So I arrive at my Top Secret Highway One location on California’s magnificent coastline with my ‘new’ Crown Graphic and its Schneider Xenar 135mm f/4.5 lens. My Linhof tripod, sturdy but weighty, in a Scottish Tartan bag over my shoulder, the tripod some two inches longer than the bag with the latter’s microscopic strap cutting through my shoulder. Add to this the fact that my prized new Crown is wrapped in an old black terry cloth towel, my initials still proudly stitched in its corner, with two rather tired wooden film holders chucked in a bag emblazoned with an ‘LA Rams’ logo, and you will correctly conclude that this picture taking trip was something less than D Day in its level of preparation.

I had somehow managed to locate my Weston Master V exposure meter. More surprisingly, it checked out well against any number of other scientific devices in the household, despite being on its second selenium cell. I have owned it 35 years, having bought it new. Adding accident to good fortune, I had actually remembered to bring along my pristine, new, $5 12” cable release, a famous General Brand no less from B&H, or I would not have been able to manage a steady shutter release at the long exposures called for. At least it said Made in Germany on the box. A Schneider lens would accept nothing less.

Let’s see, what else? Oh! Yes, the 8x Schneider loupe I use to check negatives finally afforded me the opportunity of attaching the lanyard to its ears, thus ensuring that I would be mistaken for Steven Spielberg or, at the very least, Richard Attenborough (on account of my Harris Tweed cap), on my trek through the redwoods, the loupe dangling in a cavalier manner from my neck and bouncing suggestively on my manly and heaving chest.

And heave it did, for I soon found myself struggling up a trail made by the Chief Sadist at the National Park Service, its angle to the horizontal at least 45 degrees, as I aimed the LA Rams bag this way and that to avoid a nasty crack on any number of rocks that planned unprovoked attack on my precious Crown, the while struggling to keep the wretched tripod bag on my shoulder.

In other words, my packing of the large format kit needs some work.

After more of this than I care to remember, I arrived at the destination I had dutifully scouted out not three days earlier. Living in proximity to Highway One and all its magic allows no excuses for ignorance of the territory. By the time I got to the waterfall of choice, deep in the redwood forests of coastal California, three things were evident:

1 – The cardiac arrest profession would stay in business
2 – A Harris Tweed cap has pretty poor venting for an overheated head
3 – Doing this without a copious supply of martinis in the car cooler is foolish, nay, life threatening.

So on to the business of taking pictures.

First, I checked the immediate vicinity, say 100 miles in all directions, to confirm no one would be around when I dropped the camera/pulled the film holder from the camera with the dark slide in the other hand/slipped in the mud with tripod in close pursuit. There’s only so much embarrassment a fellow can take.

Then, having presciently placed quick release plates on both the Crown’s tripod sockets, it was a matter of moments to change from landscape to portrait orientation, previewing matters in the Crown’s decent optical finder.

I had left the rear hood for the ground glass at home, preferring to check focus with the Schneider loupe (Spielberg Edition), not least because my eyesight is so poor that any hope of focusing without a loupe would be akin to hoping for a date with Sophia Loren. Composition was easy as I have developed the knack of pre-visualizing the field of view of a 35mm lens on my Leica after years of use in the streets. The 135mm on 4×5 is just a little narrower than the Leica’s 35mm.

Using the old cloth towel confirmed that it was too small, and even then things kept getting steamed up in there as copious amounts of moist vapor emanated from my fevered skull. No one told me you had to take a 5 minute break before focusing a field camera. I also learned it is very tricky to try and focus while keeping your Harris Tweed cap in place, so sartorial compromises had to be made in the pursuit of Art. I chucked the cap on the ground.

Once I cooled down, everything was fine. Focus at the f/4.5 maximum aperture was, literally, a snap once I remembered to open the lens (you cock the shutter, move a little button lever on the lens mount towards the film plane, then release the shutter) and easily confirmed with the excellent coupled rangefinder on the Crown which I had taken pains to align before setting out. Indeed, it has to be said that the ground glass added little value to this effort other than forcing me to think upside down. The optical viewfinder is accurate and parallax corrected down to six feet. If all else fails, the erectable sports finder is close enough and gives, goodness knows, a life size image as there is no glass anywhere in sight. It too is parallax corrected – you move the eyepiece up and down on a calibrated scale.

Now I’m trying to recall my mental check list. I have the composition down and the lens focused. Things are reasonably secure on the Linhof which is sporting a Leitz large ball and socket head, which seems perfectly adequate given the light weight of the camera. Close the shutter. Important step that. Insert the film holder, praying once more that I loaded the film correctly, notches to the top right of the dark slide as you face the to-be-exposed surface.

Now for some Zone stuff. I should point out that ever since I read about it as a kid over 40 years ago, that the Zone System struck me as the biggest piece of bunk since Social Security. God alone knows how many great pictures have been missed as Zonies did their arcane computations. It did sell a lot of books, I suppose. With my Weston, about as non-directional a device as you can find, my system, soon to become renowned as the Modified Zone system and the subject of a thousand page monograph, is far simpler. I will disclose it here at no cost to the reader, although signed copies of the first edition of the monograph, with a limited printing on one million copies, will be available shortly at $99.95 each.

Ready? You point the Weston at the darkest bits you want to come out. The needle says 6.5. You point it at the lightest parts you want detail in. The needle says 9.5. You take the average. 8.0. Twiddle the dial and you get 3 seconds at f/32. Use negative rather than slide film and you gain latitude for error. I added a second for luck and for reciprocity failure.

Insert the cable release. Set the aperture to f/32, the shutter to B, tension the shutter.

4 seconds? Wait a moment. I have never used anything slower than 1/15th. Oh! Now I remember. This is from the smelly, foul chemical filled darkroom days. Quite literally the Dark Ages of photography.

Elephant 1. Elephant 2. Elephant 3. Elephant 4.

Reinsert dark slide the other way around to remind you the film is exposed (I hope) and twiddle the little lock thing on top to prevent that side ever being used again. Pull the film holder. Collapse exhausted.

I have just taken my first ever 4×5 photograph at the tender age of 53.

And here it is:

Well, I screwed out my courage and plonked down the huge sum of $300 for a 50 year old 4×5 camera, a Graflex Crown Graphic. It’s a logical migration in a life which started with 35mm, then saw 6×6 come on the scene some 15 years ago. The latter proved ideal when 16x prints were expected rather than hoped for. Yes, you can get there with a Leica but everything has to be just about dead right for a perfect print that large. On occasion I can make a Big Print where you cannot tell whether 35mm or 6×6 was used, but not always. So when detail in the details matters the Mamiya 6 or Rollei 6003 comes out – the latter somewhat reluctantly, it should be added, owing to its great weight. Anyway, the Mamiya’s lenses are better, if less varied.

I started thinking about Going Big over the past couple of years. Not wanting to spend a fortune on what is probably a dying medium, I nonetheless desired something a little better than a home made pinhole camera for my tentative entry to the world of black headcloths (OK, my old green Scottish wool pullover which is always with me, in my case) and de rigeur tripods. Further, a growing interest in abstract nature photography, spurred by Eliot Porter’s great work, meant that definition in the final image would have to be good. Really good.

I was so completely clueless about the world of large format photography, when I started research I had no idea what a film holder was, and little more than a basic appreciation of the physics of camera movements, tilts, shift and so on. The World Wide Web soon fixed that, especially the splendid site at Large Format photography where many selfless contributors offer a fine education in the basics.

So where to get this contradiction in terms, a top quality, cheap large format camera? Simple. I did what many before me have done when dipping a toe in the waters, and purchased a Graflex Crown Graphic, beloved by many press photographers in the 1940s and 1950s. My $300 got me a pristine camera, a 135mm Schneider Xenar ‘standard’ lens (like a 40mm on 35mm film) and a couple of wooden film holders, each holding two sheets of film. So now I can go on the road and take 4 pictures before ‘reloading’ in a changing bag. Not a big deal. I take few pictures in any case and filmholders can be had for $5-10 each if I need more.

The quality of the camera is a superb meeting of form and function. First, it is unbelievably light, owing to the extensive use of aluminum where it matters. The body is wood covered with leatherette. It is also amazingly compact when folded up. Believe it or not it has a coupled rangefinder with a separate, parallax corrected, viewfinder. And did I mention the night focusing device? So you thought infrared focusing aids started with digital cameras? How about an internal, battery illuminated bulb which, when switched on, projects a light beam on the subject through the rangefinder, alignment of the two beams denoting sharp focus? And, the whole thing being industrial grade, needless to say the bulb in my Crown Graphic worked first time, needing only fresh batteries. It had never been used. The manufacturer’s dummy batteries, in the form of two wooden dowels, resided in the camera on receipt!

It was a matter of two minutes to remove the rangefinder housing, adjust the rangefinder for accuracy and proper image coincidence, and a drop of blue Loctite later I had a focusing aid every bit as good as those to be found on pre-M Leicas. A gentle cleaning of the glasses and mirrors and everything is now crystal clear.

So now I have three Leicas – my M2 German original, my Texas Leica (Mamiya 6) and my Godzilla Leica. Having splashed out a further $5 on a cable release, I’m now wondering where I hid my tripod. I’m trying the whole thing out today at my Top Secret location off gorgeous Highway One. And no, I’m not telling where that is.

There used to be an old rule of thumb with hi-fi gear back in the days of the long playing record that 50% of your budget for an outfit should be for the loudspeakers, these being the weakest link in the chain. Of course, as with photographers, many disregarded this sound guideline, if you pardon the pun, and spent most of their money on the pick-up arm and turntable.

The assumption underlying what follows is that the goal is for prints which are made at a magnification of 12x or more on a consistent basis.

I think there a version of this “rule” which is equally applicable to expenditure on photographic equipment. If we break the process into two components – the front end (camera, film or digital card, lens) and back end (enlarger or scanner and printer) then I’ll bet dollars to doughnuts that most serious photographers spend 80% of their budget on the front end.

This is completely wrong, especially for film-based photography where processing is much more important than with digital. The best way I can think of solving the equation is to look at the back end first, because there is less to choose from there.

A dedicated film scanner for 35mm or medium format, I mean a good dedicated film scanner, will run some $1,000 (35mm) or $2,000 (medium format). For that you get a top quality lens backed by robust mechanicals and software to remove dust and scratches without significantly affecting image quality. In the wet darkroom, the cost is similar – you need a good lens and enlarger. A good enlarger runs $1,000 to $2,000 with a lens adding $200-300. Sure you can spend less but you get a poor screen, slow speed and modest storage. The digital back-end worker has to add a computer for another $2,000, Photoshop for $800 and a printer for $350 – $600, the latter for a wide-carriage version.

So your back-end for top quality exhibition work with a film front end runs $2,000 to $5,000, with the latter price point easily reached if you work in medium format. The worker using a digital front end saves money on the film scanner, as none is needed.

Yet how often do you read film users saying “My flat bed scanner does just fine on all film sizes”, this invariably written by someone who has never seen a good scan from a dedicated film scanner? Their mega dollar front end is being processed though mush. Quality in, garbage out.

So, with a back-end running $2,000 to $5,000 that leaves the quality oriented photographer a like sum, adopting the 50/50 Rule, for the front end. That sort of sum buys you just about anything you need.

Moral of the story? A cheap back end makes your camera into a Box Brownie, even if it says Hasselblad on the label.

Beware of the Leica camera. It starts as a romance. Soon, it is an affair. Before you know it, flirtation blossoms into passion. Finally, it settles into infatuation. The four stages of a lifetime relationship.

Someone one asked me why I use a Leica when all around use an SLR. Why film when digital is the standard? Fast, instant results, low cost. My glib reaction was not unlike that of the Ferrari driver. “If you have to ask, you do not get it.” But that is no answer.

In truth, it is hard to explain an irrational attraction to this wonderful machine, the Leica camera. After all, it just takes pictures, right? It cannot do close-ups, right? And what is that you say? You have to process then scan the film? Ugh! Worse, like all infatuations, it can get dangerously expensive, no?

Then again, why even bother with this antiquated technology, unless it is some sort of affectation, a preference to live in the past, some perverse desire just to be different?

The SLR is superior in so many ways. A huge range of lenses. You bet. Automatic focus? Naturally. Shake reduction? You got it. Extreme zoom range? But of course. Macro capability? Every one has it. Motor drive? Would that be three or six shots per second, sir? Digital? Hard to get anything else today. Several hundred or thousand pictures a roll? Standard. Instant gratification? Naturally. 5, 10 or 15 megapixels? Take your choice.

However, maybe yours is a quieter world, eschewing the crass vernacular that is modern life. You value performance and results, not promises and looks. You appreciate iPods and cell phones as much as the next person. They are just not you.

Then you have one of those flashbacks. And all is clear as memories created with that ever present, sweet, speedy, silent Leica come flooding back.

Spring in Paris was especially welcoming that year, the air with that indefinable smell. Beauty, culture, women, food. The couture attired lady and her cocker glance up at you for the briefest of moments, unaware that their image has already been recorded. The spectator looks curiously at her friend, the latter surveying the nude on the wall of the Louvre with unusual interest, captured in an instant. The morning promenaders in the Jardin de Tuileries caught just so. A fraction of a second later and the scene is gone, its denizens no longer perfectly arranged like some latter day Seurat canvas.

Summer in San Francisco. The old man makes his way along the narrow sun lit street. Echoes of Edward Hopper’s lonely city abound in the lazy afternoon sun. He does not even know you took his picture, yet you were all of a few feet away. The little boy in the back of the pick-up in Union Square, lost in wonder, is another easy catch, before the swirl of traffic whisks him away. Did you take that? No, it took itself.

Autumn in New York. The sky has the pallor of cold cream. You are on walkabout, just for fun. Maybe something interesting will crop up. Then there it is. The huge Yogi Bear balloon overhead. It’s Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade. Click. You are enjoying your warming drink in one of those cozy Madison Avenue coffee shops, when a red flash catches the corner of your eye. No time to think. The soft, instantaneous camera shutter is released even before the viewfinder is at the eye. That blurred umbrella will forever say Autumn in New York. Clouds of steam emanate seemingly from his head, as the rain-coated man makes his way down Park Avenue, shoulders hunched, hands buried deep in his Burberry to stave off the cold. You take the picture without even thinking, focusing a matter of a moment, exposure second nature. You are in direct contact with what you see. No mirror, no motors, no flashing lights. Just a simple viewfinder. I am a camera.

Winter in London. The light is, well, London light. Gloom, rain, depression. Yet click, the girl in the railcar is caught, the iris unthinkingly turned to full aperture, the shutter as slow as you dare, too quiet to arrest her slumber. Hope that one comes out, you think. And of course it does. The little boy marches behind the band down Pall Mall, stretching his legs as far as he can. A young man in the making. Click. He is yours for ever. The dowager outside the Rolls Royce showroom gives you an icy stare. How dare you, she is thinking. Too late. Got her!

That ubiquitous Leica, quiet, unassuming, its amateur looks aiding the whole deception of invisibility, its petite size making sure that it is your constant companion, it is a machine that transcends time and technology. Not very good at lots of things at which its marvelous technological superiors excel. One day it, too, will be digital, with all the advantages that storage medium offers. And it will be fast. But it will never pretend to be a Swiss Army Knife for it knows one thing.

It is there for the moment that it alone can capture. And it is always with you.