Brief Moderator Bio's:

Rob Barker

 

I live in Tintern, South Wales, about 500 yards across the border from

England. It's a cracking area for landscape photography and I've been

slowly building up a portfolio of local landscapes since moving here 2

months ago. It's also the traditional base for the UK based f32.net

workshops, the last one of which I helped out teaching on.

 

I've been using large format equipment for a few years now, developing

an interest in it as the perfect medium for landscape work which is

what I want to focus on photographically in the immediate future. I

stated out with a cheap Toyo 45G monorail, rapidly realising that it

wasn't the ideal bit of kit for taking up mountains. I followed that

with a Wista VX technical field camera, the strength of which was put

to the test when it blew clean off the tripod on an expedition to

Dartmoor and landed on a rock! It was a fine camera but having the bed so close to the

lens irritated me; it made using 150mm grad filters difficult, so I

traded it for an Ebony RW45E, which I am delighted with.

 

Unfortunately the recent house move means no darkroom these days, and

I have reluctantly sold my Durst L1200 based kit. I do tend to adopt

a more consumer based approach to LF photography these days though,

preferring to shoot Velvia and getting someone else to print the

Ilfochromes! I am fortunate to have a local professional photographer

friend, Robert Lawrence, who kindly lets me use his E6 line and Imacon

scanner from time to time, which helps matters immensely!

 

Apart from taking pictures, my current main LF interest is getting to

grips with Merklinger's work and mastering application of the hinge

rule. I now see it's application as the primary advantage of LF over

other formats. The creative control that a good working knowledge of

how to precisely place the plane of sharp focus gives you is something

special. I again owe Robert Lawrence a vote of thanks here; I could

never have been motivated to buy and grind through "Focussing the

View Camera" without his inspiration.

 

This forum means lot to me, despite the fact that I haven't

been here for as long as many of you. It's a fabulous resource and I

am delighted to be able to play a part in keeping it as friendly for

beginners and useful for experienced hands as it has been under Tuan's

moderation.

 

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Neil Poulsen

 

I've been interested in photography since my college years. Later on,

while teaching high school math, a colleague who taught photography

there introduced me to large format and told me about photographers

like Ansel Adams, Imogen Cunningham, and Edward Weston. He showed me

two test photographs that he had taken in his back yard with a 4x5 and

an 8x10 Deardorff, and when I saw the tonalities he achieved in those

photographs, that was it! LF photography has been my number one

consuming interest outside my professional life since that time.

 

My favorite areas of photography are landscape and architecture. I

like both color and black and white. Many photographers inspire me,

but some that stand out are Ansel Adams, Imogen Cunningham, Edward

Weston, and Ezra Stoller. Heavily impacted by Ansel Adam's

photography and his technique, I taught myself the zone system. I

regard this tool as the single most important that I use. Taking

about two years to finally complete, I have my own darkroom. About

two years ago, I had the opportunity to take an excellent workshop

from architectural photographer Norman McGrath.

 

After teaching high school for two years, I left and got a graduate

degree in Statistics from Oregon State. I've worked for six years at

Dial soap, at Baxter Health Care, nine years at Intel, and over four

years at a smaller high-tech company as a consulting statistician.

Last year, I was laid off from the unnamed company! Having always

thought about doing photography at least semi-professionally during my

later years, I'm currently enrolled at Mt. Hood Community College in

the Photography program and want to become an architectural

photographer. It never hurts to have a second profession.

Bob might be too shy to ask: He's also interested in underwater photography, if anyone has any experience of underwater LF photography I'm sure he'd love to hear from you.

I think that the practicalities of using LF for underwater work would be akin to using a P2 for sports action photography.

 

I have fantasised about constructing a housing for something like a modified speedgraphic with ultrawide lens, rangefinder and graflock back but I suspect fantasy is where it will remain. If anyone has done it though, I would love to hear about the experience!

Rob,

(sorry for calling you Bob!) - I take your point about 'action' shots, but how about landscape photography underwater? Theres got to be a challenge in working out your front tilt using the hinge rule. I would love to know how you load a DDS though.

My initial thought is that lens tilt calculations underwater would have to take into account the refraction due to the lensport and the different refractive index of water itself. It makes my brain hurt even thinking about it.

 

I'll stick with my Nikonos! :-)

Better get a heavy tripod! All that air inside the bellows means you can use the camera as a life bouy.

 

Go on Rob - I'd love to see the results of a box camera in a housing. Single shot only, but what a shot!

 

Cheers,

 

Graeme

One word:

 

.

 

 

Submarine.

 

.

 

....

Wouldn't this be an ideal application for wet plate photography?

 

My diving friends tell me that Orca Swiss make some great

underwater LF gear. Their ballhead in particular makes tripod

use much easier.

 

Most lens and domeport materials have refractive indicies close

to that of water, so if you do want to do this you will have to have

an air bubble somewhere just to provide a lensing action.

However, you could press the film up against a glass plate and

flood the space between it and the lens. Doing this would give

you back your wide-angle performance, and would allow higher

resolutions too.

> Orca Swiss

 

Is this the underwater arm of Arca Swiss with bellows fashioned from killer whale skin? ;-)

The only underwater camera I know of that uses whale skin -

Blue, not Killer - is the Hoho Veridroll lightweight rotating lens

panoramic 8x40. Suppposedly the skin is sourced from

scientific research. Hoho, (n.b. not Hoyo), are based in

Yokohama. They don't export much, so getting hold of

accessories like the essential pinhole patch repair kit can be

difficult because many customs authorities will simply impound

them if you try and use mail order.

 

Orca Swiss are based in Unter-Grenzflächen near Zürich. I have

one of their underwater loupes. It has a very high eyepoint and a

suction cup on both ends, so it can be used on the front of a dive

mask. I use it on my ski goggles in winter storms and it comes

in handy in a typical Ullapool summer's day.

Oh, and welcome to the job.