If you wanted something hand held for portraits, what would you chose and why? I'd like something a little more spontaneous than the usual tripod mounted camera. A Graphlex with the rangefinder? One of the even older Graphlex SLR's? One of the newer Polaroid conversions? Maybe a technical camera? Something I haven't thought of yet?
I'm trying to make up my mind by the end of next week, when I should actually have some money. Thanks for your help!
Mike
Politically, aerodynamically, and fashionably incorrect.
A late model Graflex Crown Graphic with a top-mounted rangefinder and a standard 135/4.7 Xenar lens with the proper focusing cam.
If you want a nicer camera you could get a Linhof Technika, which is more robust and versatile. But it won't make a better photo.
The Polaroid 110 conversions are nice too but for the money, a Crown Graphic is a better value and more robust.
The Graflex SLRs are great but I would wait until a CLA'd one with a Graflock back comes along and that might be awhile.
If you don't need rangefinder or SLR focusing, anything you can rig up with grip means you can just scale focus. Just mark a guide with measurements. Try holding a monorail sideways - it will work!
The Graflex reflex cameras are outstanding portrait cameras. Look at Edward Weston's work for proof. They are heavy enough to be stable and the method of holding them with two hands works far better than a Graphic style camera. While in pharmacy school I must have made over 500 portraits of individuals and couples with one of these wonderful cameras. AS a bonus they came originally with longer focal length lenses which are generally considered better for portraits.The lower angle of view adds strength to the subject.
Do you have any self-portraits demonstrating the technique?Originally Posted by Frank Petronio
I still haven't quite gotten the hang of holding my 3x4 Graflexes steady. At least with a Graphic you can use a cable release to trigger the (very gentle) leaf shutter in the lens, which makes life much easier - no big mirror action, no curtain churning through the camera. I need to practice more with the Graflexes.
Technikas are great, if you don't mind holding 8 pounds or so up to your face. (Cue for Frank to jump in and say you don't have to use the hand grip or the multifocus finder. But even without those, it's still going to be more than 7 pounds with a lens and a holder on board.)
I'm thinking that a 135mm is a little short for the types of portraits I'm thinking of; more head and shoulders than full body. Would the rangefinder on a Graphic allow you to, for example, focus on the eyes as opposed to, say the end of the nose, or is that sort of thing something you'd want an SLR for? Or should I be thinking of taking the full body with a shorter lens (and commensurately greater depth of field) and enlarging and cropping? And, speaking of Graphics and Graphlexes, should I get out of thinking about 4x5 and think more along the lines of 3x4 or so? Maybe 4x5 is too large and heavy for hand holding and a smaller chunk of film would be better? But then, when we get to those sizes, maybe I'm really into medium format territory?
I think I'd like to have something to focus with. My experiences with my Agfa scale focusing 6x6 camera have not been entirely fabulous, although more practice would improve things, I'm sure.
Sorry -- never done much portraiture before. Never really thought much about it. I'm in for a real learning experience, I can tell.
Mike
Politically, aerodynamically, and fashionably incorrect.
the graflex slr is great for portraits
but stand on something, or they will always be pointed "up"
nevermind, you're probably over 5'5" ...
The rangefinder on the graphics is pretty accurate as the baseline is fairly long; with glasses and left eye dominance I find it a bit squinty but can often be as accurate as you suggest. This is one of the reasons Im episodically looking for one of the slrs. They weight in at about 4.5 lb so two hands are required for steadyness unless you bodybuild for a hobby.
If you want to use a longer lens you need to get an appropriate cam for it: goto graphlex.org for more info on this.
Having shot a lot of 4-6 foot distance portraits with Technikas and Crowns, no.... the rangefinder (and parallax) sucks at those distances and it's a crap shoot when you're shooting wide open and want "just the eyes". They really aren't designed to do that close that way anyway.
Most of the people I see who make successful portraits of that type are using Graflexes with slightly longer (190mm) fast lenses. But they have big bouncy mirrors and dim viewing (at least for my middle-aged eyes) so it is still difficult.
Personally speaking, if you want close, sharp, handheld in a larger format - pick two. Your best success rate will still come from a tripod mounted camera and careful gg focusing or fixing a pre-focused position (ie using a string).
I've shot a lot of handheld 4x5. In terms of success rate, a medium format SLR or TLR, or a good DSLR, will trump the large format by a huge rate. Not saying it isn't fun, just be prepared to waste some film.
And Oren, a Technika is great for handheld landscapes and one-offs. The weight gets bad when you try to shoot several sheets, as you might for a portrait, from the same position, height etc.
Oh and just to be complete, you might consider a Gowlandflex 4x5 TLR or a similar Keith or European camera. Not many were made so they are rare, but they would probably be a pretty good compromise for handheld 4x5. No mirror....
The Gowlandflex is pretty unwieldy - that's a Pentax MX for scale...
On my Crown Graphic, the rangefinder is non-existent at those ranges. Waist to head is as close as you can get with RF on the crown. (something like 6 ft, 135mm lens). Knowing what is in the frame is based on experience. In other words: you kind of guess.
I was careful about calibration of the RF, but would never trust it for a wide open shot like that. Mostly, I use flash. It is sort of a performance art thing, more than portraiture.
The trouble is you can't do ground glass focusing and handheld. Not accurately, anyway.
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