Wista 4x5 - back usage

[bobbotron]

I happily recently acquired a wista 4x5 VX. The springs on it's back are WAY stronger than my old bender, which is absolutely fantastic for holding the film holder in place, but now I have a funny problem... I don't totally know the right way to insert a film holder into it! I have fidelity film holders. Is it better to lift the spring back up a bit and push it in, or just jamb it down? Today I definitely did something wrong, the film door got flipped open when taking a shot, so I couldn't quite slide the dark slide all the way back in.

Advice would be really helpful! I've attached a few shots of the back and camera for reference.

[Bob Salomon]

Slightly lifting the back won’t hurt. But the film loading flap can not come open unless the dark slide wasn’t all the way in and the film holder wasn’t seated all the way into the camera back.

Moral, practice inserting an empty holder till you are comfortable doing it.

[B.S.Kumar]

Hold the top and gently push in the holder. If necessary, lift the back slightly.
Press the blue circled tab to rotate the back.
Press the red circled tab for rear swing.

Kumar

[bobbotron]

Thanks Kumar and Salomon! This is super helpful, definitely need some more practice with it.

[bobbotron]

Kumar, thanks for the tips! I had delicately been trying to figure out the red circle tab for a while, now that I see it in action, this is great!

I think yesterday I had some compounding problems, I spent some time loading a film holder in last night and have worked out how to do it correctly. It's a great camera body - just new enough that I figure now's the time I'll do something silly before I know better.