New old stuff

[phrench_phried]

New old stuff rocks.

But first, an aside:

When I sit and ponder life, as I'm apt to do, I sometimes try to figure out what my heart desires.  Money?  Not really.  Money is only important to the extent that it can buy happiness and, as we all know, it can't.  Also, I get a lot more satisfaction from making stuff than I do from buying stuff.  The

Comments

[ian_green]

you can always contact print your negatives
(just wandered by from large_format)

[phrench_phried]

Actually, that's one of the tentative plans. The only thing is, I know myself well enough to know that the temptation to make enlargements will eventually become irresistable. Also, these days, we share a lot of photos on the 'net, but that's an easier hurdle to get over.

[ian_green]

i have a friend crazy enough to build his own simple enlarger for 4x5"
actually as we researched info on this project it turned out there's no problem
as they have been doing this all the time and the problem is thoroughly covered in old photography books

[phrench_phried]

There have been a couple of ideas running through my head. They're probably not good ideas, but they're ideas:

1. Why can't you use a large format camera for an enlarger?

2. How hard would it be to get my Bestler 23CII to print 4x5. (There's a guy who's done it and posted the instructions, but I don't like his method too much because his light source costs more than an enlarger and he can't use the enlarger for anything but 4x5 once he modified it).

If I lived in the U.S., I'm convinced that Craigslist or e-bay would eventually turn up an inexpensive enlarger but in Europe, 4x5 just never really took off. I'm keeping my feelers out and taking it one step at a time. I also don't want to buy a whole lot of gear when I know that my interest in large format might fizzle out before I've really got my "money's worth" out of my investment.