I know this is a silly question. We use our cameras to take pictures and look at them, not the instruments we used to get them. But do I think some wooden camer as are absolutely beautiful with their brass knobs, superb wooden finishes, etc.
So which in your opinion is the most beautiful and crafted view camera?
It is a Wisner? An Ebony? A Tachihara? Or a metal Toyo
I apologize for this thread to be a little off topic.
I find that gandolfi are truely beatiful and well made. really a great work. ad it look so simple.
Ebony. No question in my mind at all. (Wish I could afford one!)
Why an Ebony? They are black and look like metal cameras to me. I say this while never having seen one in real life, just pictures!
When I come upon a dusty old camera store and find (usually on the top shelf with a negotiable "Not for sale" tag) a beat-up old view camera that obviously has been used to make thousands of images, well, I think that's kind of beautiful--creaky hinges, worn bellows, and all. Doesn't matter if it's wood or metal, as long as it has the patina of age, the innumerable tiny nicks reflecting daily use, and--usually, anyway--some decades-old "temporary" fix for a broken part.
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Sol:
While I happen to agree that the ebony wood and titanium Ebony cameras are stunning themselves, they also make mahogany and titanium cameras that you may find more attractive. See www.ebonycamera.com. Check out the RW45 body there for an example of their mahogany bodies.
Once I was in my local camera store, yaking and trying to figure out how I was going to pay for item X when a guy came in with an 8 X 10 he had just bought at a yardsale.
No, I'm not kidding - $35.00 he said.
I didn't catch the make, but it had the fanciest parquet bed I have ever seen - alternating tiles of blonde and deep red wood - like a chess board, each square perhaps 2" on a side. Deep Red leather bellows like a Wisner, BRIGHT brass lens and shutter that had probably (GOOD GOD!) had Brasso taken to it (still makes me cringe) and really fancy springs and clips holding the ground glass in place. It probably weighed all of 9 lbs.
The fellow was very enthused about his purchase, (who wouldn't be) the camera store owner was a good deal less than enthusiastic, and I am regret letting him walk out the door with it.
(Sean, If you'd had $35 at the time, we all know you'd have bought it.) My nomination for most beautiful: Zeiss Contax IIa with 50mm f:1.5 Sonnar. Especially the one in Monkey Wards catalog about 1950!
I think the Phillips cameras are very refined looking, but I still love my Deardorff.
The camera I saw which impressed me the most was a Deardorff 8x10. On pictures, an Ebony.
D.C.
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