Large format photography

[Chuck_P]

I've been reading this thread and it really has become one big pile of horse shit. Somebody please lock it up.

 

[k_jupiter]

To re-phrase that only slightly:

What you gain from 35 mm is the ability to capture the decisive moment, catch the lightning in the bottle - if you can't, or have nothing to say, or have a poor grasp of technique, 35 mm will expose you mercilessly.

What you gain, or rather lose, from LF is an in-built tendency to obsess about technique and an intrinsically slower working tempo, which in many situations (such as photographing in the typically changing weather conditions of the UK) can lead to a fatal failure to deliver results. If you can rise above this, and express yourself artistically on a level where rendition of detail and plasticity of tone are part of your creative vocabulary and not ends in themselves, then LF work can be sublime - otherwise, it's a total blind alley!

I suspect your restating of my 135 comment is closer to the truth. I guess I meant that more crap comes out of a 135 camera precisely because there isn't a obsession with technique in a format that demands more technique because of it's limitations. When I was in school, the obsession was imposed upon us by learning the ins and outs of LF first. Those of us who carried that knowledge through to our later 135 work, did well. Those of us who didn't.. well we called them artists. Interesting work not well done.

I understand the concept of the camera becoming an extension of the arm, and extension of the eye. Much easier to do with a FM2 than a rb67 or an 8x10 (or 10x8) Horseman. If you don't have the obsession, as you call it, to pull in the rest of the craft, then... what you get is artistic dung.

tim in san jose

 

[k_jupiter]

I've been reading this thread and it really has become one big pile of horse shit. Somebody please lock it up.

I suspect you didn't understand it from post one. Don't like it? Don't read it.

tim

 

[nemo999]

I've been reading this thread and it really has become one big pile of horse shit. Somebody please lock it up.

Oh, go on! Enlighten us with your superior wisdom! It's what APUG is all about!

 

[k_jupiter]

Oh, go on! Enlighten us with your superior wisdom! It's what APUG is all about!

nemo, stop teasing him. *L* Go look at his work. He's one of us obsessors.

tim in san jose

 

[JBrunner]

The real problem here is a bunch of old stale stinky notions on why someone chooses a particular format for a particular photograph.

While there is some reasoning behind the stereotypes, there are no rules. I was trying to address that earlier. I posted an 8x10 contact print of a process not easily arrived at by 35mm, with a distinct set of characteristics, and sharpness isn't one of them. You choose what suits. I'm not going to try to be HCB with a view camera, nor am I going to try to screw a 14" heliar with a packard shutter on to a 135 range finder. Arguing against a set of weakness from a set of strengths and vice versa as if your reasoning points the only one true way to make a negative is simply a circle jerk of stupefying magnitude.

What I really don't understand is militancy bordering on religion concerning subjective subjects pontificated by people with vastly different concepts, tastes and intents. Sounds like a bunch of digiheads.

 

[Anupam Basu]

I use a Leica and a ShenHao about equally. Never put the Leica on a tripod and never use the 4x5 without one. I never use a meter with the Leica, and take several minutes to take spot readings with the 4x5 and develop stictly according to zone system tests. With the Leica I often go from noticing a shot to exposing in under 5 secs, with the ShenHao it's more like a half hour. They are both wonderful approaches to photography but they do different things. Doing both extremes keeps me hungry and on my toes, but comparing them to see which is better is a futile exercise. I couldn't make the shots I make with my M2 on a ShenHao, and the M2 couldn't dream of the quality of the prints I get from my ShenHao.

 

[gr82bart]

The real problem here is a bunch of old stale stinky notions on why someone chooses a particular format for a particular photograph.

I thought the notion (or lotion) was about which male uses large format as a penile enhancer, which male uses medium format as an aphrodisiac and which male uses 35 mm as sex toy?

Did I get it wrong again?

Regards, Art.

 

[Chuck_P]

Arguing against a set of weakness from a set of strengths and vice versa as if your reasoning points the only one true way to make a negative is simply a circle jerk of stupefying magnitude.

more eloquantly put than my comment

 

[JBrunner]

I thought the notion (or lotion) was about which male uses large format as a penile enhancer, which male uses medium format as an aphrodisiac and which male uses 35 mm as sex toy?

Did I get it wrong again?

Regards, Art.

You left out the chicken.

 

[Ian Grant]

You left out the chicken.

Talking of chickens . . . . .

In the "Art of Photography" exhibition in 1989, shown in London, US ? New York etc (Catalogue published by Yale) there was a wonderful image I think by Charles Aubrey of hanging game birds on a door or wall , shot with a camera of his time. (My catalogue's not with me or I'd give full details).

This photograph, an albumen print, is superb, it's perhaps quite pivotal in many ways, it's exquisite, wonderfully tonal, sharp, full of detail, and it brings a new dimension to a subject traditionally belonging to painting - photography.

I'm using this image as an example because even today it would be difficult to re-create even with a large format camera, and definitely impossible with 35mm.

Art in photography has nothing to do with film sizes and format, it's all about vision. But that vision is informed by your craft, and your craft determines what format & materials you choose to use for a particular image.

Ian

 

[nemo999]

I use a Leica and a ShenHao about equally. Never put the Leica on a tripod and never use the 4x5 without one. I never use a meter with the Leica, and take several minutes to take spot readings with the 4x5 and develop stictly according to zone system tests. With the Leica I often go from noticing a shot to exposing in under 5 secs, with the ShenHao it's more like a half hour. They are both wonderful approaches to photography but they do different things. Doing both extremes keeps me hungry and on my toes, but comparing them to see which is better is a futile exercise. I couldn't make the shots I make with my M2 on a ShenHao, and the M2 couldn't dream of the quality of the prints I get from my ShenHao.

Not to criticise you in any way but ...

In my youth I worked as a photographer (one of ten or twelve) for the V&A Museum in London. Much of the work involved studio shots with 8x10" or 5x7" cameras, but I also used to do press and publicity shots. More or less at random, I would use either a 4x5" Speed Graphic (for fun, the era of 4x5" as the standard choice for press had already passed) loaded with HP3 and equipped with a 150 Xenar (good but not the greatest of all lenses) or else a Leica IIIf equipped with a 50 Summicron, 35 Summaron or 28 Summaron and loaded with Pan F. I used to print the 4x5" on a De Vere cold cathode enlarger with a TTH lens (again, good but not the greatest of all lenses) and the 35 mm on a Leitz Focomat, in each case up to 8x10". Almost no one could tell which camera I had used for which shot! I might add that I have never believed in guessing exposure with 35 mm - I am sure it works for you but a stop of over-exposure means a LOT more grain!

 

[Anupam Basu]

Not to criticise you in any way but ...

In my youth I worked as a photographer (one of ten or twelve) for the V&A Museum in London. Much of the work involved studio shots with 8x10" or 5x7" cameras, but I also used to do press and publicity shots. More or less at random, I would use either a 4x5" Speed Graphic (for fun, the era of 4x5" as the standard choice for press had already passed) loaded with HP3 and equipped with a 150 Xenar (good but not the greatest of all lenses) or else a Leica IIIf equipped with a 50 Summicron, 35 Summaron or 28 Summaron and loaded with Pan F. I used to print the 4x5" on a De Vere cold cathode enlarger with a TTH lens (again, good but not the greatest of all lenses) and the 35 mm on a Leitz Focomat, in each case up to 8x10". Almost no one could tell which camera I had used for which shot!

I am of course aware that 4x5 can be shot handheld and that much journalistic or street photography has been done in LF. I did not say that it couldn't. What I said was I can't make the same shots I make with a 35mm RF with a 4x5. Maybe an example would make the point better. Take a look at this shot and this shot. There is no way I could have snuck up on a guy with a 4x5 press camera and made the first shot (handholding issues in low light etc aside - this was 1/8 @ f2.8) or for the second shot, I couldn't have made the exposure in about three seconds that I had between the time I noticed the man and the time I released the shutter. Maybe there are people who can do that kind of photography with a 4x5, but I think there is a reason that HCB chose Leicas and Ansel chose view cameras as their preferred tools - they are the cameras best suited to their subjects and approach. If push came to shove of course HCB could have done fine work with a Graphic and Ansel made dazzling prints with a 35mm, but there are advantages to particular kinds of cameras for particular kinds of shooting.

I might add that I have never believed in guessing exposure with 35 mm - I am sure it works for you but a stop of over-exposure means a LOT more grain!

I am not guessing because I like it. I am guessing because I don't have the time, in this particular kind of shooting, to use a spot meter and take careful readings. If I did, I would. But my eye is as good a meter as I have access to in the quick pace of street shooting - far better than some center weighted meter that thinks everything is middle gray and doesn't account for how the subject is illuminated. In fact I wouldn't call it guessing but "metering by eye." I would think a center weighted in camera meter would screw this shot up beyond repair, and I couldn't really have grabbed my sekonic and hollered "hold it right there, fellas!" .

-A

 

[Ian Grant]

Not to criticise you in any way but ...

In my youth I worked as a photographer (one of ten or twelve) for the V&A Museum in London . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . I would use either a 4x5" Speed Graphic . . . . . . . . loaded with HP3 and equipped with a 150 Xenar . . . . . . . . . . or else a Leica IIIf equipped with a 50 Summicron,. . . . . . . . . . . . Almost no one could tell which camera I had used for which shot! . . . . . . . .

(there was a url link here which no longer exists)

Only difference is it was an MPP & HP4 last time.