Re: [Leica] OT: Alternative Formats to 24X36mm

[Jeff S <4season@boulder.net>]

"M.E.Berube - GoodPhotos" wrote:
> 
> Which brought to my mind..."Hey I wonder what other Medium or Large Format
> Leica Photographers prefer."
> 
> So how about it? Good topic?

Beats Kodachrome flame wars any day!

I can think a piece of photo equipment is great but find reasons not to
use it so often and vice versa! Usually bulk and weight are what does
it. Of my MF gear, the only cameras I'd find myself carrying on the odd
chance of finding a photo opportunity have been the Mamiya Six, Fuji
GS645 folder, GA645 and Hasselblad SWC, with particular emphasis on the
GA645 and the Mamiya with 75mm lens. A Rollei or Hasselblad SLR, very
rarely, a view camera, only when I was planning a photo outing or had
some project to do.

At the moment, I'm thinking of doing some major MF fat-trimming keeping
just the SWC for now. It's on the heavy side but is small and it works
surprisingly well as a handheld point-and-shoot. I had a look yesterday
at Fuji's GA645zi zoom AF camera too: It sure looks good! But unlike my
old-fashioned spring-driven SWC, this electronic marvel does not wait
patiently for the decisive moment to arrive--it goes to sleep
instead--always a problem when someone tries to power a lot of
electronics with tiny batteries!

Mostly I just use the Leica M because it's small but not too small and
the lenses are pretty fast. I may carry it around for days without being
inspired to photograph anything but when inspiration strikes, it gets a
workout.

I like the view camera because I can come up with some mini-project and
if it only takes two sheets of film, that's all I'll use: This morning
before breakfast I decided to photograph some of my equipment to show a
collector friend of mine, so out came the 4x5. I was shooting at pretty
close range and needed better depth of field so I tilted the front
standard forward, stopped down to f/11 and exposed two sheets of
film--could have been just one, but I didn't remember my bellows factors
so I just shot one at +1 and the other at +2. Ran that through the Jobo
and I'll probably make contact prints tonight. Main downside is that the
large format reveals every speck of dust on the gear and I thought it
was pretty clean! No wonder everyone uses digital cameras for eBay
photos ;-)
- -- 

Jeff Segawa
Somewhere in Boulder, Colorado