Cool camera...not so good for hiking

[Billy]

Ran into a guy in Acadia National Park using this camera to take a picture of one of those nice stone bridges along the carriage roads. He told me a little bit about the camera.

Exposure time.......this time of day (late afternoon shade), usually about 10 minutes.
Body......cherrry or mohagony (or some other "rich people" wood) taken from Chicago bar tops dismantled during prohibition.
Film......8" x 10" glass plates
Tripod......looked like the size and stregth of three wooden crutches
Print development.......does it himself using old-school techniques

He showed me his photo album that he keeps in his car........as good or better than any of the over-photoshop'ed stuff seen in magazines and calendars.

Humble, friendly, disgustingly talented. True artist.

 

[Tim Seaver]

Photo Burro to the Rescue

Ansel Adams took his first long trip into the wilderness in 1920, when he was just eighteen. His burro, Mistletoe, carried almost a hundred pounds of gear and food; he himself carried a thirty-pound pack full of photographic equipment.

 

[Mohamed Ellozy]

Sella’s self-described goal was “to reproduce faithfully the atmosphere of the [mountain] panorama even more accurately than it can be seen by the eye or retained by the mind.’’ That’s no small task under any circumstances. It’s that much harder with the sheer difficulty of just getting in place to take the photographs. In that regard, being a mountaineering photographer is not unlike being a war photographer. And the task is positively Herculean when it involves, as it did for Sella, having to carry a camera-tripod combination weighing 40 pounds and employ highly fragile glass-plate negatives, each of which weighed 2 pounds.

Alas, lots of Googling failed to turn up an image of him with his camera here's hoping someone has better luck!

 

[Kevin Rooney]

The peak to the right of Mistletoe the Photo Burro looks a lot like Lone Pine Peak. If so, then she was standing at Trail Crest, perhaps on the way Whitney or down into the backcountry - Guitar Lake, John Muir trail? Not that the JMT may have been designated as such in 1920.

 

[Tim Seaver]

If you zoom in on the sign, you can vaguely make out "Kearsarge Pass".

 

[Kevin Rooney]

If you zoom in on the sign, you can vaguely make out "Kearsarge Pass".

Thanks, Tim. I tried zooming in, but on my PC is became unreadable. As you may know, Kearsarge Pass is about 15 miles north of Trail Crest. I've been thru there a few times, but am not nearly as familar with the area (yet) as I am Whitney.

 

[NewHampshire]

I have a friend who is a professional freelance scenic photographer. He used to carry around what he called his "workhorse", an old Pentax Medium Format camera (I think it was a 645, but it's been a while so can't remember). He loved that camera dearly and did the bulk of his scenic photography using slide film. He could be seen haunting the ridges and bald peaks before sunrise and sunset hauling around his little baby. Alas he has pretty much had to abandon it because nowadays editors want digital copies of everything, so between the cost of having the medium format slides developed, and then scanning them, it became more cost effective to switch to a full sized sensor dSLR. And even more of a blow is it is getting more tough to sell scenery (what he calls the "pretty pictures") photos as more of his customers/magazine editors are looking for photos with hikers/people and action in the shots....not something easily achieved perfectly with a beastie like that. Alas medium and large format seem to be a bit of a dying trend . Last I saw there was digital medium formats available, but the costs were so outrageous as to be only in the scope of very dedicated professionals or rich folks with $25,000 to spare.

Brian

 

[DougPaul]

There seems to be a bunch of medium-format afficondos over at Luminous Landscape: http://www.luminous-landscape.com/whatsnew/ or http://www.luminous-landscape.com/essays/thoughts_on_medium_format_cameras.shtml

It sounds like medium format film cameras can be had at very reasonable prices these days. http://www.kenrockwell.com/tech/intro2mf.htm

In digital, the Phase One P65+ back gives one 65 MP in a 40.4mm x 53.9mm sensor for only ~$40K. (Full-frame 35mm format has a 24mm x 36mm sensor.) http://www.luminous-landscape.com/reviews/cameras/p65-announced.shtml

Doug

 

[NewHampshire]

In digital, the Phase One P65+ back gives one 65 MP in a 40.4mm x 53.9mm sensor for only ~$40K. (Full-frame 35mm format has a 24mm x 36mm sensor.) http://www.luminous-landscape.com/reviews/cameras/p65-announced.shtml

Doug

ONLY $40,000!!!!! I am betting most of us on this site drive cars that cost less than that!

Brian

 

[DougPaul]

ONLY $40,000!!!!! I am betting most of us on this site drive cars that cost less than that!

$40K is just the back. You also need the rest of the camera body and some lenses...

Doug

 

[csprague]

I have one of those, though mine is fairly modern in construction. I bought it brand new 4 years ago (a Shen Hao HZX 4X5-IIA). Also, the lenses both on mine and the one picture in the original post are also fairly modern, most coming from German companies - Rodenstock and Schneider, or more familiar Japanese companies such as Fuji and Nikon.

I shoot Fuji Velvia ISO 50 color slide film in mine and get it developed at Photographic Traditions here in Portland. And I DO take it hiking sometimes, though it's a pain The camera isn't heavy so much as all the other gear you have to lug in order to use it - film holders, loupe, dark cloth, light meter, and big sturdy tripod.

Here are a few images that I have taken with it:

Katahdin from Round Pond in the fall:

A close-up crop of the above, showing an area on the left third of the frame. Note how you can resolve bark detail on the paper birches on the other side of the pond:

And another of Katahdin Stream Falls I took in 08:

The Round Pond picture was made into a 24x30" print and is currently mounted in my dining room. It looks so much better there than on the screen, and gets quite a few comments from new visitors to my home. You can press your face to the glass and still see more detail, it's quite stunning.

The worst part about Large Format is that every time I fire the shutter, it costs me about $4. You have to be pretty sure you mean it

Chris

 

[Daniel Eagan]

I used a large format camera when I worked for Quaker Photo in Philadelphia. Mostly we shot artwork for museum catalogues. You cannot believe the detail you get with an 8x10 negative.

It was a Linhoff lens and body with a new ground-glass back, so we could switch off to 4x5 or 2 1/2 negatives. It was on rails to move in or out from the artwork. We used to develop the b&w or E-6 Ektachrome right on the spot.

I totally understand the convenience of digital, but I will always prefer the photochemical process.

 

[csprague]

I used a large format camera when I worked for Quaker Photo in Philadelphia. Mostly we shot artwork for museum catalogues. You cannot believe the detail you get with an 8x10 negative.

It was a Linhoff lens and body with a new ground-glass back, so we could switch off to 4x5 or 2 1/2 negatives. It was on rails to move in or out from the artwork. We used to develop the b&w or E-6 Ektachrome right on the spot.

I totally understand the convenience of digital, but I will always prefer the photochemical process.

I actually was given a 6x9 rollfilm back for my LF, and while I've had it mounted just to check it out, I've never actually used it. I even have some old 120 rolls from my 645 days, I should give it a shot some day.

Part of the problem is that I'd have to test it on something tightly cropped, since I only own a 150mm lens for my 4x5. Using that 6x9 back, that would be about equivalent to a 105mm on FX cameras, or about 70mm on DX cameras. A bit on the long side for everyday stuff. I suppose that limits its usefulness.

Chris

 

[TomD]

That camera is an 8x10 Dierdorff field camera. My ex had the 5x7 version with a 4x5 reduction back for it back in the early 70's. She may still have it. We used it for scenic b&w work. She had a convertible Goertz Golden Dagor 210 lens for it as I recall. You could unscrew the back element of the lens to turn it into a telephoto. No idea what year hers was, but likely 50s-60s.

These are wonderful field cameras. They are very light, fold up to a closed box shape and are much easier to carry around than a standard rail type view camera. It doesn't have all the movement of a rail camera because the back had limited motion, but for scenic work, you can't beat it.

However, I doubt he is shooting on glass plates unless he is making them himself. Most likely he is using either 8x10 negative of some sort or color transparencies. There are only a few manufacturers still making sheet film-Kodak, Ilford and Fuji as far as I can tell.

Nice to see that someone is still keeping up the tradition.

Here is a site about these cameras-
http://deardorffcameras.0catch.com/

 

[stopher]

Body......cherrry or mohagony (or some other "rich people" wood)

It's mahogany; I'm guessing African mahogany, although Honduras mahogany sometimes has that ribbon effect. BTW, in the 18th/19th centuries cherry was sometimes called the "poor man's mahogany."

I was recently perusing a collection of 100+ year-old photographs, some of which were labeled as glass plate. The difference in quality was stunning. It seems that modern technology has improved on expedience and cost but still doesn't approach the quality of old-time technology, as shown in Chris Sprague's samples.