Invest in 4x5 equipment?

[chuckroast]

Oh my! I have never had the opportunity to visit the Netherlands, although my sister has because her husband is Dutch. I have had the opportunity to view some original Vermeer and
Van Gogh paintings up close in person, without any time pressure. Those are almost in a class by themselves. An I've seen plenty of older Dutch miniatures - quite remarkable detail; don't know if they had some kind of magnifying glass or not back in Medieval days. But the native Americans near here made miniature wedding baskets interwoven with hummingbird feathers, with certain patterns so small they can't even be seen with the naked eye. Likewise with a few Ice Age artifacts I've found, meticulously crafted in miniature. Must have done it by feel alone. Reminds me of a local photographer, a jeweler by day, who contact printed his 35mm slides and displayed them under individual gooseneck magnifying glasses. Wonder what grandiose Gursky would think about that?

You'd love that movie I cited above.

 

[gbroadbridge]

Those of us who do both - make prints and display digitally, need to choose the most demanding standard in order to be able to obtain results that succeed for our purposes.

I think you're saying that you need to provide two different outputs, each one optimised for the intended display format.
Which I think is what most folks who are in that position actually do.

 

[wiltw]

We were discussing scanning the print. You didn't address that point.

"But you're scanning the "standard" print for the web. So all the issues you mentioned are the same."

And I was responding to the quoted statement of yours, about 'no two chemical prints are the same'.

 

[Alan Edward Klein]

If you take that scan, resize the resulting digital file so that it will present appropriately on a screen - even a 4K 70" one - and then make a 11x14 print from the resized file, in almost all cases the subsequent print will be markedly poorer than the initial print.
So if you aim for a standard that will look great on a 70" screen, you are handicapping yourself if you also want an 11x14 print as well. The print requires a different standard.
Those of us who do both - make prints and display digitally, need to choose the most demanding standard in order to be able to obtain results that succeed for our purposes.

My purposes are different than yours. Otherwise, it's like arguing that film is better than digital, making APUG better than Photrio.

 

[RalphLambrecht]

I think I was misunderstood.
I didn't suggest that it was worth shooting 4x5 or that it was a poor financial investment. But as someone who already owns 35mm, MF, and 4x5 equipment, where would you put future $?

 

[Chuck1]

Film

 

[chuckroast]

I think I was misunderstood.
I didn't suggest that it was worth shooting 4x5 or that it was a poor financial investment. But as someone who already owns 35mm, MF, and 4x5 equipment, where would you put future $?

Leicas, always Leicas

 

[Besk]

All of my cameras and lenses are "good enough" for my purposes and if this is the case with you, that leaves film, storage systems etc. to invest in.

 

[gbroadbridge]

Film

+1

This is likely to be the greatest impediment going forward.
Either shortage or cost.

 

[Pieter12]

I think I was misunderstood.
I didn't suggest that it was worth shooting 4x5 or that it was a poor financial investment. But as someone who already owns 35mm, MF, and 4x5 equipment, where would you put future $?

Film, paper, workshops...

 

[MattKing]

Film, paper, workshops...

I'm just picturing what it would be like to be offering a darkroom printing workshop and arriving to find Ralph is one of the participants......

 

[gbroadbridge]

I'm just picturing what it would be like to be offering a darkroom printing workshop and arriving to find Ralph is one of the participants......

Digital printing workshop. lol.

 

[Taylor K Nankervis]

+1

This is likely to be the greatest impediment going forward.
Either shortage or cost.

Both. It is a very real and present impediment in both cases — availability foremost, then cost that actively discourages consumers from purchase. E6 in Australia, as an excample, is now $60 to $70 per roll, whether 35mm or 120. I'm not surprised at all to learn pretty much every week that a few more people have abandoned the analogue ecosystem for digital, solely for the nuisance availability of film and its attendant prohibitive cost.

Little to no point investing in future analogue where prices run rampant and unrestrained. Park the play money in an investment account.

 

[Taylor K Nankervis]

I'm just picturing what it would be like to be offering a darkroom printing workshop and arriving to find Ralph is one of the participants......

You wouldn't know it is him unless you turn the lights on, and that's probably not a good idea in a darkroom printing workshop...

 

[GregY]

I think I was misunderstood.
I didn't suggest that it was worth shooting 4x5 or that it was a poor financial investment. But as someone who already owns 35mm, MF, and 4x5 equipment, where would you put future $?

I think i was misunderstood. The was for this statement by chuckroast:

"I've seen Rembrandts in person and there is no monitor made that could do them justice."

 

[JensH]

I think I was misunderstood.
I didn't suggest that it was worth shooting 4x5 or that it was a poor financial investment. But as someone who already owns 35mm, MF, and 4x5 equipment, where would you put future $?

For me no more money for 35mm (I have what I will use) and digital cameras (fine for video and if large numbers of exposures help). MF is used mostly anyway.

What is missing is a larger format for contact printing, as I like the 1:1.4 ratio, my goal is a compact folding 13x18cm / 5x7" camera.
Maybe later even coating glass plates by myself...

 

[wiltw]

Consideration of 4x5 merely for the film area increase is missing the point of the flexibility of the 4x5 camera...the movements available (tilt, shift) in front standard, and/or in rear standard, and what that permits that cannot be achieved with any body that has a fundamentally rectangular oriientation of camera body vs. subject. It can do what even a tilt/shift lens on 135 or MF camera body simply cannot achieve.

 

[Taylor K Nankervis]

It can do what even a tilt/shift lens on 135 or MF camera body simply cannot achieve.

Not strictly or universally true, though MF has generally lost out to the flexibility and diversity of movement optics that have found continuing specialist use in the smaller 36mm ecosysyem.

So... we do have tilt-shift lenses, and complementing these, micro-adjust ball heads and omnidirectional levellers...to easily replicate (or at least approximate) movements in, for example 35mm, that in some cases would be too big for LF to achieve. By employing muliple techniques and devices, the camera can be angled back or tilted down, the lens tilted or shifted up, sideways or even diagonally (as per Canon's axial rotational TSE lenses, the 24mm being the star performer) in any combination, and corrective/compensatory movements executed separately at the ball head or leveller.

Shift-only lenses are not a good investment. They are more of a novelty for
newbies to play with, before the excitement drops off and the lens makes – lo and behold! – an appearance on the 'Wanted: A place to call home" shelf in the used equipment window. Some of us do better: my 24mm TS-E has been a staple of my 36mm kit since 1995!

There were multiple movements executed in this pic using the famously funky TS-E 24mm f3.5L lens – tilt, diagonal shift and a narrow, sharp plane of focus at show Av. No ball head used way back then, just a classic three-stick Manfrotto head and a great deal of experimentation, note taking and planning. Resulting MGCF Ilfochrome Classic print takes pride of place in my lounge room.

 

[DREW WILEY]

Hmm .... decisions, decisions, problem, problems.... My main problem right now is awaiting a dry and warm enough day to take my 8x10 on a good walk. Not only do dogs need to be fed and exercised, but pet sheet film does too. Not everything in life is commercial-minded or tethered to the latest tech innovations - certainly the weather itself isn't, and still has a mind of its own!

No, I'm not going to strap on my old snowshoes and head up into the mtns. There have already been enough avalanche deaths there this week. Both me and my 8x10 are getting a little more lazy and less ambitious than before, but still moving along nonetheless.

 

[Craig]

I never compared directly myself but I doubt it; yhat would make for a nice test one day!

I have done this comparison. From a modern film, the grain difference between 120 and 4x5 isn't significant, however the tonality is.

I did a test once and shot a lovely mountain stream on 2 different formats and printed them both to 11x14. I then took the prints to work and asked my colleagues which they preferred. Every single person said the print from the 4x5 negative was nicer.

 

[Craig]

I didn't suggest that it was worth shooting 4x5 or that it was a poor financial investment. But as someone who already owns 35mm, MF, and 4x5 equipment, where would you put future $?

That's a personal question. I don't view MF and 4x5 as interchangable, I view them as different tools to do different things. The way I evaluate a scene, compose, and shoot is different between 4x5 and MF. I would use each in different situations, so I don't think it can be an either/or answer.

4x5 is a slower, more contemplative way of shooting; if I come back from a day of shooting 4x5 with 6 exposed sheet I feel I have been very productive. If I came back with 6 frames on MF or 35mm I would think I had hardly shot anything at all.

So the answer to your last sentence I think is it depends on why you take pictures and what you want out of the process.

 

[gbroadbridge]

4x5 is a slower, more contemplative way of shooting; if I come back from a day of shooting 4x5 with 6 exposed sheet I feel I have been very productive. If I came back with 6 frames on MF or 35mm I would think I had hardly shot anything at all.

That's purely a psychological or lack of self discipline issue, not an inherent difference in any photographic format whether 35mm, MF, LF, or digital for that matter.

 

[DREW WILEY]

Why such a utilitarian approach? ... Investment?... What everyone else is doing or not doing?
For some of us, shooting LF has been a joy. It's not just the results, which can be spectacular if one learns the ropes, but the whole contemplative act of it. It slows you down so you actually have to look at things. And there's sheer magic to looking at an opalescent image on a large ground glass, especially 8x10; but 4x5 is pretty nice too, and much more portable.

There's no law that dictates you have to shoot everything you see. By becoming way more selective, and only shooting what you're actually likely to print, you consume less film, and the cost differential between smaller formats isn't as extreme. Just how many images can you print well anyway? - that's the bigger factor. Not everyone needs a machine gun approach -
that's one of the temptations and diseases of going digital - shooting just anything. Less is more. Take quality time to "live" what you see.

 

[djdister]

I still say that buying LF gear and shooting/processing/printing LF pales in comparison to "investing" in things like boats, RVs, and etc. Heck, some people buy wristwatches that cost more than a Hasselblad X2DII with 2 lenses. Why get so whacked out about buying LF gear?

 

[Vaughn]

That's purely a psychological or lack of self discipline issue, not an inherent difference in any photographic format whether 35mm, MF, LF, or digital for that matter.

While what you say is true, it is also true, in my opinion, that one’s tools has a great effect on one’s work. Basically, the tools shape us as much as we shape with the tools.

For me, one of the important parts of visualization is being able to see as the camera sees. And every camera sees differently.