Fotoman 6x17 advice

[parasko_p]

Hi all,

 

I currently have an Xpan and adore the pano format. I'm thinking bigger negs

for landscape work. I'm not really familiar with the 6x17 format but I was

hoping to purchase new and the Fotoman seems the most affordable.

 

Firstly, has anybody had any experience with this camera who could provide

some guidance re: ease of focus, setup, lenses used etc? The Fotoman seems an

attractive buy as I believe it now has an auxiliary rangefinder and will soon

have a shift adaptor. Does anyone know how either of these work/are fitted to

the camera? Is the rangefinder an accurate focusing tool for this type of

format or is ground glass focusing the best (most accurate) way?

 

Secondly, I have read that many people start off in the 6x17 format thinking

they will purchase wide lenses but end up using mostly a 90mm and 180mm. The

Xpan lens I use the most is the 30mm in pano mode (making it approx 17mm).

Does this mean I would be better off purchasing a 72mm with the body as my

first lens? I am hoping to purchase 2 lenses with the body initially.

 

Thirdly, how are you people scanning your negs for this format? Would an Epson

V750 be of sufficient quality? I would be hoping to enlarge x7 maximum.

How big are such files for Photoshop purposes?

 

Any help appreciated.

[mag_miksch]

With this kind of camera you will focus hyperfocal, the viewfinder isnt coupled so its just for compositing. If you use shift you have to controll the settings on the ground glass.<br>

Regards<br>

Martin

[mark f]

Something to consider......you could get a view camera with a graflok back (like a Shen Hao) and get 6x17 back for it. That way, you get two cameras for the price of one (: . Here is an article about this on the largeformatphotography.info site:

 

http://www.largeformatphotography.info/shen-hao-6x17.html

 

Have fun -- Mark

[mlfly1]

I don't have experience with the Fotoman. For the rest of your questions, I was concerned about zone focusing to begin with but I don't think twice about it now. Accurate focusing is possible and use of f22 - f32 will give you very good DOF. This is with a 90mm lens.

 

The 90 seems plenty wide to me. I also have not found a need for a second lens. Nor have I found need for shift. I pull out the viewfinder first, find my composition, decide on the tripod height and then either set up and shoot or put the viewfinder away. Very convenient.

 

For scanning, I have a cheap Epson 4870 using a glass plate and Better Scanning's film carrier. 10x30's are excellent. I start with 2400 dpi. While I won't swear to this (I can't remember the exact file size right now) I think it's in the upper 200mb area. Post scan processing is slow work on my computer but it gets done and the prints, as I said, are nice.

 

Not much equipment is needed to be successful in this format - just a good eye for compostion, time and opportunity. Time is the tough one :)

 

Mike