m e g a p e r l s

夏祭り, by Dirk Rösler.

In the vein of working slowly, slow as in large format camera: the German photographer Michael Wesely was asked to photograph the construction of the Museum of Modern Art in New York. His result are three photos, some of them exposed over a period of 3 years. Makes you think.

Weblog entry/book review here, MoMA press release here.

I am still attracted to large format photography. Who knows why. Perhaps it is the alternative? Small, portable cameras, i.e. previously the realm of 35mm, are now digital, and for the most part for good reason. But LF retains its nice properties: work slowly, make every exposure count.

Now with family, the burden of carrying around the monorail and the setup time is becoming too strong. So something portable was needed, plus more spontaneous LF Polaroid shooting.

I wanted something more First I considered this camera. It was announced about two years ago, but seems to be in production only now. Initial price of US$599 has been upped to $699. Not a bargain, that’s for sure.

Then I thought: well, for 151 pounds, I could build this myself. A wooden field camera. That would certainly work, but the self-assembly would require some effort. In the end…

… I bought this at a camera fair this week. A metal technical field camera. It is more than 30 years old, but in the LF world, not much changes. It is very heavy, about 3kg, but folds up into a fairly small package. This Wista 45 seems pretty well engineered and seems in many ways a copy of the classic Linhof Technika at a fraction of the price (less then 40.000 yen). I still need to get a lens board to transplant my lens, plus need to test if the bellows has any leaks etc. Still, a big step forward. Let’s see how this will work out…

Sony Alpha, by Dirk Rösler.

Who said reincarnation is a fantasy? Too bad we cannot buy SonyPan b/w film.

Anyway, can’t get overly excited about it. Looks a lot better than Sony’s previous “big cameras”.