The shutter endeavor ended early as Linhof sold that portion of the business to his partner, Fredrich Deckel, the man eventually responsible for Compur shutters. Linhof began its life as a shutter design firm under the helm of Valentin Linhof, who produced the first in-lens shutter. Linhof is a high-quality camera manufacturer based in Munich and comparisons between Linhof and Leica are fair in regard to what each maker means for its format. With months of searching eBay and local ads, I found an auction for a Linhof Technika 4×5 camera that I ended up winning for a wicked good deal. I set out to find a 4×5 camera with an affordable price tag - just to get my feet wet. It was also an unexplored frontier full of alien techniques. The arguments for LF as a format are convincing but what ultimately pushed me was my identification of LF with professional work. I got to a point where I felt like taking film photography seriously meant moving into large format (LF).įamed, fine-art photographers whose work I admire and own (in photobooks) like Richard Misrach and Joel Meyerowitz, in addition to professional landscape photographers I admire like Michael Strickland and Alex Burke, all shoot with large format cameras. More and more, the most immediate next level is into another format. The level-up scheme tells you that while the Minolta X-700 was a great camera and experience, you’ve really got to try a serious camera like the Nikon F2 or a camera with next-level glass like a Contax. Since then, I’ve owned approximately 30 35mm cameras. It says, “Now that you’ve done this, you’ve got to try this.” My first film camera was a Minolta X-700, an underdog darling of the analog community. The level-up scheme exists in all hobby and professions. I myself fell prey to the level-up scheme spectacularly, resulting in my brief ownership of a Linhof Technika 4×5 field camera. On forums, blogs, Instagram, and Reddit, we joke with each other about “Gear Acquisition Syndrome” and the more cynical of us love to sardonically fume, vis-á-vis memes, about the blind fandom that follows certain makes and models of camera. The film photography community of the 2010s, defined by internet-based sharing and communication, entices us into leveling up.

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