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Steve Simmons'
book is a well organized exploration of large format photography, starting
from basic principles, then walking the reader through each step in the
selection and use of equipment and materials. He notes that the modern view
camera is essentially the first camera type that was developed, then explains
how it has been improved so that it is the instrument of choice for top
quality images. About the first half of the book is hardware-oriented. He
explores older and newer cameras and lenses and provides advice about each.
While all formats are discussed, this is basically a book about 4x5 photography.
Over 20 pages of this 144 page book discuss the optical principles and the
capabilities that make view cameras unique--the movements of film plane
and lens plane. The quality and content of the accompanying images shows
the compositional problems and strategies that view cameras are designed
to accommodate. You might want to photocopy these pages to take into the
field as you explore the capabilities of your new view camera. These sections
are very well designed for photographers with experience with small formats
who want and need to understand how large format photography is different.
The last third of the book explains how Simmons and "guest" photographers
approached shooting a broad range of fine examples of both commercial and
fine arts images. |
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The Camera
is the first of three volumes that Ansel Adams wrote describing his
approach to photography. The other two volumes are The Negative and
The Print. A fourth volume, Examples: The Making of 40 Photographs,
includes Adams' comments about and analysis of 40 of his best images. This
series explores all formats and since Adams' most productive period coincided
with large format equipment as the primary choice for high quality images,
large format gets generous treatment. Chapters that I found especially helpful
were those which discussed Adams' idea of visualization--knowing what image
you want to shoot before you begin shooting it; Chapter 7, "Basic Image
Management"; and Chapter 10, "View Camera Adjustments".
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The subtitle of this
volume by Roger Hicks and Frances Schultz--"Moving Beyond 35mm for
Better Pictures"--gives you the best idea of the focus of this book.
All of the books described on this page have images of equipment to illustrate
camera types and techniques discussed, but equipment description and illustration
is the forte of the Hicks/Schultz book. Equipment described is representative,
but weighted toward their preferences, and those are clearly stated. As
they move through the various formats, they present some history, tell you
older equipment to exploit or avoid and give you their opinions on tradeoffs
in using each format, usually illustrated by personal images that they believe
make the case for their choices. For the most part, these images are not
masterpieces, but often interesting in their own right as well as serving
as examples. This is an excellent title for the photographer who is becoming
interested in medium and large format and wants to see the format and equipment
options, particularly information about older equipment, for which information
is sometimes scarce.
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View
Camera magazine is one of those journals that you read cover-to-cover,
including the ads which are well chosen to appeal to those interested in
the content of the journal (for example, the only kind of "enlargement"
advertised is photographic). This isn't about your father's dusty old wooden
4x5, though you might find an article celebrating its make and restoration.
Many of the photographers and much of the equipment featured is film-based,
but there are also articles about new digital equipment with the optical
and compositional capabilities of traditional large format equipment and
descriptions of LF photographers who are exploring digital printing at the
cutting edge. Art is balanced with technique. While there is a regular group
of contributors, most issues contain articles by specialists in the critical
or technical content of the articles. The publisher, Steve Simmons, also
maintains a Web site with supplemental content that is universally accessible
and some of which requires an access key included on your mailing label.
There is also an international electronic edition based around PDF files
for downloading. In the print edition, printing and paper are of the highest
quality befitting the images that are published. Issued six times a year. |