rafe bustin wrote:
OK, anyone have a swag at how many
4x5" and/or 8x10" view cameras are in
active service, in the USA and the
rest of the "developed world?"

Better yet, cites?

I mean, what new and exciting products
await us in the LF world?

Me, I'd like to see good affordable
scanners and scanning backs.


rafe b.
http://www.terrapinphoto.com

Well, ViewCamera magazine lists a subscriber base of around
16,000. The boards are full of people who have little
respect for ViewCamera. So... say the number of active users
of view cameras is 10x. That's 160,000 - in NA. Say Europe
is about the same size. That's 320,000. There are other
areas of the world that have LF photographers, like Japan
and Austrailia, but the numbers probably aren't large, and
well within the humongous error possibilities of this pseudo
scientific guess.

So... my number is 320,000.

What new and exciting products await us? Well... not much
I'm afraid. That sample size is just way too small to raise
much capital. An example would be the new Scheider ULF
lenses - interesting, truely expensive, with lot size in the
10s.

The problem is, of the people using LF, what percentage are
interested in buying new stuff? For any given category, I'd
guess something less than 10%. That's why these new lenses
have such a pitiful lot size.

However, I'm with you on the digital front. I would love to
abandon film. But to get me to do that, the digital
alternative has to be full frame 4x5 (works well with my
existing lenses), it has to be parallel capture - no scan
backs for me please), it has to give me the same dynamic
range I can get with negative films now (12 stops, more or
less), and the digital back (and everything it needs to
record images) has to weight no more than my existing
package of 12 doublesided film holders (I've got to backpack
it all).

I'm not going to hold my breath for that.

OTOH, I picked up a used Optronics ColorGetter 3 Pro drum
scanner for a song a few years ago. Now *that's* a scanner.
It does an outstanding job on my 4x5 Tri-X negatives.

So I'm feeling pretty good about my hybrid workflow right
now. It would be nice if it got better, but if it doesn't I
can live with it ;-)