Super Speed Graphic, cool?

[Jim Andrada]

Another thing I like about my Super is that it's easy to pop the folding focusing shade assembly off completely and focus under a cloth - makes it so much easier to use a loupe.

I also have a Crown and honestly I sort of like it better - particularly when I want to use a 75 mm lens as was stated above. Super front tilt is also nice but depressing the silly tabs to release it is a bit fiddly. With the mod that was done to it to use a Linhof hand grip it is easy to use a cable release which seats in the grip - I've never tried to use the electric shutter even though I have a couple of sets of the batteries.

Re cool - I got one of the Graflex flash guns and a few dozen flash bulbs - it works fine and it's great fun to hand the whole thing to a waitress and ask her to take a picture. Sort of like handing a slide rule to a recent engineering grad and watching him try to figure out what it is.

[John Kasaian]

Thanks joselsgil and John.

John, I know Deardorffs are definitely cool but I own a Wehman. Not as pretty but gets the job done. I also own a Tachihara 4x5 in mint- condition which I paid $650.00 brand new. I'm thinking about selling it due to the crazy prices they are going on Ebay lately. A cheap Super Speed is enticing!

Whenever I think of the Supers, I think of---
http://graflex.org/articles/experiences/vacchiano/

[photobymike]

Whenever I think of the Supers, I think of---
http://graflex.org/articles/experiences/vacchiano/

Good article ... but the pictures ech.... like most photographers they over sharpen for the computer screen...

If you want to rotate or get some swings and tilts, there is a cheaper camera used that would fit the need.... Omega or Toyo .. 200 bucks and you can swing and tilt the cows come home... Whatever happen to the right tool for the job... why would you want your Graflex to do everything... where did that mentality come from.. I have a Canon F1 that i wish had a rotating back or could swing and tilt more.... Graflex is a great camera ..had a couple myself... Just cuz its a 4x5 with some features, does not mean it has to work like a Linhof <really great camera ... but big bucks... I just dont understand photographers that pay 300 hundred for a Crown or a Speed and then lament cuz they cant get a the swings and tilts they want.... its a Graflex ... !!

I knew a guy that could fix any car with pliers and a screw diver.... now that guy (Jack Sweet) was an artist....

[John Kasaian]

Come to think of it all Graflex cameras are cool!

[photobymike]

Name another camera that enjoyed the history and longevity as a Graflex. American made; went thru WWII with some of the most iconic images ever taken with any camera. Heck Yea The greatest camera ever made right along with leica .... Its an American icon like Chevrolet apple pie and Baseball ... Graflex used to promote the lader .... John yea Cool Great ....

[Ivan J. Eberle]

The Super Graphic might have been dominant had it come along in '46 instead of '57; but it might also have been upstaged by the Meridian 45C (I've got a prototype) had PK not pulled the marque to re-import Linhofs instead. Coolest, I think, is that these cameras are yet capturing spectacular images on vastly better emulsions than were available 50 or 60 years ago.

[Vaughn]

Come to think of it all Graflex cameras are cool!

Even my Graflex 22 (Model 200) is cool. A bare-bones TLR, 6x6 with a 85mm/3.5 Graftar taking lens. Manufactured after Graflex, Inc bought the rights, tools and so forth of the Ciro-Flex. Though I must admit I take the Rolleiflex out when I go MF. But the Graflex 22 might be the camera to take out kayaking until one has a system down for keeping things safe and dry...or for other less than safe circumstances that I do not wish to risk the Rollei.

We have a Graphic View II we check out to students -- shoot, I may have checked it out as a student 30 or so years ago. With the red bellows it is a beautiful camera in an American industrial sort of way. Still works fine, though it has needed some tune-ups through the years. It does not get a lot of use. Students tend to go for the field 4x5's or the more modern (but 20 years old) Calumet 4x5 monorails first.

Vaughn

[cyrus]

Realistically speaking, you probably won't use any movements if you use this camera handheld.

[IanG]

With a top rangefinder Pacemaker you can reverse the standard to easily get forward tilt. I'm not sure if this works with a Kalart - I think the rangefinder interferes with the reversed standard. With this configuration, if you choose your wideangles carefully (easier for moderate-wides with a speed because the body is deeper) they will rest on the inner rails, and you avoid the problem of having to tilt the lens backwards with the bed dropped.

There are DIY instructions on how to grind down part of the front standard to achieve some front swing. Which means you can get some tilt, swing and shift in portrait mode. Yes, these movements are limited.

Reversing the front standard means the camera won't close with a side mounted rangeinder, and it does nothing to really improve usage.

I have modified a Super Graphic front standard to fit a Pacemaker (and pre & Anniverasry Speed Graphic despite being told that there was no way it could be done, actually it just needs some grinding.

Ian

[Frank Petronio]

Hate to admit it but a Crown Graphic is much lighter, and therefor easier to handhold than a Linhof Technika. The Technika has a superior grip and rangefinder, and adequate movements for field work making it a much better all-arounder.

But for press photographers who used flash bulbs liberally and could stop down to minimize focusing errors, I'd rather carry a Crown.

The Super Speed I had was fine, but the extra bits on it kind of bothered me, I like the stripped down Crown.

Since Graflex soldiered on until the 70s, I doubt a better camera design in the late 40s would have made a long-term difference. I think it was the US government's policy of transferring our optical industry technology and military contracts to the Japanese as part of their rebuilding that really did them in. We lost a lot of camera building capability and knowledge that way. But I don't want to get rebanned for bring up politics - I mean the truth.