Q about "Linhof Kardan 4x5 Bi-System Camera"

[Peter Collins]

Hello, Everyone!

There are some cameras on fleabay described as "Bi-System".... What is meant by the "Bi-System"?

Thanks for your help!

[David R Munson]

Mr Salomon will probably chime in here shortly, but the Kardan B/Bi was a model of monorail from the '60s that offered both base and axis lens tilts. Great cameras, I used to have the 4x5 and wish I still did. The system offered expansion to 5x7 and 8x10 formats.

[Bob Salomon]

It was made into the 70's and is replaced today with the Kardan GT.

All current accessories for the Kardan re, Kardan GT and Master Kardan GTL that fit to the body (bellows, compendiums, ground glass, extensions for the rise, fresnel screen, etc.) fit the B system. However there are no accessories that fit the B rail and haven't been for decades so the rail caps, rails, auxiliary standard, etc. are no longer available. Neither is the Polaroid spacer back adapter.

One of the benefits of the B system was that it had both base and center tilts so this allowed the user to extend the maximum extension of the camera by tilting the base tilts all the way forward on the front and rearward on the back and then using the center tilts to make the front and rear parallel to each other. This resulted in a few inches of extra extension. The GT and GTL still do that even though they have telescoping rails. Do note though, the GT and GTL have base tilt control + the optical axis tilts. The base tilt is below the swing point on these cameras making them yaw-free cameras. On the B system the base tilt is above the swing point so the camera is NOT yaw-free. However, if you swing the entire camera 90° around the rail then what was the rise control becomes the swing control and the swing control is then the rise control and the camera is then yaw free. This is true for all yaw prone cameras.

There are two explanation of the designation Bi from Linhof. One was the phonetic pronunciation of the German letter B. The other was that the camera had both base and axis tilts. In the 1976 Linhof catalog it is called the B system. In the Linhof Camera Story book it is called a Bi so take your choice. Not only did it have dual tilts it also had dual names from the factory!

[Peter Collins]

Thank you, David and Bob!

[mdarnton]

I worked for someone in the 70s who had one of these. It was heavy, but a delight to use. Usually big cameras are sort of mechanically crude, but that thing was made with an incredible level of precision suitable to something like a Leica, and was a real joy to work with. I'm surprised how cheap they are when they show up.