What's the deal with Horseman Woodman 4x5s?

[jdurr]

I have never owned or ever held a Horseman 4x5.
Any opinions on the Woodman 4x5?
Good, Bad or So So?
Thanks

[Vaughn]

Great cameras for working light in the field. I had a couple I checked out to students and they survived...something the Tachaharas could not do. Nice simple well-made machines. Nothing fancy, but has everything you need...tho adding a bubble level might be nice on any LF camera.

Not well-suited for very long or heavy lenses would be one draw back. You have about 12.5" of bellows. I never tried to put a short lens on one.

Edits:

The back tilt is a base tilt -- I prefer axis tilts, but have worked a lot with both and base tilt is easy to work with, too.

The knobs -- they have cap nuts on them to keep you from spinning the knobs off accidentally. But one can still spin the knobs off (and the cap nut) and used ones often have missing nuts. Odd thread size to find replacements for.

[Doremus Scudder]

Great cameras for working light in the field. I had a couple I checked out to students and they survived...something the Tachiharas could not do. Nice simple well-made machines. Nothing fancy, but has everything you need...tho adding a bubble level might be nice on any LF camera.

I second what Vaughn says with a couple caveats. The design of the rear tilts doesn't allow much movement; the parts interfere with each other. If you need to use lots of back tilts, a Woodman will not be your best choice. Also, the one I own had an issue with bellows leaks, which I had to repair.

That said, the Woodman is still the lightest field camera I've worked with, and it did well for me, even though it's not well suited to anything with extreme movements (e.g., architectural work, etc.). One nice feature for me (who did do a lot of architectural work with it) was that the Technika lensboards it takes can be mounted upside-down with a little modification (to stop light leaks) thereby achieving a fair bit of front rise without actually having to use the front rise mechanism on the camera. Using that gets you even more. I found I could reach almost to the limits of my WF Ektar 135mm that way.

Hope this helps,

Doremus

[jdurr]

Great cameras for working light in the field. I had a couple I checked out to students and they survived...something the Tachaharas could not do. Nice simple well-made machines. Nothing fancy, but has everything you need...tho adding a bubble level might be nice on any LF camera.

Not well-suited for very long or heavy lenses would be one draw back. You have about 12.5" of bellows. I never tried to put a short lens on one.

Edits:

The back tilt is a base tilt -- I prefer axis tilts, but have worked a lot with both and base tilt is easy to work with, too.

The knobs -- they have cap nuts on them to keep you from spinning the knobs off accidentally. But one can still spin the knobs off (and the cap nut) and used ones often have missing nuts. Odd thread size to find replacements for.

Thanks for the reply

[jdurr]

I second what Vaughn says with a couple caveats. The design of the rear tilts doesn't allow much movement; the parts interfere with each other. If you need to use lots of back tilts, a Woodman will not be your best choice. Also, the one I own had an issue with bellows leaks, which I had to repair.

That said, the Woodman is still the lightest field camera I've worked with, and it did well for me, even though it's not well suited to anything with extreme movements (e.g., architectural work, etc.). One nice feature for me (who did do a lot of architectural work with it) was that the Technika lensboards it takes can be mounted upside-down with a little modification (to stop light leaks) thereby achieving a fair bit of front rise without actually having to use the front rise mechanism on the camera. Using that gets you even more. I found I could reach almost to the limits of my WF Ektar 135mm that way.

Hope this helps,

Doremus

Thanks for your reply