Why do you use ULF?

[Keith Tapscott.]

I don`t have a ULF Camera, but I do have an 8x10 and I am interested in the AZO type paper mentioned in the link for contact prints. Any more information on this product?

 

[orto]

I don't have an ULF camera either. Just a mechanical device that puts my 450C Fujinon at the distance for infinity from a gg glass frame that takes a film holder. The rest is coupled with a black plastic bag attached to both "standards" with its own frame. The whole thing is in my attic and I take pictures of a mountain range with dramatic clouds, if present. 12x20 format. A kind of a photographic observatory where the telescope is replaced with a photographic lens. My way of the ULF photography.

 

[michael9793]

So I can pull muscles trying to get it out of my truck.
No! So I have the biggest Mother F camera around.
No! because when I look at the images on the walls in my operatories they looks so good and knowing they are contact prints makes me want to go out and make more.

mike

 

[Ole]

Because I photograph Ultra Large landscapes.

Sometimes a bigger sheet of film is the only feasible way to fit it all in. I know that theoretically there should be no big difference between using a 65mm lens on 4x5" or a 210mm lens on 12x16", but yet...

 

[Jim Fitzgerald]

I first shot 8x10 and printed on Azo. I loved the contact printing process. Especially on Azo. One day a got a stick up my butt to go larger so I decided to go to 8x20. Didn't have the $$$$$$ for it so I built my own camera and tripod. It went so well I decided to build an 11x14. I love both of these "Beasts". The contact prints have a special look to them that I can't get from my enlargements. An 11x14 Azo print is something to see! I just wish I had been smart enough to get a stockpile of the 20x24 when it was available. Hopefully Michal Smith will have the Lodima Fine Art paper out soon. Nothing easier than printing on a silver chloride paper. I hope that one day I'll be printing 11x14 and 8x20 prints in Carbon.

Jim

 

[jgjbowen]

My Grandfather had a panoramic image of the lake I grew up. It was over the couch at the lake house. I haven't seen that image in over 30 years, but I remember it as if I had last seen it yesterday. Then about 4 years ago View Camera did an article on panoramic cameras. Then about 3 years ago Richard Ritter announced he was going to start building ULF cameras. I was already shooting 8x10 and knowing that someday I might want to shoot a larger negative, I made sure the lenses I purchased would cover an 8x20 or larger negative. I eventually decided on a Ritter 7x17 camera.

I truly enjoy printing the negatives on Azo. I do my proof and work prints on 2 sheets of 8x10 using a vacuum easel. This allows me to only use the 20x24 Azo when I am printing "keepers."

 

[orto]

The underlying truth is that ULF photography adds an element of direct creativity with light that is not so pronouncedly felt with other type of formats. And that element can easily be a very inspiring element in the photographing process. The huge screen somehow takes over the other technical parts of the camera and the visual process has a greater inner impact. So I feel it - a director of a light factory.

 

[Antje]

I ask my husband that same question. However, I am the one doing the ULF photography, not him. :confused:

So what's his reply - "Because I always have to carry all that stuff?"

Antje

 

[photo8x10]

Why I started to use a 8x20 camera, I saw an exhibition with some 8x20 contact print, and I needed to use a 8x20 camera, when it arrived and I looked at the groundglass a new vision appear to my eyes and my mind, the second things is a funny gym carrying on the shoulder in the field helps to keep fit, and I needed to lose weight

Stefano

 

[colrehogan]

So what's his reply - "Because I always have to carry all that stuff?"

Antje

No, he doesn't have any interest in going with me when I photograph. I carry whatever I take with me.

To him, if it isn't color, it isn't photography.

 

[infest]

Obviously because of the visual impact of a big contact print. Everybody wonders about the incredible amount of detail when seeing them. What they don't realise in the first time is that the tonality too helps to come the very same emotion about the picture.

 

[infest]

Oh, I forgot to say - 20x24.

 

[jimgalli]

It provides a venue....

When one feels all alone and unappreciated, you can set up your ulf in a public place and draw a nice crowd....in no time at all, you will be waxing eloquent. Many will be astounded, amazed, and ask intelligent questions, some converts will come forth, and many will walk away, unenlightened, into the darkness muttering that there is always one complete idiot in every small crowd. If you feel the need, and can afford it, you can actually load up a film holder and fire off a shot; but that is totally unnecessary.

Dave is spot on as always......but......I set up the 14X17 in front of the Tonopah post office and wait all day. 13 or 14 people came and went but I couldn't draw a crowd. I still feel all alone and unappreciated.

BTW, that picture of Goldfarb in front of the viaduct with that camera. If I ever saw a terrorist photographing a public works project of importance, that's it!

 

[TheFlyingCamera]

No, he doesn't have any interest in going with me when I photograph. I carry whatever I take with me.

To him, if it isn't color, it isn't photography.

Now Diane, that is an example of the power of true love - I'd have to REALLY love someone deeply and profoundly to overlook that kind of attitude

 

[infest]

To him, if it isn't color, it isn't photography.

It's a half of truth, anyway.

 

[FilmIs4Ever]

Because Edward Weston only had an 8x10, so my 11x14 makes me better than him... :rolleyes:

I'm sure you're just saying that sarcastically Mark, but it's sad, a lot of people probably think this way. When I first started off, I had a chip on my shoulder shooting MF when most everyone else was shooting 35mm and didn't even know what roll film was.

I don't think it is necessarily fair to say that sheet film is always slower either. I've managed to shoot it pretty quickly at times, whereas I was probably hunched on the floor in anticipation for at least five minutes waiting for the perfect moment to fire off one frame at the boquet shot at my last wedding (with an RB, but it could have just as easily been an F4 set in single-frame mode).

 

[makan]

The immediate satisfaction - once you have the original (speaking chromes). Once you see them that is.

 

[makan]

Strange Makan, you're offline when you're online... Greetings to the author of this constant joke!

 

[makan]

And as soon as you're offline, your posts disappear... Greetings to the author of this constant joke!

 

[makan]

And as soon as you're offline, your posts disappear... Greetings to the author of this constant joke!

Hi Sean! I'm still on the quarantine list, I see...