[LargeFormat] Toronto Camera show - report

[Joseph O'Neil]

	The Toronto Historical photogrpahic society held their annual 
trade/swap/vender/whatever you call it show today in Toronto, Canada, just 
north fo the airport.  I have been going for about ten years, eveyr other year.

	Last year  I was a bit disappointed, but this year it seemed pretty 
good.  Lots of junk to be sure, lots of overpriced junk too to be 
sure.  Isn't every camera show the smae however?  :)

	One thing I noticed however is one guy I deal with who specializes  in 
just LF gear, seemed to me to be very busy, at least busier than some of 
the other vendors.  I waws standing in line to buy some stuff, nd the guy 
ahead of me was complaining to the vendor how after about 3-4 years, he was 
sick  to death of digital and wanted to get back into "real " photography 
(my quotes).
	He wasn't the only one either, I heard a couple comments that way.

	Quite a paradox - there seemed to be a ton of used  gear as people move 
into digital, but if you looked carefully, the large format gear was 
sparse, hard to find and expensive when you did find it.
	for exmaple,  tons of enlarging lenses around, good ones too, but almost 
all 50s and 80 and 105s.  Try finding a good 135 or 150 (not that I need 
one), and very few lying aobut.  Also, I was looking to score a few 
lensboards for my spped & grown grpahics.  At one time, you could 
litterally find stacks of them at $5 Cdn  a pop.  That's about $3 US   Now 
hardly anyone has them, and the few I did see were an average of $25 to $40 
Cdn (about $15 to $28 US each).

	I did pick up a pair of old, beat up super speed graphic lensboard, one 
drilled #3, one drilled #4, covered with a top of paint and tape, but after 
some elbow grease and various grades of steel wool, I have two lensboards 
in sizes I wanted (yeah!)

	I guess my point is, while there was a ton  used gear from the rush to 
digital, there is also a signifigant shift the other way too, especially 
into large format.      The shift the other way is not nearly as fast, big 
or noticeable as the rush to digital, but I think all the doomsays 
predicting the death of "traditional" photography - maye it isn't quite 
true.  :)

	The other thing I noticed is, save for the one vendor I was dealing with, 
who is nothing pretty much but LF gear, most of the used LF cameras (and 
there were not that many) looked like they had been through a war or 
more.   Now in MF and 35mm, you saw everthing form complete junk to almost 
mint quality, but not the LF gear, IMO.    Also too, almost all the LF 
cameras were monorails, again, save for the one vendor who had a couple 
horsemen and some speed & crown graphics, almost no "field" cameras in 
LF.    Overhearding other people talk, that's what peopel were askig for.
	Don't get me wrong, it's not liek you had a huge hall full of rabid, 
desperate LF seekign buyers, but I think there has been a noticeable 
shift  at some levels compared to previous years.    Make of it what you will.

	Well two weeks from now the Michigan Historical Photo Socisty has thier 
annual show in Novi (just outside Detriot).  Dunno if I can make it ther, 
but hope to go and see for myself how things are there.
joe



http://www.oneilphoto.on.ca
http://www.multiboard.com/~joneil
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