Where have the Large format cameras gone?

<p>I looked in the new Freestyle catalog and found no (0..ZERO) large format cameras anymore. There are however 8 pages full of about 60 options of toy Holga, Lomographic, and pinhole cameras. You can even buy a nice clean paint can to make a pinhole camera. But you can't buy a good Wista anymore.</p>

<p>What is this saying? Is the market already saturated with large format cameras, and they don't need to make or sell any more of them, or that nobody is buying and using them anymore?</p>

<p>Don't have the answer, but Large Format gear, incl. lenses have come down in price considerably and still don't seem to find any buyers. Over at the Large Format Photography Forum, there are lots of cameras and lenses for sale without any takers.</p>

<p>They're still on the Freestyle website, Cliff. <br />While shopping for film & chems the other night I was looking at the couple of Toyo kits and the $4G Wista and was wondering why anyone would buy new since there's plenty to go around in the used market.<br />Here in NYC/NJ I see lots of LF gear up on craigs, and apparently selling because the ads don't last long. It's a seasonal thing, too, where students dump their gear when class is over or have upgraded. I snagged a few Calumet monorails and Super-Angulons a few months back for peanuts and resold 'em on fleebay.</p>

<p>The digital camera makers have purchased all the film cameras and their patent rights in the universe so that we will be compelled to buy digital cameras, thus coming under the control of said camera makers requiring us to buy an updated model every month!</p>

<p>Yes Gabor I know there a lots of them around, but they are conspicuously absent from the new catalog along with large format lenses. So what does that mean?</p>

<p>Yes Michael, not only do you need to buy an updated models for obvious better quality reasons, the old models seem to have a built in life span and seem to crap out just when you need them the most. So when you go to replace them, you obviously upgrade to the latest piece of crap, till <strong>it</strong> quits.</p>

<p>We have a very hard time NOW with replacement batteries to try to keep the SLR's going. There is no possible way that these new cameras could be working a century from now, like the old cameras that have been working for a century so far and will continue to work for another. Maybe that is why they don't want to sell any more of the large format cameras. They work too long, and they need repeat customers.</p>

Don'T have it in front of me, but the B&H catalog had some LF stuff. You often chastise us as scaredy cat and lazy for not doing our own color chemistry or platefilm. Frankly as far as LF and platefilm. I'd love to try it out, but somehow I never come to it. I don't have a dark-room for tray developing and yeah.. ignorance and fear combine to put one off. I've got a 4x5 Speed Graphic, but only once did I load

sheet film holders... about 20 years ago. I was single then and had access to a DR. Where I live now .. with the Al Bundy curse, I just don't see it happening. I'd like to try wet-plate and I'd love to play with a Meritar w/glass-plates. Experimenting with sour-dough bread.. now that I can manage,

One of my neighbors is a retired photographer. Says his main tool was the Plaubel. He told me his ex partner does all digital now and the Plaubel was really dusty the last time he was in the studio. Hr mentioned that some older clients can't deal in digital, but they've beome the exception.

I think there will always be this medium and likely only for artists or select users who want this medium. It is unbeatable for quality in the right hands, but it's never been for the casual user and scarcity and cost means, you'd better know what's up. I'd love to save the market by getting involved.

Maybe ... but I just don't have the time. I'd need to find a DR and invest in a better Tripod for openers.

I'm a poor judge, I know, but it does seem like only a few users still use these fine instruments.

<p><strong><em>"You often chastise us as scaredy cat and lazy for not doing our own color chemistry or platefilm. "</em></strong><br>

<strong><em></em></strong><br>

<strong>No Chuck, I have never done that, but I do often encourage people to try it since it is not hard. And I am afraid your last assessment is correct. Likely some day, film will be completely gone, and the only cameras that will able to be used will be the plate cameras, and you will need to make your own emulsions for paper and plates. I'm glad I'll be dead before that happens, but I'm always trying to encourage others, especially interested young people, to try to keep some of this alive after we are gone. </strong></p>

<p>The problem we are facing is that we now have over 4 MILLION children on Ridilin as walking zombies, and it is getting harder to find a kid that is interested in anything!</p>

<p>They are here. People still buy and use LF cameras, sometimes with a digital back. They are in stock in my store, http://stores.ebay.com/brucesfieldcamerastore. They are not selling as well as before the bank crashes of Sept. 2008, but they are selling, and I restock them, though I no longer have as many as before. It might surprise you, but a lot of the well known art photographers, and even some journalists use them. </p>

<p><strong><em> "It might surprise you, but a lot of the well known art photographers, and even some journalists use them. "</em></strong><br>

No Bruce, that doesn't surprise <strong>me</strong>. Nice selection in your store by the way. In fact I have seen an increase in 4x5 field cameras out there from the China cheapies to the Ebonys. But what I was asking is why Freestyle, a very large supplier, has chosen to not include them in the latest catalog anymore. I don't know if that is just an independent decision on their part, or an indication of things to come with B&H, and others. I know there will be large format available from vendors like yourself for a long time to come, but film in general is fading fast from the limelight of the major advertisers.</p>

<p>The 4x5 and even smaller Speed Graphics and Crown Graphics are selling fast and high on Fleabay. SO that's a good sign. I think people like them because they are portable. And yes Cliff, <strong>I finally HAVE that Calumet 210 Caltar </strong>on my Crown Graphic lens board and am ready to shoot! Hopefully this weekend I'll shoot some Polaroids and post the story of my adventure getting the lens to fit with an old file from Dad's workbench....</p>

<p>Great Russ, I can't wait to see. Whittling out that hole with a hand file must have taken some elbow grease. Kinda like cutting down a tree with an Axe instead of a chainsaw.</p>

<p>In 35mm you get 35 shots. In Medium Format you get 10-20 shots. On digital chips you get perhaps hundreds of shots, fire away, "rattle tat tat". On LF 8x10 JUST ONE shot. Just a SINGLE negative. I like this! Something sexy about it also....</p><div></div>

<p>I would like to do LF photography, but like many people I just don't have a space to set up an actual darkroom. I can manage MF development and scanning but that's about it. And my wife - who is already more tolerant than I have any reason to expect over my photography hobby - would start giving me very meaningful looks if I suggested getting a field camera as well.</p>

<p>With that said, I am a bit surprised over one thing - here's the reasoning: LF cameras are mostly used for static subjects. The film plane size ranges from big to ridiculously huge. LF cameras are easy to hack by the user (indeed, they're meant to be). Larger sensor area means a lot more tolerance for error (you don't need high sensor or grain density to achieve high quality). Scanning backs already exist, but they are aiming for maximum quality at steep prices. So why have people not tried adapting cheap hand scanners to make low-budget scanning backs for LF cameras?</p>

<p>Even if you ran a no-budget no-name handheld document scanner over the ground glass by hand you'd still be looking at a pretty decent-sized image by any standards. I'm amazed that there aren't any do-it-yourself plans out there for hacking a document scanner as a scanning back, and that no manufacturer has released kits for people willing to try it. There's a number of reasons for using a specific format camera and absolute image quality or resolution is only one of them after all.</p>

<p>Janne, If you can manage MF development a scanning, you can do the same with LF. Maybe not Ultra Large, but certainly 4x5. and as far as the scanner conversions, there have been plenty of people doing that with hand scanners and even big flatbed scanners. I haven't seen any DIY plans but they might be out there. And all large format photos are not static, There were a Gazillion 4x5 speed graphic shots of football games taken at night under the stadium lights. I remember, I took a bunch of them.</p>

<p>Richard, beautiful 8x10. You have a 6x8 full plate too don't you?</p>

<p>By the way Richard here is the lens and shutter you gave to me. It found a home on my 4x5 transposing stereo camera.</p><div></div>

<p>With the larger formats the focus becomes critical. As long as the camera and holders are light tight they don't matter too much. You really need to spend your money on the best lens you can afford. Maybe Bruce can make some recommendations here.</p>

<p>Well, I don't know where all the large format cameras have gone, but I know a bunch of 4x5 Graphics, a couple Graphic Views, and one of the big Graflex RB's are on my shelves. And over the next couple weeks I'll be deciding which kit I want to take on my next road trip, which I would really like to include 4x5 photography, though most of you know I ussually shoot the smaller Graphics. However, I do have the stuff to create cameras of mass film destruction on the large format. Something very different sliding those sheets into two sided holders and Grafmatics in a dark bag as opposed to changing roll films. Same goes for developing sheets compared to rolls. And then there's that thing where you look at big film. It's bigger. </p>

<p>I have been looking for an 8x10 but still way out of my price range. In the mean time, I am enjoying my harem of plate cameras: Avus, VAG, ICA Ideal, Agfa Isola, Maximar and my 4x5 Speed Graphic. I recently added a Busch Pressman C 2.25x3.25 which cost peanuts compare to its Graflex competition of the same spec.</p>

<p>I always thought these looked too clumsy to carry around !</p><div></div>

<p>I think she is strapped to that pole so she doesn't fall over.</p>

<p>That thing is soooo heavy, her feet have sunk 3 inches into the sand.</p>

<p>Cliff... at least she's shooting an SLR!!!</p>