6 1/2 x 8 1/2 cameras?

**Tin Can** · 15-Jun-2021, 11:44

I plan to use my new to me, Full Plate camera, with Plates!

I really like I can contact print on 8X10 paper with good margins

The camera is way smaller than any 8X10

**Scott Davis** · 17-Jun-2021, 13:37

I need to save up some extra beans and get Keith Canham to make me a whole plate reducing back for my 8x10. And then get someone to rehab a bunch of my vintage wp holders. If I still had my studio, I'd shoot more of it with my Kodak studio portrait camera, but it's in storage, and the stand for it is too - plus the stand needs the platform rebuilt.

**Kent Phelan** · 22-Jun-2021, 09:35

Originally Posted by Oren Grad

My favorite format, have been using it for more than 20 years. Makes a beautiful contact print on 8x10 paper, with a margin for safe handling and corner mounting. Because of the slightly smaller coverage requirement, lens selection is easier than for 8x10, and lens sets will tend to be smaller and lighter because you can often get away with lenses in #1 shutter where lenses of comparable specification for 8x10 come in #3. My standard lens for WP is the 210 Apo-Sironar-S, but even the regular 72-degree plasmats in that focal length, which are cheap and plentiful, offer ample coverage for WP.

When I was getting started more than 20 years ago, it was easier to find vintage cameras and holders, often at bargain prices, as hardly anybody was interested. I stumbled across my first WP camera, an Eastman No 2 with a few holders, at a local camera show - was intrigued, took a chance on it, and the rest is history. I think that would be much less likely today. But now you can at least buy the Chamonix WP camera and holders new, and Ilford film is available factory-cut in that size through the annual special order program.

Oren, I am guessing you had something to do with Mike Johnston's foray into this format a few years ago. At the time (I saw Mike as a LF dabbler) I thought it was a bit nuts. Hard to get film, holders, etc. Why not just 5x7? But ever the romantic, he bought into the aura/history of WP. I hope he used it before moving on. PS. Mike is a friend of mine; I don't mean to diss upon him.