Not Your Average Point and Shoot
I stumbled upon this guy on my way to photograph sunset, look at the size of that camera! It captures a 20 x 24 inch image.
I was in a hurry, and I didn’t want to pester the guy as he set up, but I had to ask a few questions.
First I asked if I could take his picture, I guess the answer was obvious. For film, he told me he was using print paper - I suppose they don’t make Velvia in this format. The print must have incredible detail, although I don’t know how he would print it larger, that would be an expensive scan!
That was is a 1200mm lens; he estimated it was about the equivalent of 80mm for someone using 35mm film. In other words, barely a little telephoto. By comparison, I have been using 1200mm to photograph the tiny hummingbird nest on the last two posts. It obviously isn’t intended for wildlife. 
I wished I had asked the guy his name, but I probably would have forgot it. Hopefully I will bump into him again while in Borrego, I’m sure he would be interesting to talk to, I would love to see a print from this camera and learn more about the guy.
Here is the other side of the camera
February 27th, 2008 at 5:22 am
I won’t complain anymore about how heavy my gear is at times!
One of the things I love so much about traveling is all the stumble-upons. We used to go out to the Black Rock Desert a lot. Each time we went out there, we stumbled upon the strangest things. Probably the strangest incident was the time we were coming back from a sunset shoot. We were driving down this dirt road after dark and stumbled upon a man lying in the middle of the road on his mattress, with his dog and a gun by his side. He had rolled his truck and told us if someone hadn’t come along soon, he was going to end everything.
Naturally, we rescued him and took him into town. The next day when he was sober, we got to meet him at the scene. He was very grateful and glad to have a chance to thank us.
I love the desert!
February 27th, 2008 at 8:04 am
Wow Sherri, that is a crazy story! Glad you came along when you did. The desert is cool.
February 27th, 2008 at 8:08 am
Was he photographing the sun, Ron?
Love the exhaust manifold on top of the camera…
February 27th, 2008 at 8:53 am
Funny, I also saw a guy with a similar camera in Central Park, New York on Sunday. Of course, his was not that impressive, I think it was about 1/10th of the size of the one you saw, but still, I was not aware that some people were actually still using these
February 27th, 2008 at 2:26 pm
Hey Kris, I bet the guy you saw was shooting a 4×5 - they are still pretty popular with landscape photographers.
February 27th, 2008 at 9:14 pm
That is incredible Ron. Looks like he is pushing around a shopping cart!
hopefully you can meet him again and find out his story.
February 28th, 2008 at 1:18 am
Just looked up the 4×5 because I had no idea what it was and indeed that’s it
February 28th, 2008 at 5:10 am
Ron,
I think that is Cat Stevens!
Joe
February 28th, 2008 at 7:05 am
That is funny Joe.
Fullerton isn’t too many hours from here - had I planned ahead, it would have been fun to run over there and visited. You aren’t still there are you?
Ron
February 28th, 2008 at 7:47 am
Ron,
Nah, I’m back in beautiful and balmy Iowa doing scholarly things. Coincidentally, a Cat Stevens song is playing on my computer right now. Hopefully, we will make to AK in the next couple of years and get together so you can tell my kids how awesome the Tastee Freez was.
Joe
February 28th, 2008 at 8:42 am
That is a funny coincidence.
I will get Cat to sign an autograph if I see him again.
I hope you are able to get up to Alaska one of these days - I’m sure your kids will be impressed with your TF background!
February 28th, 2008 at 11:56 am
Cat Stevens is considered a terrorist by the U.S. I think.
February 28th, 2008 at 9:29 pm
You know, I think I did read something about that - I wonder if they knew he was hanging out in the desert!
February 28th, 2008 at 10:25 pm
He’s been hiding in the moonshadow.
March 3rd, 2008 at 7:28 pm
Wow, how very cool. Ingenuity at its finest.
March 8th, 2008 at 11:21 pm
Wow! That is pretty cool.
Hopefully someone will surface who this photographer is. It’d be great to see his images and especially his prints.
I would imagine it would be tough to complain about carrying gear after seeing this guy out there.
April 16th, 2008 at 2:14 pm
[…] I spotted this photographer while during our morning stroll in Central Park. I learned from Ron Niebrugge that the camera he is using is a 4×5 large format camera which apparently is still very popular with landscape photographers. It is not as impressive as the one he encountered during his photo shoots though, which you can see in this post on his blog. […]