jarrod_connerty

I own a C1 and while I adore it as a precision instrument, I don't feel that it would be a good match for an 8x10" monolith. The axes of motion would seem to small to me for that enormous camra. There is nothing to lock or unlock with the C1, but you can adjust the tension upon the gears. I use it with a 4x5 Wista RF, 6.6 lb of camera, along with frequently a bino viewer, 300mm lens in #1 shutter and large Metz flash attached with a shoe. It doesn't seem challenged in the slightest, but ultimately I'll bet it better to go for the B2 with the flip-lock quick release in your shoes.

I bought it...pretty much have every Wista accessory I thought could be worth anything ever since I love the camera & won't ever sell it as far as I can see. It is certainly bulky, and to me it only has two advantages; you can compose from an upright image while in the vertical orientation & I prefer the 45° viewing angle to the 90° of the folding flip-up monocular. It doesn't have an included second fresnel like the monocular, either, so it is fussy about the image it creates in relation to the focal length. But betweeen 150-250mm with fast lenses I am quite pleased with the image it allows you to compose from. I got a <i>really</i> old one used u-know-where for under ~$200; it certainly wouldn't have been worth full price to me had I not been able to find it cheap, while if I had to pay the ~$500 for the folding monocular I'd not be complaining about it later.<p>By the way, that hood that fits onto the front standard is wonderful with longer lenses, though its internal clear path is a pretty puny 91mm or thereabouts so you'll have to be creative with grad filters and rectangular systems. Before I bought it, with my 300mm Fujinon, I'd have flare problems 40% of the time no matter what hood I tried. Not once with this dedicated hood.

The Wista technical cameras were designed with the fresnel/groundglass sandwhich to be placed with the fresnel towards the lens and the groundglass surface towards the photographer. Debating this is beneath me; truse me on this one Jonathan.

I have a colleague who uses this for 4x5 w/o movements, though I'd add that even fully centered & at identical apertures the falloff is to my eye more objectionable than my 75mm Nikkor-SW with plenty of rise. Image circle can't be much more than 170mm.

OK, sorry to be late but I couldn't hunt down this thread!<p>The short answer is that the lens' coverage is so incredibly wide that combined with the short focal length you will be unable to simultaneously use the Lee hoods and the resin filters <i>at the absolute edges of the image circle</i>.<p>It is unorthodox, but I'd actually recommend paying either SK Grimes or somebody else quite competent to install a Lee adaptor ring on the outside of the lens barrel forward of the shutter. Then you could use the Lee Wideangle hood without filter slots, since those would be worthless as they'd be alinged with the body of the lens and not in front of the lens. You'd have great shielding of stray light, without vignetting, and you would still have the option of using the thin polyester filters (<I>wratten type</i>) at the very front of the lens. Keep in mind, once again, that that hood's huge. So in the rare instance that you'd be shooting without much rise, a lot of trouble is incurred just to clear the hood from the bed of the camera. You'd need to tilt backwards the front & rear standards and then raise the front to once again align the vertical orientation of the optical axes to make the necessary room. But if you want to use the gargantuan center filter, which I can only assume you do, and still want excellent shading of stray light without possibility of vignetting, this is likely the only game in town.

The 72XL is certainly long enough to not have a problem. You'll need the 100mm push-on filter holder, which I cannot be sure works with the hood with built-in slots off the top of my head. I'll check tomorrow. Another problem could be that to employ the XL's enormous image circle you'd need the wideangle hood, which is too large to use on the Wista in the "zero positions" without tilting the back and front and rising the front standard.

The price shot through the roof, that's why you don't see them @ Badger anymore nor does Robert White have any in stock. I have one and would desperately like another, but not at 200 GBP! I guess we will all have to compete for them upon the open market at that gargantuan sleazy outfit, eh?

You need both the lensboard & the dedicated bellows. They work brilliantly and are in my opinion the best system I've seen for manipulating wideangle lenses with lots of coverage upon a field camera.<P>Any lens this wide needs the wideangle adapter rings instead of the normal ones. Lee makes a nice hood which has either 0, 1 or 2 filter slots that attaches directly to the rings.<p>The only problems are the same that would affect any combo of Lee system and lens upon the Wista which doesn't have such a long focal length as to extend beyond the bed of the camera: using the long grad filters requires occasional gerrymandering to get any combo you like. I'd say you can have the grad in place affecting about 2/3rds of the image before it will hit the bottom of the camera bed, and that assumes no front rise. But if you're terribly ardent & hellbent on using your filter in any damn configuration you please, you can still do just that by tilting the front & rear standards all the way to the back then raising the front standard enough so that the optical axes of the standards are once again centered. This creates more than enough room below the lens for the big grads.<p>One last concern is that the lens needs to be about 44mm long measured from the back of the shutter to protrude through the front standard's light trap and allow attaching the filters. I'm not aware of any lens that short that would have enough coverage to need this cool combo of lensboard/bellows.

Louie Lu at Mamiya America Corporation can perform this service for you for about $100, but he cannot do anything to change the framelines in the spot finder. You'll have to estimate where one degree lies for yourself, but the smaller inner circle is a start.

Thank you, William, for your most eloquent response. <p>Clearly the enormous, unprecedented value of the confluence of your design elements cannot be overstated.<p>The fact that the price has been validated by "Popular fotography", a publication with unassailable journalistic integrity, is all I need to know.<p>Where do I send the check?

It is 77mm when made for the GX617 camera, but you can use the Heliopan 0.45 82mm center filter with this lens with excellent results.

I have the VX, which like RF & SP all share identical bellows draw.<p>I think in practical terms you must accept 300mm as the longest possible non-telephoto focal length.<p>I wanted to buy the 300 M Nikkor, which is often available used. But even with a tophat lensboard you cannot focus close enough to get a head & shoulders portrait. The Fuji "C" 300mm f/8.5, however, has a shorter film-to-flange length by about 11mm, and this little bit was all the difference in the world. I bought it and find that at landscape distances, with a tophat lensboard, I can focus as close as I'd need and still have enough bellows play to do any movements I'd like. At portrait distances the bellows are quite tight, but I don't find tilt/shift/swing movements as necessary for portraiture.<p>By the way, if you'll be doing portraiture with your lens choice, I'd recommend that you consider switching out the shutter to a Copal Press type and getting the Auto Interlock Release Cable. It is awfully convenient.

I use one w/ a Wista VX, & it works perfectly with the Graflok clips. Pretty simple to load & unload(<I>thanx to that f32 page mentioned above; the directions are in Japanese</i>), but just remember the process of using it:<p>1. Grasp darkslide up & put back down.<br>2. Take picture.<br>3. Grasp by darkslide handle & lift up again, only this time the entire mechanism comes along for the ride.<br>4. When you've completed lifting up and putting down by the darkslide handle, only now is it safe to remove the back.<br>5. Successive shots must do the whole procedure all over again.<p>Pretty much a modern Grafmatic to me.

Rear has the advantage of achieving the affect in a smaller image circle but the disadvantage of likely changing the perpective. Front is the opposite-no perspective change but you might risk losing coverage. I greatly prefer front tilt and practically never use rear. And remember, as far as depth of field works, tilting the rear standard forward is equivalent to tilting the front standard backwards.

Frank, I think the lf community's fervent enthusiasm is obscuring your understanding of just how tiny the market for lf actually is. Anyway you slice it, be it total sales or total shooters, it is an incredibly small market. I sincerely doubt that even the world's biggest dealer sells 400 cameras a year. And it is as inelastic a segment as to nearly not warrant marketing.<p>As an example, one experienced gentleman makes all of the wonderfully smooth Toyo film holders. I doubt they'll train another when he ceases to practice his craft.

I use Lee's 67mm wideangle adapter ring, hood/holder & Tiffen warm polarizer for Lee system. With sun ninety degrees to the lens access and a profound amount of rise on 4x5, you can see some unevenness. But I'm anal, & I don't find it a big issue like for example a 20mm lens in 35mm would be.

A huge hassle. Love 'em for 35 & medium format, but ballheads, LF & me don't mix. I tried on my first few sojourns with the LF camera to shave some weight with the ballhead, but getting architecture shots dead-level according to the grid on the fresnel seemed damn near impossible. Likely that all my other 35 & medium format shots were also incrementally off as such, but being smaller formats I just couldn't tell. Anyway, getting a 3-way head will save you lots of headache in my book, but I'd wholeheartedly agree that the 3047 is a heavy, bulky beast unsuited to travel. Better to spring for Arca's B2 (<i>3.40 lb</i>) or even better is Linhof's 003663 at a mere 2 lb and add Novoflex's Q-Base (<I>0.58 lb</I>) or another Arca-type release to the top.

The lug for the strap still can squeeze behind the opening upon the grip; that's why there's that little cutout there. Thus you can use the regular strap, but the camera won't hang from it exactly the same; points down more. I own this camera and am certain the regular strap still works with it.

Jerry's question was if the monorail fits directly in the clamp...I stand by my statement that it doesn't, and that I'm fairly certain that the rest of the Arca family's monorail's fit into the clamp directly.

Jerry: I apologize on behalf of Ellis' attitude. However he still remains an incredibly valuable member of this forum despite the condescension.<p> Nonetheless, the Discovery <b>does not</b> fit directly into the Arca-type clamp. I've sold this camera many times and am certain that it doesn't fit. I believe, but am not certain, that it is the only memeber of the Arca family of view cameras currently manufactured that doesn't have immediate Arca clamp compatibility.

The Novoflex u speak of is a great design, but in my opinion overmatched by such a large camera. Go w/ a long Arca-type plate, and b4 buying the used Sinar pan/tilt look @ Linhof's 3-Way levelling head. I've never found a piece of equipment such a joy to use, it is versatile, simple & precise. It does, however, only have a 77mm diameter top, so the longer Arca-plates will only serve to provide more fore & aft placement of the camera upon the head. Don't worry, the Linhof will not migrate! If you have to have lots of real estate under the camera, I think Gitzo's 1570M & a long Arca clamp would be the best option.

I had a 90/5.6 SWD in a Seiko #0. Great lens. According to my Calumet shutter tester, the Seiko was more accurate @ speeds of 1/30th & higher than my brand new Copal 0 on my Sironar S as well as the Copal 0's on my lenses acquired used. And it is a few grams lighter, too. Mounts in any lensboard made for Copal 0. But one big problem forced me to sell it-due to the incidence angle of the cable release, the Seiko shutter isn't compatible with the Technika-type recessed lensboards. So if you plan on mounting it in a recessed board of some type to further expand those bellows & really work that big image circle, make sure you have the right to return the lens.

I have found UC #1 to be a fairly valuable addition to my Lee filter system, and it doesn't "fog" the scene too much. I'd say it shaves 1/2 of an EV from both extreme ends of the scene, & I think of it as a good filter to have when you're somewhere once in life that you feel compelled to photograph and are not endowed with favorable light. Nonetheless, I won't deny that the use of the filter is always apparent. But in side-by-side comparisons with and without the filter of the same scene/lighting, it makes for the difference between a useable print and not.

The Mamiya's are made by Promaster, and are junk in my opinion. Go with the Gitzos, or even better the Velbon Neo Carmagne 730/740 which I replaced my 1325 with. The Gitzos locks are a bit frustrating, and the Velbon 'inner jut pipe' system works <b>much</b> better. A similar design has surfaced on another Gitzo, so I predict in time that the same improved mechanism makes its way to the 1325/9 within a year.

Have looked thru every one previously listed & bought the Schneider. When showing 6x7 slides to friends with no background in photography, several times they've commented on how good the 'magnifier' was. I agree that the bottom design is dumb, but nonetheless it is great.