is visualizing what things will look like in that large ground glass before I ever set up the camera. Right now my eye is pretty well tuned to looking through a 35mm viewfinder. I hope that I don't have to shoot as many frames of 4x5 to tune my eye to large format.

Moving a 35mm around is pretty easy. It is not so easy to move around with a 4x5 or larger camera.

Alan Edward Klein · Oct 15, 2023

Keep it simple. Shoot in a backyard even without film. Practice setting up the camera and focusing it and going through the paces. Find the instruction manual that's got the shortest number of pages. You don't have to understand how the internal combustion engine works to learn how to drive. Have fun.

MTGseattle · Oct 15, 2023

Alan Edward Klein said:
Keep it simple. Shoot in a backyard even without film. Practice setting up the camera and focusing it and going through the paces. Find the instruction manual that's got the shortest number of pages. You don't have to understand how the internal combustion engine works to learn how to drive. Have fun.

This. Exactly. Now, if only I could take this to heart as well.
One of the silliest (and least harmful overall) mistakes to make with large format is forgetting to pull the darkslide. I did that just yesterday. Luckily I wasn't chasing some fleeting ethereal light, it was giant soft-box cloudy yesterday.

Alan Edward Klein · Oct 16, 2023

MTGseattle said:
This. Exactly. Now, if only I could take this to heart as well.
One of the silliest (and least harmful overall) mistakes to make with large format is forgetting to pull the darkslide. I did that just yesterday. Luckily I wasn't chasing some fleeting ethereal light, it was giant soft-box cloudy yesterday.

Worse is pulling it before closing the shutter.

Pioneer · Oct 18, 2023

Alan Edward Klein said:
Keep it simple. Shoot in a backyard even without film. Practice setting up the camera and focusing it and going through the paces. Find the instruction manual that's got the shortest number of pages. You don't have to understand how the internal combustion engine works to learn how to drive. Have fun.

Actually this was pretty good advice. I read the 15 page Cambo Monorail Student Camera manual available online. I had never done that. Very interesting. For example I never knew I could mount and unmount the camera from the tripod by removing the monorail from the monorail clamp. Its' a LOT easier to mount the clamp on the tripod first and then set the camera monorail in the clamp.

Before my Dad let me learn to drive I DID have to learn how the engine worked!

Thanks

Instruction Books for Large Format

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