Originally Posted by
Ben Horne
You do get a pretty good feel for how the camera will perform in the wind by jiggling it a bit. The wind will push on the bellows and if the front and/or rear standard aren't extremely rigid, you will most certainly have some issues with camera shake. When I had the RR 8x10 with my 600mm on it, you could see the image bounce around a bit on the GG in a slight breeze. By tensioning the camera, it calmed that quite a bit. The more rigid the front and rear standards (as well as the main part of the camera), the more it will resist this. When I was in Zion this past January, I was shooting a detail photo of a log covered in frost, and a rock was embedded in the log. The area I was photographing was maybe 18 inches wide, so I overextended the bellows and used my super lightweight Fujinon 300C. I made two exposures, and the exposure time was somewhere around 5 or 10 seconds. During the first exposure, there was a VERY slight breeze for part of the exposure, and the second was absolutely calm. The first photo suffered vibration, and the second was tack sharp. Even the slightest of breeze can make a big difference at times. For that photo, I didn't tension the camera with cord. Had I used the cord, it would have been fine.
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