New article by Ernest Purdum: Cheap View Cameras

[QT Luong]

A new article by Ernest Purdum,
Cheap View Cameras has been posted. Please feel free to leave any constructive comments on this thread.

[windpointphoto]

Yes, yes yes! It's just a light tight box that holds a lens at one end and film at the other. Buy the best lens you can afford and go make pictures. I've owned expensive and economical cameras and you know what? The pictures with the economical cameras were better. I wasn't worried about damaging the camera. Camera's just a tool; it's a hammer, screw driver or saw. You have to use it to make things. Or you can do like so many, sit and admire it's beauty and brag about it's expense. Oh yes, and argue endlessly over which is best, HC110 or D76.

[GPS]

"It's just a light tight box that holds a lens at one end and film at the other" (Leonard).
Not so, Leonard, not so. If it were so, the expensive beast would never come to be...
Unfortunately, the things are more complicated. The "light tight box" must have their "lens and film end" precisely (read PRECISELY) parallel (in a 0 state) and then even when they move they have to move precisely... It's there where the problems start. Also they have to be rigid and to be that even when they have been moved. And then they must have this precision during their life time, repeatable etc. etc.
You know that all. A camera is far, far away from being a simple hammer ( heck!) a screw driver or a saw. It's a precision machine. Unfortunately. Sure you can have a good picture from a cheap camera. But a precise camera is never cheap because it's made to take a lot of good pictures with no doubts about the result.

[Michael Jones]

A precision machine? Have you ever owned a wooden field camera? Regardless of price, they are a light tight wooden box with a lens at one end and a ground glass at the other so you can see how far out of alignment things really are until until you adjust them. When you want precison, take your Sinar/Linhof/optical bench camera out AFTER its been aligned by its manufacturer's rep. A camera is just a tool and you match your tools to the job.

Ernest: you are absolutely correct. To attract more people into large format, we have to remind them of the learing curve and part of that learning is learning our our own likes, styles and mannerisms by taking many, many photographs. Spend your money on film. Only then do you know which tool your should (or want) to use. The most basic equipment we can use as described in your article is lightyears ahead of Hill & Adamson's equipment and better than anything Weston used. We ( at least I) still haven't matched them.

Mike

[GPS]

"Regardless of price, they are a light tight wooden box" (michael). Wooden box? Have you forgotten all the non wooden cameras? Have you seen the price of non wooden cameras?

[Bill_1856]

A big selling feature for the Graphic View (when new) compared to the Kodak was the excellent built-in tripod head, and may actually be a liability now. Important when buying online -- most don't have the very desirable GRAFLOCK back. Probably the best buy currently in used monorails is the Linhof Kardan Color 45S. These are going for a couple hundred dollars, and are state-of-the-art Linhof quality -- their only "drawback" is that nothing is geared.

[GPS]

Linhof Kardan Color 45 S - absolutely. The non geared back is their advantage today - it lowers their price without giving up the quality. To get to the LF, an amateur is today in a better position than ever - all the relatively cheap monorails that some time ago were just a professional's tools are now available for cheap money. The time of Graphics belongs to the past. If you want to start with a cheap LF get what today's pros throw away.

[Ole Tjugen]

I notice that "gps" has never used a precision hammer for any length of time - or he would have known that a good hammer is not just a lump of metal at the end of a stick.

But it is the same with cameras: An old tailboard camera (or German "Reisekamera") with extremely limited movements is more than good enough for most scenes. Sometimes only a full monorail will do, but it's not the thing to drag into the mountains / icefields / deserts. I would far rather have an old tailboard for that...

The one thing I missed in the article is non-US cameras. Surely there have been cameras made in the rest of the world too? I still use one of my first (and cheapest) cameras, a Linhof Color (not "Kardan", and feel it deserves a place in the list of cheap entry cameras.

[Brian C. Miller]

gps, the only thing on a view camera that needs to be precise is the ground glass to film plane! Everything else moves, swivels, tilts, and goes all over the place. Wasn't there an LF camera ad where the camera was nearly tied in a knot? How much does that precision gearing with degree markings really matter for repeatability? I have never once duplicated any movements between shots. All of them have been unique for the scene, and everything had to be adjusted for the image and not marked angles on geared movements.

[John_4185]

The camera above doesn't loose "precision" because it cannot move; it really IS a "box with a lens and film holder" and focusing mechanism. However, it is not a view camera



Then there's the Boy Hobo, albeit with a focusing dohickie. Also not a view camera.

I know that it is good to have a precision View Camera for production product work. They use a limited (though large) number of setup with anticipable movements.