Large Format Photography - choosing equipment

After deciding I was going to get started with LF photography, the next step was to decide what I needed and get my hands on it. I started form a position of almost total ignorance. As said before the reason I decided to was prompted by a project that I had in mind - I needed camera movements, I would be outdoors and probably hiking around a bit and I wanted big prints. The next question was to find out what equipment fitted the bill. The internet was invaluable here, but particularly the LF site http://www.largeformatphotography.info. In fact I think I could have arrived at all my decisions and found out all I needed using this one site alone. It is up-to-date, un-fussy and has a good forum with helpful experts.

BTW I tend not to indulge in comprehensive, in-depth research when I'm doing this sort of thing, so be aware that in what follows there are lot of things that I don't consider. My aim was to reach a quick decision about what I needed - I would be going into the field with it in less than 1 month, so I need to decide, purchase and also get familiar in a short space of time

What Format?

It looked like I had to choose between 4x5 and 10x8. 5x7 looked very tempting and there are other esoteric formats, but I wanted something that was mainstream and had a large base of experience as well as equipment and supplies that were readily available. 10x8 was ruled out by reason of portability. 5x7 because it appeared that supplies were becoming hard to come by. So 4x5 it was. I also thought that if I got hooked by 4x5 then I might also decide to get involved in 10x8.

What type of camera

I said I knew nothing. This was true. I had to discover the difference between field cameras, folding cameras, monorail cameras etc etc. This wasn't difficult. The LF website tells you all you need to know. Suffice to say that it became clear that a 4x5 folding camera or field camera was what I needed. I found out that A Adams used one. That should be OK then.....

Which model?

Luckily, it appears that the LF community are not as partisan as the 35mm Nikon/Canon crowd, or so it appears. Hence most of the advice I saw in the forums looked pretty impartial. I decided to go for something that was popular, not ultra cheap, but not expensive. I also wanted something that provided all the movements that I would need to experiment with. Many people might disagree, but the TOYO 45AX seemed to crop up again and again. Nobody was precious about it, nobody trashed it. It seemed to be well engineered. I briefly thought about a Tachihara. A bit cheaper, lighter and beautifully made (of wood). A couple of things put me off. Some people mentioned that it was a bit flimsier (although well constructed) and the knobs were a little difficult to tighten. As I would be doing work in the mountains and in winter this might be problematic. Also it was an obvious "attention getter". Knowing how much attention I get just using and old Rolleiflex this was also a consideration. I quite enjoy it, but in the time consuming and error prone medium of LF shooting, I thought this would also be a problem.

Lenses?

There is a lot of choice here and a lot of opinions. To start with I think I can manage with a "standard" 150 mm. I will probably add a wide angle (90 mm likely) once I have some experience of using the 150 mm with the subjects I have in mind. Which one? I knew I would be using movements a fair bit for architectural shots so I needed one with good coverage. Schneider or Rodenstock? I can't remember why I decided on Rodenstock, but I ended up with a 150mm APO-Sironar-S f5.6. Wide coverage, bright for focusing and no-one, well not many, had anything bad to say about it. Choice between this and the equivalent Schneider seemed to be down to personal preferences.

Other stuff?

I learned that I needed film holders, focusing loupe and various bits and pieces. I should also have acquired a dark cloth, but so far I haven't. We need to see if my trusty cagoule will be good enough. I also added a 6x12 Horseman roll film back. I reasoned that the panorama format might be something I would use, but mainly I liked the possibility of being able to experiment, bracket and change film in the field or when traveling.

All of the equipment was available for immediate delivery except the Horseman which I bought locally second hand, so within 3 days of deciding, I was unwrapping and trying to figure it all out.

In the next post in my LF series I'll probably be talking about how I coped with the first shooting.