INTREPID CAMERA 4X5 Gen 2 Users & Reviews

[Daniel Casper Lohenstein]

No, you're wrong. The plywood is a very good material for this application. You abused the camera by getting it wet. There are very few cameras (and no LF cameras that I've ever heard of!) that are completely impervious to getting wet.

If, by chance, you didn't get it wet that would mean that the plywood was defective and Intrepid would repair (in this case meaning replace the plywood bits) the camera for free and cover shipping in both directions. If I understand their warranty correctly, if even you did destroy the camera by getting it wet, you just have to pay to ship it and they'll still repair it for free. Did you even bother contacting them about this?

No. I did not abuse the camera by getting it wet. The kind of defects do not result from getting wet. It's the material and its manufacture.

And no, I don't want to send it back. It's "circular waste of life" and it will never be better because it will be false manufacture on false materials.

In fact, I use the camera extensively and I have no fear to destroy it by letting it on the tripod, in the rain (appearently it's sealed), in the cold etc.

But I also do not have any illusions about the material. It costs 250 Pounds, to come to the point.

[williaty]

No. I did not abuse the camera by getting it wet. The kind of defects do not result from getting wet. It's the material and its manufacture.

And no, I don't want to send it back. It's "circular waste of life" and it will never be better because it will be false manufacture on false materials.

In fact, I use the camera extensively and I have no fear to destroy it by letting it on the tripod, in the rain (appearently it's sealed), in the cold etc.

But I also do not have any illusions about the material. It costs 250 Pounds, to come to the point.

So your claim is that the delamination in your first picture came from the factory that way? Jesus, man, get the damned thing repaired for free and don't complain on the internet about it!

Your 2nd and 3rd pictures are not something to complain about. They're perfectly acceptable.

[Daniel Casper Lohenstein]

@mdarnton: i can live very well with dents and little slivers of wood. But this camera is definitely not a violin. I always thought a violin is made of maple (bottom) and spruce. I play a classical guitar. Plywood is not tonewood.

The Intrepid as light as a violin, it's fragile, too, but it is neither lacquered like a violin nor is it stored in a acclimatized case like a violin. I use it outdoors, in the cold, where I never would take the guitar with me.

But there is a good idea arising from this comparison: perhaps they should lacquer the Intrepid with a more durable synthetic or nitro cellulose lacquer.

So your claim is that the delamination in your first picture came from the factory that way? Jesus, man, get the damned thing repaired for free and don't complain on the internet about it!

Your 2nd and 3rd pictures are not something to complain about. They're perfectly acceptable.

There is no delamination in the first picture. There is a tiny little hole broken out. This tells me about other little holes that will break out, too, tomorrow, in a year? And the dents in the second and third picture came from the factory, too.

I don't think these faults are functional. And I don't complain about the Intrepid. I think it is the perfect tool for hiking and, as others told us, the perfect substitute for a genuine 6x9 camera. It's good with a tripod in the 1-2kg class. But I don't expect it to last forever. I expect to use it for one or two years, to be honest. I will be positively surprised when it lasts longer. I am not disappointed when it breaks down in 2018.

And I don't blame the Brighton team at all. I think they do a great job, regrettably with the false material. This is my opinion. It's a pity.

They should offer the solid wood option with a good lacquer, not only the prototypical version.

[AuditorOne]

As a "Wista 45N" and a "Brand 17" user I don't have to be educated about wooden materials ... Altough I use a Berlebach tripod made of solid wood because of its vibration damping ...

Asked whether I prefer to compensate a defocus on the ground glass after 25 years of use or to search a dissolving birch plywood camera after a dozen shots everywhere in my rucksack, I prefer the first option:

Attachment 172996Attachment 172997Attachment 172998

The Intrepid is definitely wonderful but made of poor material. It's a pity, they waste all efforts, time, skills and excellent ideals on poor material.

They didn't make the camera out of poor materials, you abused it and now it is starting to do exactly what I said it would, delaminate. Just because you hauled it around in your rucksack does not mean it won't get wet when the rucksack gets wet.

Send it back, get it fixed and then treat it better. Or sell it to someone who will treat it better and then continue on using your other cameras. At least Intrepid will fix it for you. I am pretty sure Chamonix would charge you quite a bit to repair those damages.

But don't run down the Intrepid because you have mistreated it.

I would laugh if it weren't so sad. What a mess.

I have hauled mine all over the place for the past two years, on my back an in my truck, and it has held up wonderfully.

Earlier you asked me if I were needled. I wasn't then but I am now.

[Daniel Casper Lohenstein]

They didn't make the camera out of poor materials, you abused it and now it is starting to do exactly what I said it would, delaminate. Just because you hauled it around in your rucksack does not mean it won't get wet when the rucksack gets wet.

Send it back, get it fixed and then treat it better. Or sell it to someone who will treat it better and then continue on using your other cameras. At least Intrepid will fix it for you. I am pretty sure Chamonix would charge you quite a bit to repair those damages.

Arthur Schopenhauer once wrote a book named "The World as Will and Representation" ...

I did not abused the camera. The fault came fresh from the factory. I did not hauled it around in my rucksack. I enveloped it in a Novoflex bluewrap / stretchwrap made of blue neopren. The camera was packed separately with three other lenses in boards, all af them separately packed in one bluewrap per lens. There was a Gossen Profisix with Profispot, packed in another bluewrap, and there were 10 Riteway filmholders 1284, all together packed in the last bluewrap.

All these packages were packed in a Mammut Couloir 45 rucksack, with a Berlebach and a isolated bottle of hot tea on the outside. On the bottom of the rucksack, there were a pocket rocket with gas canister and a real, original french cassoulet with some real french baguette (a "flûte", cut in two pieces). So there was not much place to haule someting around. And everything was well packed.

This kind of backpacking is the real pupose this camera was made for. In the past, before the bluewrap came out, I had buckskin clothes to wrap the gear in. I wrapped everything, for ages.

On this tour it did not rain at all. My rucksack did not get wet. And the fault on the camera, picture one, is not delamination but a hole, where a piece of the plywood broke out when the camera was in production.

So, calm down please, AuditorOne. I don't want to attack you, sorry - but you are not an "Indignado", aren't you.

The original poster asked whether anybody else had an Intrepid. This means to me that he wanted to hear our opinions. Now, as far as I understood, you suggested to use it like every other gear not made from plywood. I agree with you. One must not abuse the gear. But I also pointed to my opinion, that plywood is not a worthy representative of the efforts of the producers.

Happy christmas to you.

[AuditorOne]

Arthur Schopenhauer once wrote a book named "The World as Will and Representation" ...

I did not abused the camera. The fault came fresh from the factory. I did not hauled it around in my rucksack. I enveloped it in a Novoflex bluewrap / stretchwrap made of blue neopren. The camera was packed separately with three other lenses in boards, all af them separately packed in one bluewrap per lens. There was a Gossen Profisix with Profispot, packed in another bluewrap, and there were 10 Riteway filmholders 1284, all together packed in the last bluewrap.

All these packages were packed in a Mammut Couloir 45 rucksack, with a Berlebach and a isolated bottle of hot tea on the outside. On the bottom of the rucksack, there were a pocket rocket with gas canister and a real, original french cassoulet with some real french baguette (a "flûte", cut in two pieces). So there was not much place to haule someting around. And everything was well packed.

This kind of backpacking is the real pupose this camera was made for. In the past, before the bluewrap came out, I had buckskin clothes to wrap the gear in. I wrapped everything, for ages.

On this tour it did not rain at all. My rucksack did not get wet. And the fault on the camera, picture one, is not delamination but a hole, where a piece of the plywood broke out when the camera was in production.

So, calm down please, AuditorOne. I don't want to attack you, sorry - but you are not an "Indignado", aren't you.

The original poster asked whether anybody else had an Intrepid. This means to me that he wanted to hear our opinions. Now, as far as I understood, you suggested to use it like every other gear not made from plywood. I agree with you. One must not abuse the gear. But I also pointed to my opinion, that plywood is not a worthy representative of the efforts of the producers.

Happy christmas to you.

You are correct Mr. Lohenstein. I should not attack you. For that I apologize.

I do hope you enjoy your Christmas.

[JoeV]

FYI, my Intrepid came shipped to me with various edges and corners already chipped off. So far, these are merely cosmetic defects and don't effect the camera's operation. But they are due to the nature of laminated wood. For the price I don't expect cherry wood and brass. But realistically, a better material could have been chosen.

[rbiemer]

I've had my Intrepid just about 6 months now. And it is my first LF camera. Which meant, for me, that I did not have any experience or practice with any other LF cameras--except some foam board pinhole cameras I've made over the years. My decision to buy the Intrepid rather than some other camera was based on a confluence of things: Absolutely price was a major consideration, I also wanted a new camera. The light weight was another very appealing point of the Intrepid. Added to that was my ongoing attempt to get to a minimalist approach to my photography and the last piece of the puzzle, as it were, was my discovery of the Stearman daylight tank for 4 x 5.

All of those things coming together for me in the early part of this year meant that for just under $500 I have all the "stuff" I need to be shooting 4 x 5. 35mm or MF has cost me rather a bit more.

I'd not seen the Kickstarter campaign for the Intrepid so I have the 2nd gen camera and I think that they have set out to answer a fairly specific need and are doing it well. As I see it, they are making a good, relatively inexpensive way into LF photography.

The single thing that I was not thrilled about with Intrepid has nothing to do with the actual camera but I would have been happier if their stated lead times were closer to reality. I have said elsewhere that I do appreciate that the company took the approach to take the time necessary to make the camera rather than making the camera worse to be able to meet the lead time.

Rob

[mdarnton]

Regarding lead time, I think people forget that the original 8x10 camera plan was for a tenth of the cameras that were finally ordered, calling for an entirely different level of tooling and production than they originally planned, and a new facility. I think they're doing amazingly well trying to keep to something like the original timetable, with just a few months of delay. I know that some selfish person who cares nothing for the people around them is going to think "me first", and I don't have anything to say to that, except to offer condolences to the people who have to live with them.

[Max Grew]

Hello, Max from Intrepid here,

haven't chimed in on this thread for a while so thought I would explain a little bit about the choice of wood and some other bits that have been discussed recently in this thread. Birch Plywood is by all means a modern marvel of engineering, it is however not perfect and can split or chip during manufacturing, particularly on the CNC router, we are constantly honing our process to improve this though and as was mentioned before, if anyone has a part that is not working, no matter the cause, we will replace it for free, we only ask you to cover the cost of shipping if the problem was your fault. Its a very simple warranty system that means everyone gets a working camera, and to be honest thats all we want.

Birch Ply is often a little miss-understood as materials go, it is incredibly strong, rigid and when coated properly (like we do) water resistant. from a structural point of view it is pretty much the perfect wood to build a large format camera from. However this is not the only reason we use it, we produce cameras out of large sheets of material 4ft x 8ft or 1220mm x 2440mm, this is incredibly efficient as it allows us to make many cameras simultaneously out of the same sheet of wood. With out this production method Intrepid would not be able to make the cameras so affordably and we would not exist as a company. Producing cameras from these large sheets is the only way we can do what we do, so this limits us to a few materials that come in these sheet sizes, things like, MDF, OSB, Delrin, HDPE, Aluminium, and Birch Plywood, then you have to look at price and weight of each material, so that leaves you with MDF, OSB or Birch Plywood, well I think now you will be able to see why our cameras are made from Birch Ply. Its an excellent material and ticks every box for us.

I will keep an eye on this thread for a few days if anyone has any other questions,

Best, Max