December 2001
At long last, after years of saying it, I have acquired a 4x5 system finally! So I thought I would add this page as a record of my buying process to help others who might also be interested in getting into large format.
First off, there is a wealth of information on the web on large format photography, and the best place to start is Quang Tuan-Luong's large format page. However, I will still state my experience here as another data point, and some things I learnt along the way.
The first thing everyone tells you about 4x5 is that you can get into it cheaply, and you can buy used equipment. So this is largely how I started, but soon found to be largely untrue. The first decision to make was
While monorails can be had cheaper, if you are planning to do nature photography and envision using it in the "field" so to speak, instead of a studio, you are better off with a field camera. I had a Sinar F-1 for 4 months many years ago, and that thing is *not* suitable for any serious hiking. If you are sure that you will be within a few hundred feet of your car, then perhaps a monorail would work, but if you really want to be able to take your 4x5 everywhere, a field camera is far more portable and convinient. So having decided on a field, the next question was
Metal cameras are more durable, stronger, stiffer, and have more precise movements. However, they are almost twice as heavy as wooden cameras. Wooden cameras look beautiful, especially in the dark woods and brass fittings. Wooden cameras are also said to give you more movements because they can be made lighter, but I won't press this point since I haven't really analyzed it to see if it's true. I didn't really decide on the wood or metal issue and left it open. The third question now becomes, given a budget, what can you have? I soon found that you can't have much! Basically, the only "cheap" field cameras out there are the Kodak Graphics, which you can get for $200-$300. However, these don't have enough movements by all accounts. Now many people will say, that's just fine, but my experience is that you need a decent amount of tilt if nothing else because of the DOF problems. I looked at the Super Graphic, and here are the specs (taken from Graflex.org):
The front standards has a full range of rise, shifts, tilts and swings, an improvement over the Pacemaker series:
Tilt Backward/Forward +/-15 deg
Swing +/-25 deg
Shift L/R 1/2"
Rise 1 1/8" (28.575 mm)
Drop bed 15 deg
Bellows Extension 12 1/2" (317.5 mm)
The camera I got has the following specs:
Rise & Fall 70mm
Tilt (front) 30° & 30°
(rear)40° & 40°
Swing (front) 17°
(rear) 23°
Bellows Extention Max 330mm Min 65mm
As one can see, apart from the shifts that are missing in mine, the one I got has much more movement capability than the Super Graphic. So I eliminated the Graphic series. What else could I get? I went down to Keeble and Suchat here in Palo Alto, and saw a couple of Linhofs: the III and the IV. The IV defintely was nicer, and was the way to go. Except that he wanted $1600 for it, and $800 for the III. But still, I put the Linhof Technika IV on my list of potential candidates because I thought I could perhaps find one for less than $1000 somewhere. The other metal fields like the Toyo and Wista all seemed to be $1000+ even used. Mentally, I really didn't want to spend more than $600-$700 for the camera.
With the woods, my list came down to Wista, Tachihara, and the Ikeda. The Zone VI has gotten many negative remarks so I eliminated that. I went to the Santa Clara camera swap meet in November 2001, and found a Wista rosewood, but he wanted $850 for it. So I decided that the best bet was Ebay.
Ebay is really a sellers tool: it allows the seller to find a very broad audience, and thus the seller can get the best price. I monitered Ebay for a month, but couldn't really find the deal I was looking for. A lot of the Linhof IV's passed by, but all went for $900+. The Wistas also were usually bid up, and even the Ikeda, that is supposed to be $300 used, went for $450 in one auction I saw. Since the Tachihara gets high marks, and you can get a new one for $630 from Adorama, I eventually decided to go with that. So much for buying used and getting anything cheap!
The camera looks beautiful! It is one of the lightest field cameras available, and folds up into a very compact box. I have used it several times "in the field" now, with highlights of usage being Yosemite in winter (february), Bali (May), and places around the Bay area like Pt. Lobos. Generally, the camera is quite easy to use, although the front tilts take some fiddling with to move around. Compared to the Sinar F-1, this camera is certainly a bit fussier to get things done with, but then the Sinar F-1 weighs > 10 lbs if I recall correctly! After an year of usage, I am very happy with it so far.
One good deal I did get on Ebay was finding six Fidelity Elite film holders for only $21 including shipping!
After shooting more than two dozen sheets, I am quite happy with everything. Subjectively, I find that I use the 150mm far more than the 90mm, but that could be because I haven't gone back to Utah with the 4x5 yet. The camera is more rugged than it looks since I dropped it once (advice: ALWAYS check that the hex-plate has latched properly to the tripod head), and it survived with only a couple of scratches. Luckily it fell on muddy ground and not on the pavement which was merely 3 inches to the left of where it fell.