Originally Posted by
Drew Wiley
Daniel, the fact you had to order a bellows for it tells us that you did not really get a complete camera for $250. Glad you did find a bargain, but you'd have to give the full sum involved in any apples to apples discussion. I have various bellows on hand, including bag bellows for wide-angle work, but I'm primarily a long lens shooter. Back in my predominantly F2 days, I routinely kept the extra long (28 inch) Horseman bellows on it. That doesn't sag or need an intermediate support like the regular Sinar box bellows. But with the tapered Norma bellows I can handle my full typical range of 4x5 lenses, 120mm to 450mm, just fine without stressing it. I imagine these were somewhat expensive to make, and maybe that's why they transitioned over to the square box style, which they could just section off lengths of. The tapered bellows is also less subject to internal flare issues, though I always have a compendium shade in place anyway.
Scott, I passed up a very nice 5X7 Norma. I love that longer rectangle format. But I really had to draw the line in terms of accumulating too many options. My 8X10 is a folder, and I can always crop a little from that to get a more stretched rectangle if needed. And getting older, I find myself resorting to 6X9 format more often, and get the same pleasing composition proportion in that manner. But it's really the fact that my punch and register film gear is set up to do either 8X10 or 4x5 or smaller masks and so forth that is the sticking point. Yes, I have the ability to do 5X7 too, but only on the short side of the film. This is a big deal to me, especially in color printing.
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