PhotoScapes

A Personal Travel and Photography Blog by Alexander T. Blumenau

Latest Articles

Easter Rambling on the Rocks - Die Bastei

For this year’s Easter Sunday we had a very early start to travel to the “Sächsische Schweiz”, a region in […]

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Some winter weeks at Nikkaluokta

Similar to last year, I spent some weeks in and around the small settlement of Nikkaluokta in Swedish Lapland to work/help […]

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Addicted to Sápmi – Lapland Again

People often ask me, what drives me to visit Sápmi (called Lapland by some), in particular the regions North of […]

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Featured Series: Venturing into Large Format

A step by step account of the setting up and first experiences with a wooden field camera.

This series gives a personal account of my first steps with setting up a large format Tachihara wooden field camera.

The series is useful for every beginner in large format photography as it covers aspects, such as the choice of the camera, what further equipment is actually needed, and how to set up the camera and operate it.

Some details of the camera (a Tachihara 45F) and of  the lenses (in particular the Schneider Kreuznach Symmar 5,6/150 convertible) are shown and explained.

An illustrated list of typical beginner’s mistakes and problems is included as well. After all, operating an analogue field camera is considerably less fool-proof than operating a modern digital camera.

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