Topic: Unprecedented spending

[Francois]

Yesterday, I discovered an antiques shop I didn't know about. I entered the store, went around and found in a small curio a stack of eight Riteway 4x5 Graphic double darkslides... now, I think you can anticipate what's coming up. I looked at them. They're the plastic type. The hinge tapes are in good shape. They're cruddy but it's nothing a good scrub can't fix. There's a price on them. It says 3$ each. I ask the guy how much if I take them all. He starts counting. 3$ times 8 equals 24$. He looks at me and says 15$ if you take them all. I look at the pile and do the untinkable: I pull out my wallet and hand him a 20$ bill. He hands me back a 5$ bill and gets a plastic bag to put them in. 

Now, I'm home and completely stoked. I have a stack of film holders in my darkroom. I paid only 1.88$ each. I cleaned them with a toothbrush and a magic eraser. I have a Graflex. I have two mounted lenses. I have a big tripod.

I'm quite proud of the setup. I paid almost nothing for everything. The camera, lenses and tripod came from a box of miscellaneous stuff I bought almost 20 years ago. I even think I beat a record for the cheapest large format setup in the world.

Weeeeeeeeeeeee!

[Thom Stone]

I would love to say yes but personally I have'nt grown the necessary man equipment to fork out for some LF gear yet. but by the sounds of the minimal outlay, I would say yes! and I would also say you can afford a good few boxes of film from the money you have saved on the film holders alone!

[Francois]

I just did a rough calculation of the total cost of my kit... I'm scared that if I write it I'll make a bunch of jealous Filmwasters.

As for the weight issue, I might have to modify an old roller type suitcase to serve me as a transportable bag.

[jojonas~]

congrats! oh man, LF is exciting...
you got any plans on what type of film you want to try out in it?

[Late Developer]

Strangely enough, Francois, I also got a bargain with my MF kit - but nothing on the same scale as yours. I bought a Wista 5x4 field camera including a 150mm lens for less than the price of another Wista body in the same shop - purely on the basis that the one I boght had a locking nut missing off one of the struts. £0.20 ($0.35) later, I'd bought a nut that would do the job from a local hardware store and, voila, had a fully-functioning camera.

A friend of mine (a pro photographer) had a load of dark slides doing nothing as he now uses nothing other than Canon digital and Hasselblad for his work, so I bought those + 2 boxes of out of date Ektar 100 and a box of out of date Portra 160 for £10.

Where you and I diverge is that you probably know what you're about with 5x4. I'm one of those saddo's who "has all the gear but no idea". So, this summer is learn 5x4 time......

[Heather]

I just did a rough calculation of the total cost of my kit... I'm scared that if I write it I'll make a bunch of jealous Filmwasters.

As for the weight issue, I might have to modify an old roller type suitcase to serve me as a transportable bag.

Wouldn't worry about it, I'm fairly sure I'm also in the cheap LF category.

How I carry around my LF kit is... a small bag/satchel for the film holders, loupe, and light meter. Medium backpack for the actual camera and the darkcloth. Carry tripod with one free hand. I look fairly locked and loaded but it's not too awkward for public transport in London then (those roller cases are the bane of public transport at times, like whenever you encounter lots of stairs....)

[John Robison]

Deals are where you find them. Last summer I found a box jumbled photographic stuff 4 blocks from my house at a garage sale. The whole box was $5 and contained 2 full 100 sheet cartons of Kodak 8X10 B&W RC paper, assorted darkroom stuff and.....6 like new Riteway 4X5 film holders. This has pushed me to get into large format. I mean, well, after all I had the film holders didn't I, couldn't just let them sit in a drawer.

[Francois]

Makes me laugh because somehow, I felt like I was on the slippery path to supersizing my gear
You know, the "I need more" phenomenon. More movements, bigger film, and so on.

I called one of the big camera shops in the city and they have packs of 24 sheets of HP5 for 32$. So I'll probably go for this first and see what I can do with it.

So, here's the full kit description to be used for drooling purposes only
-Super heavy Slik SL67 Prototype tripod with braced legs.
-Graflex Crown Graphic. Not in nice shape but works flawlessly.
-Graflex Tele-Optar 250mm f/5.6 lens with a few rubbing marks on the front element. Not a problem. Held on a hand made bent aluminum lensboard using a piece of radiator hose (it came without the locking nut )
-Schneider Xanar 150mm f/4.5 in almost mint condition (missing cable release stop) mounted on a handmade wood and Formica lensboard.
-4x5" Riteway holders.
-Polaroid 545 back... not very useful
-Polaroid Packfilm adapter for 100 series film.

The camera, tripod, lenses and Polaroid backs came from a box of miscellaneous junk I bought at my dad's former job. They held employee sales for their surplus junk. I was the lucky one who found the box with the good stuff

Total cost. You seriously need to sit down right now. Please swallow your sip of tea before reading the rest. I am not responsible for sprayed liquids on your keyboard and screen

Total cost. Drum roll please. Ra-ta-ta-ta-ta: twenty seven dollars.

[Ed Wenn]

Way to go, Francois; that's a VERY appealing price. Congrats! If it was that cheap all the time, more people would give it a go :-)

[Francois]

The funny part is that when I called the camera store, they sell a single box of film for more than I paid the whole setup

I still don't know how I'm going to beat this deal!

[original_ann]

This was all meant to be!  What a major coup!