Over the last year, I have largely migrated from film-based cameras to the Canon full-frame digital 5D Mark II.  The quality of the full-frame Canon is amazing and is on par with medium format film.  The primary advantage of digital capture is a much shortened workflow.  In the past, I had to develop the film, scan the negatives (I gave up my darkroom a long time ago), and then finally edit the image.  Scanning the negative often took the most time, especially for medium and large format film.  Now, I pull the image straight off the camera and start editing.  I can actually reproduce the look of film with some special software, so the reality is most people can’t tell if the image was captured digitally or with film.  While I do enjoy the expediency of digital, I have missed the mystery and unique texture of and tonality of black and white film, especially when looking at some of my older images captured with large format film.  You still can’t beat large format film with digital (unless you buy a $50,000 medium format back).  So on a bit of a whim, I started looking about a month ago at a new large format camera, specifically a Linhof Master Technika.

The advantages of a Linhof Master Technika have everything to do with the built in rangefinder.  While this was common among press cameras back in the 1950s (e.g. Graflex), most manufacturers dropped it except Linhof.  The rangefinder allows you to take a photograph without having to look through the ground glass (think old time photographers with the really big camera and a black cloth draped over their head).  This camera really allows you to shoot large format hand held.   It also is one of the most solidly built cameras you will even experience (it weighs 7 lbs without the lens).    In fact, it has the reputation of being one of the more expensive mechanical cameras (digital can be significantly more expensive in comparison) as it is largely hand built in Germany to this day.

So I started searching eBay for a used Linhof.  While not cheap, I found one that was in amazingly near-new shape and just received it last week.  I now am in the process of testing it and getting a few extra accessories.  In fact, I just found a Graflex Grafmatic film cartridge for it (allows you to take multiple shots on large format film fairly quickly).

I now plan to start utilizing the camera for certain projects where I am looking for more depth and detail…  will keep you updated.  I will still be using my digital camera – now the challenge for you is to see if you can tell the difference.