Hand-Held 8x10

[David_5527]

Thanks for all the nice comments and replies. Question: How is the Hobo different then shooting any other 8x10 field camera with a 120mm lens - with the shortest distance from the lens to the film plane (In other words, bellows compressed) at f16 and keeping distance from subject enough to keep it sharp? Is it?

Sorry if this is a silly question. Last time I did large format was with a 4x5 in school some 15 years ago, but I do have a Speed Graphic 4x5 on my display on my bookcase...Rangefinder on it is broken, but it has a Zeiss lens on it...Guess I should take that out for a spin...

David

[David A. Goldfarb]

The Hobo is a fixed focus camera, but I guess you could have the focus fixed wherever you want it. I think they normally set it at infinity, so the hyperfocal distance at f:16 with a 120mm lens would be about 16 feet.

I've made a handheld setup like this with my ultralight Gowland 8x10" Pocket View (go to www.petergowland.com and click on "Their Cameras") to use with a 120mm lens and a pistol grip like the Sinar Handy, and it has two focus positions--infinity and 8 feet. I haven't used it much yet, because I still need to make an ultrawide viewfinder for it.

Maybe you could add a focusing helical with a scale to a Hobo and have what you are looking for. S. K. Grimes could make the custom helical (www.skgrimes.com), and Bostick and Sullivan could probably work collaboratively with them and design the camera around it, since normally, you would send them your lens, and they would adjust the infinity focus on the camera for it.

[gang zhao]

Why don't you try a Cambo Wide/Wide DS or a Sinar Handy, David? I use Cambo Wide to do the work similar with yours. If you slide some 4x5 inch fine-grain film in DDS, the images are outstanding and easily been enlarged to quite large size photos.

[Allen]

Why not look at the Gowlandflex, http://www.petergowland.com/camera/
Its a twinlens 4x5 that can be hand held weighs 5 lbs and take lenses from 180mm to 300 mm.

[paulr]

did you find out what nick nixon uses?
he's gotten beautiful, natural results doing this with 8x10. seems like he's been doing it for decades.

[Oren Grad]

Paul - Nick Nixon is a "serial monogamist" when it comes to cameras. Periodically he switches cameras, but so far as I know, at any given time uses only one in any given format. I believe that at various points he's used 8x10 cameras made by Gowland, Phillips, Wisner and Canham, at the very least. I'm sure there have been others.

[David_5527]

Yes. Nick Nixon has always been one of my heroes as far as documentary photographers-I saw him speak once, in person, at photo school when he was on a Kodak tour - I remember him talking about how he uses the "lightest 8x10 cameras and lenses...I thought he shoots 8x10 only and does contact prints...His work is truly inspiring - how he captures these spontaneous moment whilst shlepping around this big-ass camera! Would love to hear what he actually shoots with...

David

[Roger Richards]

Hi David, these folks here have been a big help to me in my LF travels of late. The advice you have received is sound. I have a 4x5 camera and just got a Mamiya 7 to compliment it. Big difference from 35mm, and from the EOS 1ds. Drop me a line, hope the doc is going well. I just got another DVX100A.

[Matt Powell]

It might be worth looking into David Burnett, who covered the 2004 American Presidential campaign with a Speed Graphic (I know nothing about the lens he used, I think I read it was a super-fast Kodak design?), though his closest subject distances aren't as close as your previous work.

[John Z.]

Another option is the hand-held Littman camera, which was recently reviewed elsewhere on the forum. I have not used one personally though-and they are expensive. I have used the Gowland 5x7, which actually creates an image of about 4x6. It is not that easy to hand hold though. I keep going back to my medium format Rollei, although on the other hand the beauty of a contact print keeps bringing me back to the larger camera. There is always a trade off between negative size and the ability to take pictures spontaneously.