Large format photography

[CPorter]

Originally Posted by JBrunner

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]

Originally Posted by gr82bart

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]

Originally Posted by JBrunner

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

[Anupam Basu]

Originally Posted by nemo999

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]

Originally Posted by nemo999

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! . . . . . . . .

Now where have we read that before David.

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