I replied to my own post because I don't know how to edit it a day later. I was mixing cm with inches (it was getting late when I posted previously). I must have confused those who read it: 6x8 (cm) should have been 2x3". I'm awake now.
I moved up to MF with a 2x3 view camera because that was the largest format I could enlarge and I don't care for prints larger than 14x17". I chose a view camera for all the control it gave me (camera movements) and loved the process. I later bought my RB for more speed and even later bought a 645 for light weight. For me LF is synonymous with contact prints and 4x5 would be too small - not a far cry from 2x3 enlargements - so if there's a LF camera in my future it would be a 5x7 (minimum) or 8x10 - for contact prints. I would imagine that large format negatives are difficult to keep flat in enlargers (I hate glass negative carriers) and a 14x17 camera would be too big for me. Money and maturity had little to do with my decisions, athough I think my age is now mature. I'm 61.
Paul
Not sure if "LF is for the mature" but it certainly favors the possessor of a long attention span, a capacity for deferred gratification, and some appreciation for solitude. These things usually, but not always, come with age.
My first sheet film images were made with a borrowed 3-1/4 x 4-1/4 Linhof at about age 13; I got my first 4x5 (an RB Graflex with plate holders) at age 17, and my first view camera (Calumet CC400) at age 19---and I still have and use the last two!
I just turned 60 a few months back, so I fervently hope that LF is really for the mature; it would mean that I still have something to look forward to
I'll claim that you can hop one generation (e.g. 4x5 -> 5x7) or a bit more with no meaningful losses.
That Thomas is such a slow learner. We try to bring him along, but he just regresses, time and time again. I shouldn't say it, but I think he is going to end up with a Minox after all.
John
PS, You did notice the back brace that goes with the 7x17 didn't you?
Heh, same age as Thomas and my favourite format is 5x7, go figure
Maybe some day I'll be older than you?
By taking up 7x17?
Maybe not.
John
It is "for" anyone who decides to use it, but I do think that you will benefit the most from it if you approach it differently than 35mm, and use it for the situations where it will help you the most; not try to force it to do the job of tools that are better suited to certain purposes. I think that lots of compositional and technical experience helps, as does quite a degree of restraint, patience, and forethought, but not necessarily "maturity". On the other hand, shooting large format is perhaps the best way to learn these things. Quite a paradox.
One way I think of it is in terms of emulsion cost and lab costs. For the average print, I want to spend no more than what I consider a reasonable amount of money. For me, when using 4x5 or smaller, if I can get one print that is just how I want it out of every 80 sq. in. of emulsion, I am happy. I often get more. Sometimes I get nothing! (With 5x7 and 8x10 especially, as you only have two shots with 5x7 and one shot with 8x10, I cut myself a little slack!) My general goal is to spend no more than $25 per good print, however. Sometimes I go over, and sometimes I go under. It averages out. For instance, a roll of HP5 is four bucks, so on the road from camera to print, I have $21 to play with to try and get that print. If I can't do it, I probably screwed something up. You don't need to play these games, but I find it is a good self check and self-disciplinary practice. So, when I shoot 4x5 HP5, at one dollar per sheet, I shoot with the mindset that for any given shoot, I am going to shoot four shots for every nine that I would shoot on 35mm; one quarter as many shots. I may even try to shoot half as much as this (1/8 the number of 35mm shots) if I will be lab processing; to save money.
I think it would be great if most school programs still focused on large format for at least the first year. It is the way Art Center still does it, but that is a design, technical, and commercial school, not an art school. Large format begins after the first term, in which you take basic photography using 35mm transparency film, and project to share your work. Most work for the next several terms is assigned primarily on large format. They do this not to force people down a large format path for life, but to force students to slow down, pay attention to detail, be deliberate, and to learn a lot about light, composition, depth of field, and how camera positioning and lens selection affect pictures...not to mention frugality and efficiency, given the cost and time consumption of large format.
Brooks makes large format a mandatory basic class, but I don't think they expect you to continue with it as much as does Art Center.
As for another local design school with a photo program, I am not sure what OTIS does.
I believe most schools that are design/commercial oriented rather than art oriented still force students to use large format for *at least* one term...but perhaps not for very much longer, now that a younger generation of instructors raised in the digital age is returning to teach. In my experience, these younger instructors are all extremely eager to do away with analog printing in schools; especially in color. In my experience, they seem to have a very cold and results-oriented approach to photography (achieve your end in any way possible; personal work ethics be damned, and process be damned), and a disgraceful lack of technical knowledge (for college instructors, at any rate).
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