lf-photo.org.uk

Hi all,

I'm from Linz / Austria and have started (film and) large format photography in March 2011.
So I bought a Toyo Field 45AII with a couple of lenses, development equipment, etc and started off...

Altough I went through some baptism by fire (mostly exposure related), so far this journey went well:

• Handling the view camera ... easier than expected ... altough I've mostly only done landscapes
• Developing my own color film with a Jobo CPE2 ... easier than expected, thanks again to Tim Parkin for the awesome instruction videos
• Hand exposure metering ... this turned more difficult than expected, but now I'm more or less managing to get good exposures ... my beloved Fuji Velvia 50 film is quit stringent
• Scanning ... after struggling with newton rings, problem with high contrast edges etc. with my Canon flatbed I bought a drum scanner at the end of April ... now works perfect

In July I had a great journey to Scotland for 3 weeks.

Here are some examples of my work so far: http://www.flickr.com/photos/martinjankoehler/

Regards,

Welcome to the forum Martin, seems like you've made a cracking start with LF. Love the first Rum from Eigg image on your flickr stream

Paul

Thanks Paul!

Eigg was awesome! Also funny, watching the cows sunbathing at the bay *gg*

Welcome to the British LF gang.
You are not the only Continental LF-er here

While some Continental LF-ers go to Scotland, some others spent their family holidays not far from Linz (at least, not far, ahem, as seen from a Scotsman's point of view) since I could no resist to cross the Austrian border (from the Italian Dolomites where our family base camp was installed) in order to get refills of real Speck in ... Lienz, for our daily walking tours

Post-Scriptum : Austria like France can be proud to host at least one Large Format Camera manufacturer; in the UK, to the best of my knowledge, there are at least two : Walker and Gandolfi; do I miss other British LF camera manufacturers still active today?

Hi Emmanuel,

the Austrian manufacturer is Lotus View Camera, may I ask you who the French manufacturer is?

(I assumed Arca-Swiss is at least in the French-speaking part of Swiss or are they really French?)

Best regards,
Martin

(I assumed Arca-Swiss is at least in the French-speaking part of Swiss or are they really French?)

From the company's point of view, Arca Swiss International is a French company.
And if you come to Besançon, France, you'll be able to meet the Vogt family, the owners of the company, who live there. And you'll be able to speak to them in ... French if you wish (hoschdeutsch is also spoken )
Otherwise Arca Swiss operates the Arca Swiss Phototechnik AG company, located in Horgen near Zürich, the direct continuation of a business operated by the Oschwald family before 1984.
Actually the Vogt family opened the Besançon company in 1999 in order to be also an EU-based company.

Aaah cool, so the owners are your neighbours

Hmmm, what I've heard so far, Arca Swiss F Line 4x5 must be great.
I already thought about getting a used one to have a monorail at hand
next to my field camera ...