I have to disagree with Neil, beware telephoto lenses if you ever do any front tilt or shift, which require reframing and refocussing every time.
Monorails are the way to go for rigidity and large movements (e.g. for architecture), so long as you can deal with the awkward packing and setup/teardown. I vote for an Arca-Swiss.
The Gandolfi Traditional 4X5 is a double extension field camera with 480mm bellows extension. Now, I don't know if the front can support a standard 400mm lens cuz that would be VERY heavy but it got a good review for fit and finish in View Camera magazine. The Variant is half the price of the Traditional and also has enough extension. I have not read any reviews on that one though.
One note about the Arca Swiss F Line. If you are going to use 400-450mm lenses with it, you will have to use an extra long bellows. The standard bellows on the 4x5 is 15" long. This raises the spectre of having to carry three bellows: The standard, extra long, and a bag bellows for wide angles. For some reason, the standard F Metric will extend farther than the standard bellows allows. This seems to be a silly quirk in an otherwise great camera.
I do not know if you run into the same problem with a Sinar F2, which is another candidate. Sinar users will have to chime in. Another alternative is a Cambo 45SF. You can use a 450mm lens by adding an extension monorail. The standard bellows extends far enough to use with the 450mm.
David, you are correct. Thatīs what I want to say about the time needed to set-up the camera. Due to the design of the camera, the standards have zero locks and bubble levels, but not absolutely precise -to my needs-. Every time I take the camera out of the bag, I use an special homemade square to put the standards in an really -absolutely parallel- position. Itīs not hard work, it takes just that bit of time. If you need more info about it, please feel free to email me.
I wonder if flat bed cameras with consistant zero locks would have their planes absolutely parallel when opened... a clear "click" doesnīt mean: "ok, standards are now parallel" (I will take the job checking my other cameras) Itīs just a joke, good luck,
Thanks for all the input everyone...... I've got my short-short list down to:
Toyo VX125 -
This one's been on my short list for a while now. Not as long a bellows draw as I'd like, but I can get extended Bellows and rail for it and it'll go up to a 300mm lens down to 10 foot focus with the stock parts.
Arca Swiss F-Metric Compact -
I'll save a hundred or two dollars, and add a couple of pounds of weight. Stock rail is 400mm, but I'll realistically need 2 bellows to use a short and a long lens. For a few bucks more and probably a little more weight, I can add geared tilts to the package (Anyone know how much weight the Orbix tilts add?)
Canham DLC -
Weighs about the same as the VX125, costs about a thousand dollars less, has longer bellows draw than either and no geared anything other than focus. Under most use, it's rigid enough, but even Keith Canham admits that there are moments where the rigidity suffers a bit, albeit in cases where even the strongest monorail will likely suffer from the wind anyway. In other words.... it's unlikely I'll get any work done in a situation where the Canham might flex a bit no matter what camera I use.
So that's my short list...... I guess it really comes down to wondering if buying into a system and geared movements are worth an extra $1000 to me. I'm gonna drive up to a camera store tomorrow that carries all three cameras and "fondle" them to see which one(s) feel better and/or more natural to me.... but I'd still like to hear anything that anyone would like to add.
Posting Permissions
Reply With Quote
Bookmarks