Confessions of a photography junkie

Okay, I’ll admit it – I still have a soft spot for old fashioned film based photography. I am saddened by the wholesale switch to digital and yet find our little Canon power shots are being used all the time while the extensive family of film based cameras sit unused in the closet, cupboards, shelves etc. Yet somehow, more of this stuff keeps wandering in.

In spite of not being in the market for a 4×5 camera (I already had, and still have, a perfectly functional Crown Graphic) about two years ago I got a call from a guy who was trying to give away a Linhof studio camera stand. I immediately got my hopes up that it might be a tall pedestal and went to look. It wasn’t, and ended up being a low studio stand with a kidney shaped tool tray. I really didn’t have any use for it but the guy said if I didn’t take it he was just gonna throw it out, and once I agreed I’d take it he produces the camera system that went on it – A complete Linhof monorail studio camera with both 4×5 and 5×7 bellows and rear standards so it could be used as either a 4×5 or 5×7 camera. It isn’t in the best of condition but somehow he convinced it was worth the $40 I gave him for it.

It didn’t have a lens and although I have a very nice 90mm Angulon on the Crown Graphic, it wasn’t what the new camera needed, and since then I’d been looking in a somewhat lethargic fashion for a lens in the 160 – 250 mm range. My search speeded up a while ago when I stumbled over an Omega D-5 XL Chromega colour enlarger and power supply with 3 lenses, 6 neg carriers, easels and a set of tanks and hangers for processing 4×5 film all of which needed rescuing.

This meant that the only missing link to getting the Linhof working was a lens so last week I broke down and bought a good lens, a 210mm f5.6 Symmar S that I had originally bought new in about 1983 when I had a photography studio. When the studio closed in 1986, the lens was one of the secured assets which was liquidated. I’ve known where it was ever since and that it had been kept clean and properly stored, so when it was offered back to me at a fair price I knew it was time to give the Linhof a chance, or at least the potential of a chance.

But the big problem is that this stuff keeps finding me. But that’s another story, or at least part of the story. So if you behave, perhaps I’ll tell you more about my adventures trying to tame the junk in the studio.