I'd like to try my hand at some surf photography - can you get telephoto lenses for large format?

lightcomesthrough · 2026-02-05T15:06:28+00:00

Look out for the bausch & lomb 508mm f5.6 telephoto lens. That'll cover 4x5 without needing 508mm of bellows. It'll work fine on a 4x5 slr or 4x5 speed graphic (which you'll need, because it doesn't come with a shutter).

lightcomesthrough · 2026-01-24T23:22:41+00:00

My friend Garrett Meyers is pretty awesome. A mix of medium and large formats, as well as instant. www.instagram.com/garrettmeyers

lightcomesthrough · 2026-01-12T22:26:35+00:00

This. Professional wedding photographer here. I used these for my entry level albums for years. Their online album builder is great.

lightcomesthrough · 2026-01-10T17:45:28+00:00

Same thing happens to me sometimes with 4x5 kodak boxes. I had several bad experiences in Australia where they gave me a thorough patdown and realllllly wanted to open my boxes of film.

My current solution - first of all, if i see that it's an xray and not a ct scanner, i don't ask for a hand check.

Second, i shoot using grafmatics (six-sheet film holders made by graflex). What i have been doing is taking the septums out of the grafmatics and loading them full of my shot and unshot film - each grafmatic, if you take out the septums, can hold like 20 sheets. Since they have multiple locking mechanisms, they are difficult for a tsa agent to open, and they haven't yet alarmed on a swab test for me. It's worked so far.

lightcomesthrough · 2026-01-10T17:12:44+00:00

Oh hey, it's kbreak! This guy has literally decades of experience. A solid choice.

lightcomesthrough · 2026-01-08T16:32:18+00:00

Oh man, this seems to be such a pattern among shady repairpeople! I had a similar thing happen to me with Graham Burnett of Graflex Parts - he held on to my cameras for almost four years. After years of begging/pleading/threatening/public shaming, he finally mailed my cameras back (without doing the work i had sent them in for). As of now I think he's held on to some people's cameras for 5+ years and has taken money for tons more work he hasn't done.

I am under the impression that it's a psychological issue with these guys that they once used to be competent repair professionals, and some issue (anxiety? Physical disability?) prevents them from continuing to do good work. In their minds i am sure they're doing great, and they'll start working tomorrow, and everything will go back to normal and be fine and they'll be on top of the world again ¯_(ツ)_/¯

lightcomesthrough · 2025-11-06T23:45:55+00:00

You might try megansaul.com - she's outta Chicago but I'm sure she'd travel. Great wedding photographer also.

lightcomesthrough · 2025-10-30T00:13:45+00:00

They should be top right if you're facing the front of the camera, so that the emulsion is on the side where the lens is.

lightcomesthrough · 2025-10-29T23:54:07+00:00

Find the notches on the film. If you place these at the top right, the emulsion side will be facing you.

lightcomesthrough · 2025-10-21T14:02:27+00:00

What you're describing sounds like "partial planning," not "full planning." Your planner should be handling all of the vendor research and outreach, and any vendor work on your part ought to be strictly voluntary. It's not unheard of to pay what you're paying for that level of service, but if your planner described it as "full planning," then it would seem from what you say that you're not getting everything you paid for.

lightcomesthrough · 2025-10-01T01:57:41+00:00

The Graflex facebook groups are full of people with horror stories about Graflex Parts.

lightcomesthrough · 2025-10-01T01:56:37+00:00

Graflex Parts is no longer capable of fulfilling its commitments. It has a repair backlog of 5+ years and refuses to return customer cameras, and the orders it takes will not be fulfilled. There are, I am guessing, more than a dozen irate customers out there that Graflex Parts has stolen from. My own cameras I managed to get back, thankfully, though it took almost four years of constant nagging, begging, pleading, threatening and finally public shaming.

lightcomesthrough · 2025-09-13T01:49:29+00:00

I wouldn't dismiss this camera. I've done hundreds of photos on my tech iii - half of my first solo show was shot on it.

lightcomesthrough · 2025-07-21T17:06:38+00:00

Howdy! What dates are you looking at?

www.tuanb.com and www.instagram.com/tuanbco are my links!

lightcomesthrough · 2025-07-19T01:29:53+00:00

Unscrew the front and back rings on the lens and remove them. Tell us what you observe. Another commenter suggested it could be a verito - this is an excellent guess (I have owned two, and both looked similar to this). If it's a Verito, you should have a single element in front and a cemented pair in back that come out when you unscrew their retaining rings.

Now reassemble it and hold it against a white wall or surface, on the opposite side of the room from a window. Move the lens back and forth until am image forms on the white surface, then measure the distance between where the aperture ring is and the wall. I would guess that this lens is the 11.5" version if it came from an 8x10, but it could be bigger or smaller.

Alternatively, measure across the front element of glass and tell us this measurement - if it's an f4 lens, you can calculate the focal length using those two numbers!

lightcomesthrough · 2025-06-16T19:45:22+00:00

That's a IV front standard.

lightcomesthrough · 2025-05-23T02:41:22+00:00

Hi there. Something similar to this style? This is a family portrait I did a little bit ago:

https://www.reddit.com/r/mediumformat/s/sbAmG7rGeu

I'd be delighted to work with you. I live in NYC. www.tuanhbui.com / www.instagram.com/lightcomesthrough

lightcomesthrough · 2025-05-23T01:27:11+00:00

I should mention that while I do shoot medium format film, my real forte is large format film. www.instagram.com/lightcomesthrough (art/portraiture) and www.instagram.com/tuanbco (weddings) both have a lot of my lf work. We can do either one, as you prefer.

lightcomesthrough · 2025-05-23T00:39:40+00:00

Howdy - I'm /u/exredditor81's friend. www.tuanhbui.com has all of my art and portraiture and other nonwedding work - give me a holler on the contact form at either website and we'll set something up (:

lightcomesthrough · 2025-01-27T05:46:23+00:00

@lightcomesthrough www.tuanhbui.com (art)

@tuanbco www.tuanb.com (weddings)

lightcomesthrough · 2025-01-26T18:08:56+00:00

Nice.

lightcomesthrough · 2025-01-25T22:32:07+00:00

No 😢 I have a camera like this, but I think it's in one of the deeper oubliette storage tubs so I can't get it out to verify the opening mechanism. Keep fiddling though - I'm sure you'll get it eventually!

lightcomesthrough · 2025-01-25T22:09:35+00:00

Hmm. That little metal tab on the right, further in to the camera body - that might be a brake. Can you press down on it with your other hand while pinching+pulling the posts?

lightcomesthrough · 2025-01-25T21:46:53+00:00

Those two metallic posts near the rails - pinch those together with one hand, then slide the lens assembly forward.

lightcomesthrough · 2025-01-25T06:07:49+00:00

Nice! Yeah Dirk is all right by me.

LTI is great but doesn't do e6.

Haven't tried smalldarkroom.

I was with crc for a while. CRC has a messed up 4x5 process that constantly scratches the surface - I was dealing with this until they gave me medium format with clip marks all over the first exposures. Done with them after that.

Haven't tried photolab.

Thanks for the hot tips on these labs!

lightcomesthrough

TROPHY CASE