ACTUAL Camera Weights

[Ralph Barker]

"I don't even try to carry . . . I let my wife do it."

Eugene, your intelligence is exceeded only by your salesmanship and diplomacy skills. ;-)

Kerry - great idea for the thread. I'm capturing the weight responses into an HTML table, and will forward it to Tuan, once the responses die down, for inclusion on the main info page (along with the caveat that "actual" weights are as measured by the contributing members).

[Oren Grad]

For those with laboratory experience: I should have said that my postal scale allows me to weigh objects less than 5 lbs with both accuracy and precision, while for objects in the range of my bigger cameras (all < 20 lb) my bathroom scale, alas, offers neither accuracy nor precision.

In nitpicking bliss...

[Kerry L. Thalmann]

One of the enigmas that I have noticed is when backpack hiking outdoor photographers go to great length to choose the lightest weight 4x5 large format camera they can find, then insist on using huge lenses, mounted in Copal 3 shutters, with that camera.

Eugene,

I agree. It's the old addage - watch the ounces and the pounds will take care of themselves. This is the exact reason I have an entire section of my web site devoted to lightweight lenses:


http://www.thalmann.com/largeformat/lightwei.htm

It's also why I have a separate set of lightweight lenses that I use specifically for backpacking. When backpacking, most of the lenses I carry are in Copal No. 0 shutters and weigh less than 200 grams. The heaviest lens I carry backpacking is the 300mm Nikkor M at 270g (9.5 oz.) My typical 4 lens backpacking kit consists of:

90mm Congo WA - 145g

135mm APO-Sironar-N - 185g

200mm Nikkor M - 180g

300mm NIkkor M - 270g

When I want to go REALLY light, my three lens set consist of:

90mm Congo WA - 145g

150mm Germinar-W - 130g

9½" Red Dot Artar - 180g

For total of 455g (16 oz.) - less than the weight of the typical 210mm f5.6 plasmat.

All of these lenses take 52mm, or smaller, filters - which also means smaller lighter filters. A smaller lighter camera and lenses also permits the use of smaller, lighter tripod and head. And, all this smaller, lighter gear means a smaller lighter pack to carry it in. While the savings on each item may just be a few ounces here and a half pound there, it all adds up. Where I used to take 25 lbs. of camera gear on backpacking trips, I now carry less than 15 pounds - and that includes all my camera gear, tripod, enough film to last 4 - 6 days, and the pack I carry it in. The sub-15 pound kit I now carry is actually more versatile than the 25 lb. kit it has gradually replaced.

Again, we've drifted from the original topic, but hopefully someone will find this discussion useful.

Kerry

[Jason Greenberg Motamedi]

Canham 4x5/5x7 Wooden Field Camera: Advertised weight = 2720 g (6 lb)

Actual weight with 5x7 Back and BosScreen = 2906 g (6.4 lb)
Actual weight with 4x5 Back and BosScreen = 2897 g (6.2 lb)

"Actual weights" measured without lensboard, quick-release or ground glass protector.

[tim atherton]

Phillips 8x10 Compact II

List Weight 8.1lbs

My Camera's weight 8.2lbs (includes RRS Arca plate I don't want to remove)

Also bear in mind the Phillips' design often varies slightly from production run to production run

[CXC]

Here's my four, with mfgr's weight in (parens). Weights are in pounds.

4x5 Gowland All Moves (with 1 rail) = 3.16 (n/a).

4x5 Walker Titan = 6.33 (6.38).

5x7 Toho (with the standard short rail) = 5.28 (5.50).

8x10 Wehman = 9.06 ( 8.70).

Note the Gowland is a late model, looks like the current one on the website. I used to have an earlier model that weighed considerably less, in the realm of 2 pounds, but I opted for greater weight so I could standardize on (heavier) Technika lensboards. It still basically weighs nothing.

I would like to encourage owners of already-listed cameras to go ahead and weigh theirs, and report here if the results are noticeably different. TIA.

[Nicholas Fiduccia]

Ebony 45S in mahogony: 4 lbs exactly (to the nearest oz)

[neil poulsen]

To Oren: You can always take the camera apart and weigh each piece.

[Bill_1856]

You'll find my post on photo.net large format forum of the weights of 4x5 Pacemaker Speed, Crown, Busch Pressman, Super Graphic, and Linhof Technika.

[Jim Rice]

Okay, I went to the post office this morning and asked the nice man if he would weigh my camera. 4x5 Wisner Technical Field (I suspect an early one, s/n 120x ) advertised- 6 1/2 pounds, measured-6 pounds 13 ounces.