8x10 For "Street" Portaiture

[Bruce Barlow]

I think anything will work if you streamline your process. Find where the people are, get set up framed, and rough-focused. Drag someone in front of the camera, adjust framing and fine focus, click. In other words, bring the street to you. Just my opinion.

[joedgaia]

Thanks for all the info. I'm in the process of restoring a B&J and I'll use that while I keep my eyes open for a friendlier street camera.

[Alan Gales]

The Intrepid weighs 4.7 lbs and the Ritter weighs 6.4 lbs if you are looking for light weight. I can't think of anything lighter than these two. My Wehman weighs about 8.5 lbs and there was a lighter version made but it was still heavier than the Ritter.

[Drew Wiley]

There are significantly lighter 8x10's; but these are box cameras with little movement other than helical focus, rather than view cameras with standards and bellows. I know someone who uses one handheld. It's a lovely dovetailed mahogany and brass thing resembling an old time box camera with a moderately wide lens, perhaps around 10 inch focal length. It was custom made for him by one of the familiar Chinese companies, but I can't remember which one.

[jp]

Look for a B&J Rembrandt. Fixed front standard so one less thing to adjust. Basically an old fashioned studio portrait camera made a little more compact. Kodak Master View would also be a good choice.

Hard to beat the Ries Tripod for 8x10. Though there are good contemporary tripods, I think a wooden tripod would be part of your charm for working with strangers. More classy and less industrial/techie.

[John Layton]

Sounds like you want something simple, direct, unfussy - and perhaps you really don't need/want all that much in terms of movements.

I would suggest that in doing environmental portraiture...you won't be well served by axial movements - unless the setup is something like a subject placed near a wall and you're taking this obliquely...assuming you'd want this oblique plane in focus and could also accommodate the subject by means of aperture-enabled DOF. Otherwise, your only other consideration might be whatever "ambient" architectural geometry exists within a given frame - and the relative importance of making any desired perspective corrections...which might require lateral (shift, rise, fall) movements. But again, this might be relatively unimportant, and/or you might be seeking to photograph subjects pretty much "straight-on" with the camera basically level...which could mitigate any need for such corrections.

So...perhaps you'd be best served by something with no movements, but which offers some means of adjusting focus - like a helical mounted lens. Such simplicity would certainly translate to better logistics and "visual responsiveness."

Maybe give us some examples of photos you've already taken, or those from other photographers which feel close to what you'd like to achieve.

[Michael Wellman]

This almost sounds like an oxymoron for an 8x10 "bit easier and quicker to dial in" however I think the perfect camera for you may be the Svedovsky 8x10W. It's a non folding field wooden field camera. Weighs 3.5 Kg and cost $1600 new. Beautiful looking camera. http://svedovsky.com/cameras/8x10w-camera/

[Oren Grad]

This almost sounds like an oxymoron for an 8x10 "bit easier and quicker to dial in" however I think the perfect camera for you may be the Svedovsky 8x10W. It's a non folding field wooden field camera. Weighs 3.5 Kg and cost $1600 new. Beautiful looking camera. http://svedovsky.com/cameras/8x10w-camera/

Michael, thanks for adding that. Assuming they're decently built, that's a better example of an affordable non-folding-Ebony alternative than the Shen-Hao I cited up-thread.

[Willie]

https://parasolphotography.wordpress...format-camera/

The Hobo 8x10 takes the gear to minimalist nirvana.

[Tin Can]

I think the Afghan camera is hard to beat. Shoot and develop inside the camera producing a print fairly quickly.

A member did it, Joe ???? lives in the West.

https://www.wired.com/2013/11/afghan...amera-project/