[HN Gopher] Large-format camera movements (2020)
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Large-format camera movements (2020)
Author : dsego
Score : 51 points
Date : 2022-12-21 09:04 UTC (2 days ago)
(HTM) web link (www.alexbond.com.au)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.alexbond.com.au)
| jakzurr wrote:
| Wow! The how-to photos & layout look great.
|
| Definitely worth a look, even if, like me, you're not planning on
| ever using a large format camera.
| Yujiro wrote:
| I worked as a photographer for years, from 35mm to 6x6 to 8x10
| inches. Nothing I enjoyed more than the peace and concentration
| that working with a view camera gave me.
| johnny_canuck wrote:
| Agreed - everything slows down and it is absolutely wonderful.
| The world through a view camera is a beauty in itself. I never
| got a chance to use a 8x10 but I imagine it is even more
| incredible.
|
| I still have my Toyo 45AII tucked away. Last I checked the
| prices for film + processing were too much to justify it mind
| you.
| ruined wrote:
| processing film yourself, even large format, is fairly cheap
| and easy, and adds another dimension of control and
| creativity. i really recommend it.
|
| you will spend more on film than chemistry. i think it's
| worth it, given that modern digital cameras are still mostly
| incapable of that kind of work.
| enneff wrote:
| Seriously!! There's something special about spending an
| afternoon taking photographs and only returning with half a
| dozen exposures. You really wanted to make every one count. And
| looking at that ground glass is like nothing else.
|
| And then my favourite part was printing the photos by hand in
| the dark room. Total blissful, single-minded concentration. I
| don't think I have felt more at peace than when I was printing.
| AstixAndBelix wrote:
| The hardest large-format camera movement: carrying it around.
| Tepix wrote:
| I switched from APS-C to MFT because it was too bulky. These
| days the camera stays at home often.
| enneff wrote:
| In art school I took a lot of large format photos of industrial
| facilities at night, which often involved climbing chain-link
| fences with a huge pelican case and tripod. Totally worth it
| for the end results, and looking like a quaint old timey
| photographer was helpful the few times I was confronted by
| security guards. :)
| johnmaguire wrote:
| This sounds really interesting. I'd love to see your work if
| it's available online somewhere.
| anta40 wrote:
| Louis Mendes will disagree with that:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x8KOAj6Caf4
|
| :D
| madaxe_again wrote:
| Some are really portable - I used to travel with a crown
| graphic, which folds down small and light. You can do tilt
| shift with - it's only in one axis but that's plenty, as the
| camera is light enough you can rotate _it_.
|
| The heavy bit was all the dark slides and film.
| Finnucane wrote:
| Press cameras like Speed and Crown Graphics were designed be
| used handheld. The tradeoff is indeed more restricted
| movements compared to a view or field camera.
|
| But the real killer for portability with a field camera is
| that you need a pretty good tripod. I've got a Manfrotto 3033
| for my Wista VX, and I've carried the whole kit around on my
| bike. But it's not easy.
|
| A view camera is generally only going to be used in a studio
| --portability is not much of a concern.
| musictubes wrote:
| Ah, the old Schienflug shuffle... I rarely ever corrected
| perspective distortion even though I took a lot of pictures of
| buildings. I can only think of a handful of times I changed the
| focus plane and some of those were for a tabletop assignment at
| school. What I used a lot of was the shift, rise, and fall. Of
| course the only reason those were so useful is because the camera
| was such a pain in the ass to move around to reframe. Oh, and
| make sure you aren't using some fancy telephoto lens with its
| focal point out in front if you want to do front movements! They
| tend to have pretty small coverage so the amount of movements
| would be limited in any case I suppose.
|
| Now that architecture and tabletop photography are no longer
| dominated by large format I'm not sure how much sense it makes to
| spend extra money for more movements on your camera. The most
| common uses for LF photography these days are landscape and
| portraiture. Landscape photos will need, at most, fairly modest
| movements and portraits not at all. Most LF photographers these
| days would be fine with a graflex or other type of more or less a
| box with a lens camera.
|
| Of course if you really do want to go nuts with movements,
| monorail cameras have never been cheaper!
| radiowave wrote:
| Similarly, the past situations where I've wished I had lens
| tilt available (to give the appearance of greater depth of
| field), were I taking those shots today I'd probably be looking
| at using focus stacking instead.
| FpUser wrote:
| >"The most common uses for LF photography these days are
| landscape and portraiture."
|
| That large format landscape photo from the article with
| "infinite depth" is quite interesting.
| staticautomatic wrote:
| Isn't pretty much all infinity focus infinite depth?
| null_object wrote:
| The dismissive comments ("you can just do this with focus-
| stacking" etc) are hilarious and totally miss the point.
|
| Why sit in a boat on a lake fishing when you can buy fish sticks
| in any grocery store?
|
| PS: if you're interested in large-format photography, check out
| Nick Carver on YouTube:
|
| https://www.youtube.com/@nickcarverphoto
| lambdasquirrel wrote:
| Well to be pedantic about it (going both ways), this method is
| far superior to focus stacking when you have a fairly linear
| transition in the field of focus. It is also really nice for
| shifts. Focus-stacking is a more general, in that you can place
| the focus wherever you choose and in any order. But for many
| landscape shots, these large-format movements produce an
| amazing depth of field that never falls in and out of focus, as
| is what you'll get for focus stacking.
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