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Thread: Inexpensive 4x5 field cameras

  1. #41

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    Re: Inexpensive 4x5 field cameras

    Lets allow the guy to learn to walk before asking him to fly, huh?

  2. #42
    Studio Madbird
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    Re: Inexpensive 4x5 field cameras

    [QUOTE=Bernice Loui;1618619]Not that "low cost".. IMO, the days of bargain view camera and lenses and related have passed.
    https://www.ebay.com/sch/15230/i.htm...c&LH_PrefLoc=2

    To be fair, that $500 B&J Press is not a camera for sale on eBay, it's a camera on perpetual display on eBay (like a LOT of photo gear on the 'Bay these days)
    I have a BJP (well, 2, maybe I should sell one) and really like it. Lightweight, closes with a lens on, and way more useful movements than a speed or crown graphic and easy to make 4x4 lens boards.

  3. #43

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    Re: Inexpensive 4x5 field cameras

    Majority of sheet film cameras offer some degree of camera movement, press cameras included. Some medium format cameras like the Fuji GX680 also offer some degree of camera movement (front only, limited). Again, it goes back to image goals. Images like this example a car at the cork screw of Laguna Seca are not gonna work much if at all using any view camera.
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    Canon 500mm f4.5, Canon mirrorless digital.


    Current "success_popularity of start ups like Intrepid" are due more to a marketing moment than cost alone. As previously mentioned, this view camera stuff has changed much since the film era before year 2000. See this Midwest Photo Ad from 1995. Note the resale value of lightweight field folders -vs- GOOD monorail cameras and all related items. The view camera market pre year 2000 was (again) studio made color transparency images using 4x5. Field folders were very affordable back then. In ways field folders have become less affordable due to the current Foto market fashion of view cameras.
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    The assertion of low cost view cameras such as the Intrepid has made this view camera stuff available to many Foto folks today is not an assertion that can be proven or well supported by market realities and facts-truths of what is the current view camera and relate of today. Before Intrepid, there was the Bender view camera kit and similar DIY view cameras.

    Positive note about the current Foto fashion of view camera, it does create a demand for sheet film. If not for this demand in what ever camera used, related print making process and such sheet film availability would have died. If the availability of sheet film dies off, that is where the real problems of producing any sheet film images begin.


    Bernice



    Quote Originally Posted by _tf_ View Post
    I don’t think anybody is disputing this. But the light weight folder also expands where 4x5 figures on the ‘largest camera I can carry’ scale, for me the Intrepid offers a viable alternative to my GS-1 or even ETRSi, and its movements range is infinitely greater than either.

    (I also think some credit is due to companies like Intrepid for opening a way into this type of photography that reduces the amount of money one has to spend on equipment manufactured before one (or even one’s parents) was born, that there are no spare parts for and the people trained to service it are few and far apart. This creates a glimmer of hope that maybe down the road out the current generation of ‘folks first venturing into this view camera stuff’ might emerge some to again start making the bits without which this view camera stuff can’t happen and which are increasingly difficult to get at even moderately affordable prices. I am no youngster but most of my view camera equipment is older than me, and the younger me could have afforded none of it.)

  4. #44

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    Re: Inexpensive 4x5 field cameras

    As for lightweight field folders and Ansel Adams style landscapes... In his later years, Ansel used a Horseman L monorail LOTs... Why?

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    Previously mentioned numerous times, Horseman L series monorail cameras were one of the most excellent monorail camera bargains for a long time. They can cost less than an Intrepid or similar current fashion view camera yet offer FAR more in what a view camera can be and do.



    Bernice

  5. #45
    Drew Wiley
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    Re: Inexpensive 4x5 field cameras

    The question is about lighter weight and portability. Ansel gave up on a backpack 40 years before my current age; and I'm still doing it. Lightweight folders have been around a long time too; but they weren't all that rigid, at least compared to certain current options. And ultralight monorails like the Gowland were inevitably prone to vibration. Everything is some kind of compromise. The nice thing about system monorails like Sinar is that you can reconfigure them for a wide variety of applications. I've seen images of AA with a Sinar too. But there are good reasons I own both an 8x10 and 4x5 folder as well as Sinar gear. Love em all, but do choose one over another logistically, as needed.

  6. #46

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    Re: Inexpensive 4x5 field cameras

    Quote Originally Posted by Bernice Loui View Post
    As for lightweight field folders and Ansel Adams style landscapes... In his later years, Ansel used a Horseman L monorail LOTs... Why?

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    Previously mentioned numerous times, Horseman L series monorail cameras were one of the most excellent monorail camera bargains for a long time. They can cost less than an Intrepid or similar current fashion view camera yet offer FAR more in what a view camera can be and do.



    Bernice
    Because they gave him one with the stipulation that he would be pictured with it.

  7. #47
    Drew Wiley
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    Re: Inexpensive 4x5 field cameras

    Darn you, Bob - don't give away the box of tricks. People need their myths. Gosh knows how much gear I was given in hopes of an endorsement (non-photo gear - I've been given a lot of photo gear for free too, but not for sake of endorsements). That certainly doesn't mean I endorsed everything I was given, only things I thought deserved it. But AA was good at talking people out of things, and as I recalled, talked a manufacturer into giver a Protar lens to EW since he couldn't afford one himself. Brett W. also convinced Rollei to give him an SL66 outfit, but then shot mainly an RB67 instead.
    Last edited by Drew Wiley; 18-Oct-2021 at 17:59.

  8. #48

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    Re: Inexpensive 4x5 field cameras

    AA had Sinar stuff too. By the mid 1970s he probably had at least one of everything.

    I’d recommend a Sinar to any beginner, as you suggested earlier. An F model or even the A I had (and should never have let go). Ok monorails aren’t the lightest, but they are easy to set up, and can do basically anything, which I think is good for a beginner because you can get some experience with something that has few limitations and decide what features you find you need or don’t need etc. The Sinars are simpler to operate than things like that Horseman. Those designs were better suited to complicated studio/tabletop use. My two cents.

    I didn’t know that about Weston and the Rollei. I thought he used it a lot.

    Quote Originally Posted by Drew Wiley View Post
    Darn you, Bob - don't give away the box of tricks. People need their myths. Gosh knows how much gear I was given in hopes of an endorsement (non-photo gear - I've been given a lot of photo gear for free too, but not for sake of endorsements). That certainly doesn't mean I endorsed everything I was given, only things I thought deserved it. But AA was good at talking people out of things, and as I recalled, talked a manufacturer into giver a Protar lens to EW since he couldn't afford one himself. Brett W. also convinced Rollei to give him an SL66 outfit, but then shot mainly an RB67 instead.

  9. #49

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    Re: Inexpensive 4x5 field cameras

    Quote Originally Posted by Michael R View Post
    AA had Sinar stuff too. By the mid 1970s he probably had at least one of everything.

    I’d recommend a Sinar to any beginner, as you suggested earlier. An F model or even the A I had (and should never have let go). Ok monorails aren’t the lightest, but they are easy to set up, and can do basically anything, which I think is good for a beginner because you can get some experience with something that has few limitations and decide what features you find you need or don’t need etc. My two cents.
    Or a Technika IV, or newer. The camera, out of the box, with no accessories - other then lenses and boards, can use any lens from 72mm to many 360mm with full movements, front and back, folds for convemient carrying, all metal and not that heavy. Especially since you don’t need extras like w/a bellows, extra rails, etc to do the same thing.

  10. #50

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    Re: Inexpensive 4x5 field cameras

    That’s true. Good point. I just figured used mid-range or entry level Sinar cameras in good condition (if there still are any) would be cheaper than Linhof but I could be wrong. For a time there was just so much Sinar stuff in circulation but things may have changed.

    Quote Originally Posted by Bob Salomon View Post
    Or a Technika IV, or newer. The camera, out of the box, with no accessories - other then lenses and boards, can use any lens from 72mm to many 360mm with full movements, front and back, folds for convemient carrying, all metal and not that heavy. Especially since you don’t need extras like w/a bellows, extra rails, etc to do the same thing.

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