"Bob Monaghan" wrote in message
...
Greetings, Y'all. Maybe what we/steve needs is a more comprehensive
listing, posted periodically (weekly, bi-weekly?) to online LF resources?
I think a periodic posting of LF URL links and pointers would be handy for
newbies not sure where to start, as well as provide a LF FAQ for this
group (the current version of which was last updated in 1995 ;-)

Well, here's a question I'm well qualified to address. I might even be
unique.
The closest I've come to a view camera is through pictures and reading. I
have yet to touch one, or see one up close. If I've seen one at a distance,
I don't recall when or the circumstances.

Much of the online resources address gear -- lens specs and tests, camera
specs; basically the big ticket items. It's a necessary starting point, and
I'm sure I'll revisit them again someday, but hopefully not for several more
years. Anyway, I'm past that. My money is spent, and now it's up to UPS to
do its part. I was hoping they would be done by today, but there's still
hope for early next week.

I've come across reading lists on the web, including Steve's. They're all
helpful. In the end, I trusted the readers' reviews on Amazon, and bought
Stroebel's Techniques book along with a title by Dykinga. No surprises in
either, and plenty of useful information and details. The general principles
are simple and rather obvious; it's the details that are important for
newbies.

I think that's what it boils down to: the details of how and what. Bear with
me for a little bit...

LF is a mature technology. :-) If there ever was a mature technology, LF
certainly qualifies. In fact, I think it matured in the 50's or 60's, and
that's part of the difficulty just starting out. I was still in my zeroes
when 1969 left us; my tens and teens waited one more year, in the 70s.
Whether it's a cultural difference, or simply a lack of continued
"refinement" and change after that, the result is that how things work or go
together are, for lack of a better word, foreign. The solutions are
different from how we would design them today. Not that I can think
of a better way; it's just different.

I'm reassured that it's a mature technology. The problems I face are not new
problems. In fact, all that I'm looking at are the solutions to problems
that others have faced and conquered. The only real puzzle is figuring out
how it was solved. Sometimes it's obvious; sometimes a hint in the right
direction is needed. There are no new problems waiting for me to solve, and
that is very reassuring.

A few brief examples come to mind.

It was a few enjoyable minutes figuring out how to hold the shutter open on
an older Compur shutter. It seems obvious -- there's that word again -- in
hindsight if you bear in mind the era that it was made. And if it takes
force to accomplish, it's likely not what was intended. So I slowly
figured out not only how to work it, but also got a few insights into how
the
mechanism evolved. Imagine that, a living moment in history, frozen in
stamped and machined metal. A more recently made Copal was boring after that
brief adventure. Certainly it works better and easier, but it didn't reveal
as much about the people in its history.

I asked for help yesterday with a Jobo reel. The film holders weren't
staying on the way I was installing them, and so that couldn't be right. If
it's difficult to do in the dark, if it's easy to do wrong, I'm likely not
understanding the solution. This time, I think it's a cultural difference,
not one of evolving technology. The only help needed was a reminder that
it's supposed to work, and in its own way, be dummy proof. And so I got it
to work.

The film holders I ordered arrived today. I still lack the camera, but I can
pre-load the film that arrived earlier this week; the UPS guy is my new best
friend. I really look forward to our brief meetings. Again, in hindsight,
it's all too obvious how the film goes in the holder. It was several
minutes, though, before I noticed that the back hinged out and away.
Reaffirming, then, that everything is already fully thought out and not easy
to get wrong, once you understand which brand of fool they were proofing
against.

Maybe tomorrow, but realistically Monday or Tuesday, I can discover for
myself how and where the film holder goes. How hard can that be? It needs to
sit close to where I'm focusing, and lock something of a particular size and
shape securely into place. Maybe I'll eschew the manual that was said will
accompany this. It's been so much fun up to this point; why ruin that now?

I'm not sure what I'm trying to say. Reading Jobo's reel loading
instructions on the web, and also the briefer version that came in the box,
it all seems obvious in every way if you already have the same end result
clearly in mind. Starting from "What the heck are these?", though, those
same sentences are pure gibberish.

Until you've seen it done, or actually did it yourself, every one of those
hundred and one little things you do to take a picture are potential sources
of anxiety, frustration, or the simple joy of discovery. Once you've seen it
done actually did it yourself, every one of them I'm sure will be too simple
and too obvious for words, let alone the pictures that would make everything
exceeding clear.

I started out scribbling this thinking that it is too simple and too obvious
for an all inclusive "Guide for Newbies" to be meaningful. Right now, I
believe just the opposite, that it's not only worth doing, but will be fun
and worth doing well. I think it will take very few words, and 300 to 500
pictures to illustrate everything that goes into setting up and taking the
first picture, maybe through the point of developing and scanning that
single first image. I think it should be linear, focusing only on every
little step along the way, rather than diverging into comparative anatomies
of Copal versus Compur, or Toyo versus Sinar. There's room for all that
later. Heaven knows that most manufacturers' online catalogs are next to
worthless.

No, no steenkin FAQ for me. FAQs are predominantly typed text. I find it odd
that for a photographic interest, long tomes are mostly what I've found.
Well written, useful, and meaningful to be sure, but I don't think I want to
follow that model. A simple photo essay with the digital will have to do.

Other than that, I also wanted to say that just having you guys here is
plenty of help. Something doesn't seem right, I just squeak and get the real
scoop. Thanks for that.

Mike.