A long time ago I read an article about a guy that had a 8x10 that was hand holdable and I think a simple fixed, focus lens. I think it was hand made. I thought that was cool. Not what your looking for but still. I wish I could find that article.Originally Posted by joedgaia
Willie - "Minimalist Nirvana" - great phrase! Love it! Can I use it? Tell you what...if I can use this, you can use one of my favorites: "Epiphany Junkie."
These threads never peter out until every single brand and type from 1860 to present are touted to be just exactly what you need.
My help will be to think ahead about what lenses you will eventually want to use. Weight and mass come into play once you leave the f5.6 plasmat world behind. Look at my pages when you have time to waste. Most of the work is done with lenses that none of the cameras mentioned so far will tolerate. Perhaps that's not really an issue. If a 14" Commercial Ektar is going to be your go-to lens, almost anything mentioned will work. However if you're dreaming of a 16" Kodak Portrait lens, the field is narrowed down to one or two cameras.
My old workhorse is Kodak 2D. Packard shutter dwells inside the camera ready for anything I can put up front. I can throw it up and be focusing a picture in about 3 minutes flat. Some of that is from long use and familiarity. It's like an old pair of shoes.
One from this past weekend with the rear group only of a 14 1/2" Verito at 27" focus.
A few years ago before I had the Toyo 810MII field camera, I took a Toyo 810G mounted on a Manfrotto 475B tripod and placed on a Davis & Sandford Universal Dolly from the car to the sea wall at Fisherman's wharf to photograph the wharf area. It was about 3 blocks from the car to the location and the pavement along the way was broken and uneven requiring a firm grip at the center of gravity to prevent the camera from toppling over when going over the bumps and dips but once on even pavement it rolled easily but firm grip at the center of mass is highly recommended. Once on location making minor adjustments are a snap and the wheels lock in place. If I was going to do "street photography" with the 810, I'd use the same set-up if the location was "fixed.". In fact, with a sturdier dolly I'd even consider "walking around" with the camera all set-up if I wasn't concerned with being as discreet as possible.
Thomas
I'm happy that my inquiry has resulted in such spirited dialogue. I have an affinity for photographing people in their natural habitat. Most of my personal work is taken with an A7r2 or 3 or Hasssy SWC or Leica but I want to go back to my view camera days for the challenge as well as the sense of craftsmanship. I used to own a Kodak D2 and like some of the cars I've bee graced to own in my past, I regret parting with it. I currently have a Wollensak 159mm and a 300/500 convertible lens. I'm in the process of restoring the B&J and will post some photos in a week or so.
Look at the work of Greg Miller.
https://www.gregmiller.com
His 8x10 "street" work is wonderful.
I give up 71 or 72 Nova?
I had a 78 Nova 2 door Hatchback. Biggest hatch ever, made it a camper.
I have an 8x10 Hobo. By size, weight and shape it's arguably hand-holdable, even allowing for the weight of a film holder stuffed in the back. But there are a few challenges with that in practice. First, mine was built for the 120 Super Angulon, which I think was standard for the camera; I know there's also at least one out there that was built for the 90 Angulon (yes, you get an almost-circular image on a black background with that). That's either ultrawide or superduperultrawide - not what people normally think of for portraiture, though there's nothing wrong with doing things differently if it works for you. Second, the camera as sold is fixed focus, though you can shim the focus for something closer than hyperfocal distance for your chosen aperture. The workaround would be to tie a string of the right length to the camera and use that to position yourself relative to your subjects. Third problem, if you want to have a prayer of covering the whole sheet with the 120, is that you really want to stop down to f/45. It's also good to stop down for a bit of insurance against focus error, especially if you intend to enlarge. But even with ISO 400 film there are few conditions where you'll have a hand-holdable shutter speed with f/45 as your aperture. If you use a center filter to compensate for the extreme falloff, forget it entirely. But again OTOH, if you don't mind doing things differently you could work at a larger aperture and accept the falloff and the focus errors.
FWIW, I had SK Grimes add a focusing helical to mine, and then I installed a real ground glass in place of the crude original plastic screen that really wasn't intended for critical focusing and composing. I've only ever used mine on a tripod - at $4 per sheet just for the film plus the additional cost and effort in processing, I'm just not interested in the inevitable low yield of usable negatives that I would get from hand-held use. But if you are game for ultrawide, it's certainly going to be as quick a setup as you'll ever see for an 8x10 - nothing whatsoever to unfold or rack out - just pop it on the tripod, pull off the lens cap and you're ready to go.
And of course, a Hobo is just a nicely-finished box. So even though they're tough to find these days, you could build one yourself if you're handy, or else you should be able to commission one from a camera builder for a whole lot less than it would cost to build a full-featured camera with bellows, focusing bed and collapsing design.
+10...
Once into 8x10 lenses-optics often dictate the camera type far more than the choice of camera dictating lens-optics to be used.
This could be a carry over from smaller camera format mind-set where the camera is the first consideration with the lenses-optics secondary.
Reality is once into 8x10 or larger, the choices of lenses-optics becomes limited as has been discussed with budget wide angle lenses for 8x10 ( IMO, wide angle for 8x10 is 150mm_ish, not medium wide or about 200mm). On the longer focal length end, telephoto design longer focal length lenses are preferred even if they do not have the optical performance of "process lenses" and similar. Which tends to limit the focal length range to about 250mm to say 450mm being most common and reasonable for 8x10. Typical focal length for 8x10 runs 12" to 14". Given these limits, and taking aperture requirements, this can decide the camera best suited for Street Photography.
With all this focus on Camera, or lens, there are other items that must be considered like tripod and how the stack of 8x10 film holders are going to be safely stored and transported. Then the small but absolutely required items, light meter, GG magnifier, dark cloth or similar, cable release, filters (if needed) and.... including the transport case.
All of a sudden the light weight street foto 8x10 camera becomes a fraction of what is required to make images on 8x10 film.
Bernice
The mention of carrying film holders reminds me of what I do: both FedEx and UPS make express boxes that are perfect for toting 8x10 holders. They hold three wood ones, and I strap a fourth to the back of my Intrepid as a ground glass protector, wrapping with my dark cloth, then strapping. All of that, plus two lenses, fits in a large messenger bag. A Manfrotto 055 is adequate for the Intrepid, and there you have a street-portable rig for what the OP wants to do. And it doesn't have "steal me" written all over it.
Thanks, but I'd rather just watch:
Large format: http://flickr.com/michaeldarnton
Mostly 35mm: http://flickr.com/mdarnton
You want digital, color, etc?: http://www.flickr.com/photos/stradofear
Posting Permissions
Reply With Quote
Bookmarks