A fellow at a camera store downtown had this displayed in his window. I have been eyeing it for a couple of years, but be wanted $750 for the camera and stand. Finally, we were in there around my birthday buying Instax film for my daughter, and my wife said I should buy it, so I offered him $500 and he jumped. I took it hope and completely disassembled camera and stand and tuned and tightened everything, then ordered red (my wife's choice) replacement bellows and mounted those.
The camera is large. For scale,the outside dimensions of the box are 14x14. In this picture I have the heavy portrait anastigmat mounted (with its brother 3B waiting) and it looks tiny. It came with a heavy duty studio stand, but overwhelms that as well. All told it has about 30" bellows extension.
It came with with a half-plate (4.5 x 6.5) sliding back, with an integral and removable plate holder, that had an adapter which enables shooting--one sheet at a time--3 1/8 x 4 1/8 sheet film. This will be perfect for wet plate, if I can ever find the chemicals. Here is the sliding back.
That back isn't much use to me at the moment, and I had an old 5x7 back, so I mounted that to a piece of edged plywood, and made a ground glass with some sandpaper. The back can be turned for portrait or landscape. In this picture the 5x7 back is mounted, and looks lost and alone.
I hope to find an old 8x10 back somewhere, and a holder, so I can shoot at least paper negatives or x-ray film. Unfortunately, I'm out of 5x7 film, so I used a 5x7 holder I had converted to 4x5 to shoot some soft focus test pictures (of the teddy bear) with the anastigmat. The camera came with a generic packard, but it is very slow (about 2/3 second), and the lens is fast so I had to shoot in very dim light. Those tests are drying now and I will post later. The brand is S&K, made in Japan:
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