What do you do that you need LF?

[jp498]

I like the lens variety; basically anything built in the last 150 years for LF will work with most cameras. It's easy hands on history.

35mm can make crisp 8x10's. MF film and digital 35mm can make some nice 16x20" prints. LF can make awesome 16x20" prints.

Part of the appeal is also the amount of detail overkill for some images. It's capabilities exceeds what you can easily & competently handle. Sort of like taking a sunday drive in a muscle car, or using a 62 caliber black powder rifle to shoot a soda can.

 

[David A. Goldfarb]

I make contact prints, sometimes albumen prints. I like to use historic lenses which were originally designed for contact print processes and that are interesting for those uses, but don't stand up to enlargement well. I like having camera movements to control the shape of objects in the frame and the plane of focus. I like the local contrast and tonality of a print from a large neg. I often use very short depth of field. I like the process of working where the image on the groundglass is the same size as the print in the frame.

I'm usually not trying to make a super-high resolution image or to make a huge enlargement from large format, but sometimes, that's an interesting option.

 

[patrickjames]

Tone tone toney tone tone.

 

[Poisson Du Jour]

There is no doubt whatsoever that LF produces beautiful work, but this is entirely dependent on the skill and application of the photographer, much less the end result of getting a tranny/negative that can be enlarged to 'X-proportions'.

A major irritation I have found as an Arts Practitioner and teacher is that people invest many thousands in LF (in one celebrated case I know of a fellow mortgaged his car to get a $16,000 set up), but only print to either postcard size or at most, A4 — or nothing. There could not be a greater travesty. I collect other photographers' LF work, but others' I have viewed appear never to have gone through the enlargement printing and framing expense like my own (35mm with perspective control lenses) work. The works I do acquire are nowhere near the enlargements I routinely do for 35mm. So what is wrong? Money? Possibly. For the price of many a LF kit doing the rounds, one could buy a new car!

But I am not on the outer. In the future I probably will return to LF (I used a Horseman FA45 from 1994 to 1996) and enlarge reversal images to quite space-filling proportions. I see no other reason to use LF if it's full end-point potential is never realised. But if it's used for fun and science, fair enough.

 

[Michael Kadillak]

Large Format and Ultra Large Format is a frame of mind (no pun intended). The logistical challenges of setting up in addition to the cost of the film causes you to much more selective in what you photograph. Having access to camera movements and the upside down and reversed image on the ground glass seems magical to me as the image comes together. There are so many places for the wheels to come off of the wagon that when it all comes together there is nothing better. These large negatives has tangible connectivity to the real world. I have friends that can take their Canon 5D's and not break a sweat making 500 images in a weekend. They literally shoot everything without giving it a thought. Then he spends hours deleting image after image to cull things back to what he should have selectively opted for at image inception. The computer can then change everything from composition, perspective to tonality and everything in between. LF is orders of magnitude more challenging but that is why many of us are drawn to it. As someone said earlier, I would rather be one of a few than one of thousands whose images all look nearly identical. It just works for me.

 

[smieglitz]

Setting up for each image is a ritual that I enjoy. Also, I like contact printing as an activity way more than enlarging.

 

[Christopher Walrath]

Chicks still dig big cameras.

 

[sly]

Chicks still dig big cameras.

That's why I've got one of my own!

 

[Christopher Walrath]

Now that's just wrong, Lil.

 

[fotch]

Its really about quality. The larger negative is less susceptible to showing dust, scratches, defects just because for example, dust particales don't increase 8 times just because your using 4x5. Then you have the grain issue, which is not as much an issue as it use to be. However, Just by the nature of using some of the equipment, especially view cameras, it routinely slows you down and more thought and care goes into all aspects of shooting.l Where your shooting from, camera set up, exposure, etc. In my case, I find it has improved all my photos to the point that anything like a motor drive for example, is only attached if I actually need what it does, which is rare.

I enjoy all the formats and the larger the negative the bigger the thrill when I look at them on a light box. A person really has to use one for awhile to know whether or not its for them.

 

[Wade D]

I use LF just because I like it. It's what I started out with in the 60's. Also use MF & 35mm but the big neg is still king.

 

[2F/2F]

I think the next serious camera for me is a Linhof Technika 6x9 or Fuji 6x8 (GW model, not the rangefinder). I am leaning toward the Fuji.

I hope everyone caught the mistake on my part here. I meant the GX-680 medium format SLR model with movements, not the GW-680 rangefinder model.

 

[ChrisC]

I used to like the process of shooting with real intent. Setting up and taking a shot gets you far more involved with, for me, 4x5 than anything else smaller, plus I'm really not a fan of colour grain with 35mm negative film.
Now the prices of colour film and developing are becoming a bit of an issue for me, and I'm not enjoying the process as much anymore because I'm constantly thinking about $$$ while shooting. I really don't want to sell it, but a nice 6x7 kit (Mamiya 7/Plaubel Makina) is really tempting and I pretty much never print over 16x20. I've learnt to be precise with 4x5, now I'm considering jumping ship…

 

[2F/2F]

I still do not quite understand the oft-stated reasons about how the use of large format by itself makes one shoot very much differently than smaller formats. I don't see why people think that they cannot use the same care, deliberation, and intent with medium (and small) format as they do with large format. No one is forcing anyone else to be any quicker and dirtier just because his or her camera is smaller. It's a different tool, and you do use it differently, but I don't think this means that it should necessarily make one "think" differently about intent and other such things.

The way I look at it, if anything, the situation should determine ones ability to apply strong intent. Sure; the situations in which smaller format cameras are usually favored over larger format limit ones ability to have full control of ones intent (e.g. hand held candid shots, journalism, and what have you). However, small and medium format cameras are very often not used in these situations (e.g. landscapes, staged portraiture, products, etc.).

So, I think the fact that using large format "forces" you to be more intentional, deliberate, and the like is something that you should not necessarily see as a benefit of using large format, but something that raises the question of why you aren't doing that with the smaller formats as well, when shooting in similar situations.

 

[ChrisC]

The very fact that something forces you into a mindset pretty much sums up it's benefit. Just because you "can" do the same thing with a smaller format vastly more often than not doesn't even come close to implying that you will.
As a learning tool for the sort of photography that I've gravitated towards, large format was the perfect gateway to achieve the desired results. I tried with smaller formats but never got there. Is that a downfall of my mindset when initially using them? Possibly, but we're all unique and we all learn things in a different way. There's no right or wrong, and it's not even something that should be debated.

 

[David A. Goldfarb]

So, I think the fact that using large format "forces" you to be more intentional, deliberate, and the like is something that you should not necessarily see as a benefit of using large format, but something that raises the question of why you aren't doing that with the smaller formats as well, when shooting in similar situations.

I very much agree with this. The format introduces some constraints, of course, and creativity can be defined by those constraints, but I think that if one takes a longer view of the history of the technology, it isn't obvious to me that a larger format means "slow and deliberate." Medium format was introduced as a format for handheld photography, and there is a great history of the 4x5" press camera for capturing action on the fly and candid portraits. My 5x7" Press Graphic SLR was the standard journalistic camera of its day (around 1915). Nicholas Nixon shoots 8x10" in a way that retains the spontaneous feel of 35mm.

I find that using a t/s lens on a small format camera for still life requires more deliberation than a large format studio camera, because the little t/s lens is so limited by comparison, so one has to think about how to do something indirectly with the t/s lens that could be done directly with a Sinar P.

One qualitative way that large format can influence the image, regardless of the photographer's attention to the process, is in a portrait session, where the big camera adds a certain formality to the situation, and the subject will be involved in making the portrait in a different way than with a small camera, particularly with 8x10" and larger formats.

 

[Mahler_one]

Contact printing.

 

[jbbooks]

“... MF will blow up to 16X20 or 20X24 with great clarity, so why go beyond that?”

Ignoring the aspects of alternative materials, contact prints and increased tonality and speaking only of silver based film and prints made using an enlarger, you seem to be thinking of the use of different focal lengths only as a means of framing or only as a means of magnifying the image.

You need to think in terms of both, together with the perspective determined by the location of the camera. You find a location that is the one that presents the subject in the way you want it imaged. The level of detail you want determines the focal length of the lens required. The subject, using a lens of a given focal length, determines the area of the negative that is required. Double the magnification of the image to get the level of detail you want and you need four times the film area to have the same subject in its entirety. If you cannot get the entire subject in the frame when you change to a longer lens, then you need a larger negative or you are forced to either crop the subject or accept a lower level of detail by using a shorter lens.

Some subjects have to be printed larger to give the level of detail that you want to show and that means you need a larger negative. Where you think of MF as adequate at 16x20, I think that MF is pretty much done at around 11x14 or an enlargement of 5 times. For me, 16x20 is about the limit for a 4x5 camera. That is an enlargement of 4 times and that is the maximum I will find acceptable when making a detailed print from a 4x5. For a larger print, I think you need an 8x10 negative, also good for about 4 times enlarged. At the other end of the scale, a 35mm negative will, I think, with excellent lenses, go up to an 8x10 without an objectionable loss of sharpness or about 8 times enlargement. So, when an 11x14 print will do and I do not need movements, I use a medium format camera. On the other hand, if I want to print larger or I need movements, I want a large format camera.

Speaking of movements, you may not be familiar with the ability to expand the depth of field that tilt enables, but you probably are familiar with the distortion caused by using wider than normal lenses when you use a wide angle lens to increase the subject area of the image. This is the other significant advantage of having movements where being able to raise the lens without tilting the film plane allows you to get more of taller subjects and less of the foreground without having the buildings or trees look like they are falling in on themselves. Just the addition of these two movements greatly improves the quality of the images you can obtain and neither requires the twisted bellows look. Shift lenses or adapters will help with this to some degree, but, due to the lens’ lack of sufficient image circle to completely cover the negative and/or problems with vignetting due to the internals of the camera, they are relatively limited in their amount of movement.

 

[Ian Grant]

Adding to your points about WA lenses, on LF all are true wide angle designs where as all the wide angle lenses on MF SLR's are inverted telephoto designs.

There is a significant increase in quality well over and above the format change and far less distortion because of this. So much so that Haselblad make the SWC for more critical WA work.

Ian

 

[jbbooks]

Adding to your points about WA lenses, on LF all are true wide angle designs where as all the wide angle lenses on MF SLR's are inverted telephoto designs.

There is a significant increase in quality well over and above the format change and far less distortion because of this. So much so that Haselblad make the SWC for more critical WA work.

Ian

Whoa! First we get him committed to LF, then we tell him about the Hasselblad and Mamiya Biogons.

 

[Ian Grant]

Whoa! First we get him committed to LF, then we tell him about the Hasselblad and Mamiya Biogons.

We need to add their downsides - no movements Extremely pricey, separate (so less accurate) viewfinder, in the case of the Hasselblad SWC a fixed lens as well.

My 65mm SA is far more flexible on my 5x4.

Ian

 

[jbbooks]

We need to add their downsides - no movements Extremely pricey, separate (so less accurate) viewfinder, in the case of the Hasselblad SWC a fixed lens as well.

My 65mm SA is far more flexible on my 5x4.

Ian

That’s the way. Get him into the S-A’s, then we will escalate to the S-A XL’s and, by the time we are done, we will have created the worst case of GAS ever known to man.

 

[Monophoto]

It's simply more fun.

For me, this is coming close to the rationale for LF.

LF is a way of seeing - it is highly disciplined, structured, formalized. It is naturally slow, forcing the photographer to slow down and think about what is being done. It requires a balance between emphasis on the process of photography and the quality of the final product. It is best suited for situations where the final product is a print rather than a reproduction or something on a web site.

And for people who relish discipline, structure, formality, and print quality, it is fun!

 

[TheFlyingCamera]

All that's been said before, but I want to emphasize the point about alternative processes. The world does not revolve around silver gelatin alone. Most alternative processes require contact printing. While you can shoot smaller formats and digitally enlarge the negatives to get the size you want, in my personal experience with this it doesn't look or feel the same as an in-camera negative contact printed. I became a platinum printing junkie back when the big scare about Ilford going away came around, and initially all I had to work with were 4x5 negatives. I had some great images, but they didn't work at that size, so I went further down the rabbit hole and got bigger cameras. I've become quite fond of 5x7, 5x12 and most recently 6.5 x 8.5 - while I did shoot 8x10 some, the format is too square and the cameras are too bulky for convenient transport. For a variety of projects, I've ventured down the garden path now to 14x17 - it's far from convenient to work with, but a 14x17 contact print is a thing of beauty to behold.

I think it also makes you think very much about the size of the image you want to make, which is important, just as much as any other factor in exposure and composition. You have to think about whether the image you are taking works at the size you are making it - it's another layer of discipline in photo making that people don't pay enough attention to. There are images I would make in 14x17 that I would NOT shoot in a smaller format, and vice versa.

 

[fotch]

I used to like the process of shooting with real intent. Setting up and taking a shot gets you far more involved with, for me, 4x5 than anything else smaller, plus I'm really not a fan of colour grain with 35mm negative film.
Now the prices of colour film and developing are becoming a bit of an issue for me, and I'm not enjoying the process as much anymore because I'm constantly thinking about $$$ while shooting. I really don't want to sell it, but a nice 6x7 kit (Mamiya 7/Plaubel Makina) is really tempting and I pretty much never print over 16x20. I've learnt to be precise with 4x5, now I'm considering jumping ship…

That is one of the beautiful features of large format, that is, you can use a roll film back. In fact, you can choose your roll film format, 6x4.5, 6x6, 6x7, 6x9, and still enjoy all the other advantages of that Press, View, or SLR large format camera.