Asymmetric Tilts & Swings

[Dr Croubie]

Doing mostly LF landscapes, all I need is a bit of front downward-tilt and maybe some rise/fall and that's it.
Only in macro do those yaw-free movements really become indispensable, as in that food example above.

 

[AgX]

apples to oranges

It's all tabletop shots with digital backs on Sinar P cameras. His efficiency is based on those yaw-free asymmetric controls, which he knows instinctively by now. He'd never buy a camera without them, or probably own anything other than a Sinar.

As I mentioned before Asymmetric Axis can mean quite different things. Static asymmetric axis, movable axis, kind of movement of axis etc.



So the Linhof approach yields

-) deliberate choice of location for both vertical and horizontal axis

-) deliberate choice of axis location without having to give up framing


Features the Sinar P does not offer.

 

[jamespierce]

James: what kind of wood does your Ebony 8x10 (I assume SV810U) have?. . . . Ebony? Mahogany?

Is most of your work studio/table-top, or landscapes?

SV810U ... Mahogany - I wanted Ebony, but it's hard to justify the extra weight when my field kit is already a bit ridiculous.

I shoot studio portraits and landscape / natural history images typically. My studio work doesn't typically require many movements, but in the landscape when the light is changing etc it's nice to be able to work fast. I was tempted to keep my Arca Swiss for the studio work, but I decided it was more important to have have the muscle memory for just one camera not two.

 

[JackRosa]

Ebony vs. Mahogany

SV810U ... Mahogany - I wanted Ebony, but it's hard to justify the extra weight when my field kit is already a bit ridiculous.

I shoot studio portraits and landscape / natural history images typically. My studio work doesn't typically require many movements, but in the landscape when the light is changing etc it's nice to be able to work fast. I was tempted to keep my Arca Swiss for the studio work, but I decided it was more important to have have the muscle memory for just one camera not two.

Thank you James. When I ordered my SV810U, I had selected Mahogany and then - for a reason I do not remember - switched the order to Ebony wood. Don't get me wrong, I love my camera, but oftentimes wish I had stuck with the Mahogany (re:weight)!

My photography parallels yours . . . studio portraits and landscapes. In the case of landscapes, I am attracted to water ~ many of my shots are of waterfalls, gorges, rivers, ... moving water, or structures around water, or even frozen water. You can see some examples in my gallery.

Thanks again.

 

[David A. Goldfarb]

As I mentioned before Asymmetric Axis can mean quite different things. Static asymmetric axis, movable axis, kind of movement of axis etc.



So the Linhof approach yields

-) deliberate choice of location for both vertical and horizontal axis

-) deliberate choice of axis location without having to give up framing


Features the Sinar P does not offer.

I looked at a Linhof TL once, one model before the Master GTL, which is the one with the movable asymmetric tilt/swing axes. Beautiful camera and it was available at a good price for a second hand 8x10/5x7/4x5 kit. It's much heavier than a Sinar P, over-engineered in typical Linhof style. In an absolute sense, given unlimited resources, the Master GTL is a superior camera to the Sinar P2.

Other considerations, however, are that Linhof studio cameras are fairly uncommon in the US, while Sinar was the basic workhorse of its day, like the Nikon F2, so there are Sinar bits and pieces everywhere over here, and if you live in a town with a rental house, you can easily rent lenses mounted on Sinar boards, while that isn't the case for Linhof studio cameras. Sinars are modular and designed to be compatible across models, so you can mix and match F, P, and Norma parts, easily add extra rails and intermediate standards that are not hard to find. So for practical purposes, in terms of equipment available on the ground at very reasonable prices, the Sinar studio system makes more sense.

Also the scales make it fairly simple to adjust rise/fall/shift to find the tilt/swing angle, and then reverse the rise/fall/shift after tilting to restore the original composition, as well as transferring tilt/swing from the rear to the front axis.

 

[cliveh]

I can do that without asymmetric movements.

Yes you are correct, as I mentioned something you can do with camera movements and was not specific to asymmetric movements.

 

[AgX]

I looked at a Linhof TL once, one model before the Master GTL, which is the one with the movable asymmetric tilt/swing axes. Beautiful camera and it was available at a good price for a second hand 8x10/5x7/4x5 kit. It's much heavier than a Sinar P, over-engineered in typical Linhof style. In an absolute sense, given unlimited resources, the Master GTL is a superior camera to the Sinar P2.

Other considerations, however, are that Linhof studio cameras are fairly uncommon in the US, while Sinar was the basic workhorse of its day, like the Nikon F2, so there are Sinar bits and pieces everywhere over here, and if you live in a town with a rental house, you can easily rent lenses mounted on Sinar boards, while that isn't the case for Linhof studio cameras. Sinars are modular and designed to be compatible across models, so you can mix and match F, P, and Norma parts, easily add extra rails and intermediate standards that are not hard to find. So for practical purposes, in terms of equipment available on the ground at very reasonable prices, the Sinar studio system makes more sense.

Also the scales make it fairly simple to adjust rise/fall/shift to find the tilt/swing angle, and then reverse the rise/fall/shift after tilting to restore the original composition, as well as transferring tilt/swing from the rear to the front axis.

I guess the uniqueness of the Sinar P design made people believe it must be ultimate monorail camera. Making them overlook that a more classic looking design may have more features. At least I myself did so for some time.

And of course you are right that there is more to think about when chosing a monorail than just details of movement.

 

[Mainecoonmaniac]

The Sinar P is a wonderful camera. However, it's a studio camera, not a field camera. Even the Sinar F, which stands for "field" is a very heavy camera.

 

[DREW WILEY]

My field mini-cam is a Sinar Norma with 28 inches of bellows. It only comes out a pound heavier than the Sinar F2 did comparably equipped, which I carried at least ten thousand miles of mtn and desert backpacking over the years. Now that I'm getting old and lazy, a little Ebony
4x5 folder fills in on long backpacking trips; but my "normal" dayhike camera is my Phillips 8x10. The nice thing about the ergonomics of the
simpler Sinar monorails in the field is that you can balance those long rails quite easily, avoid a tripod head completely, and end up with a net
weight that really isn't all that bad (at least when I was younger). With P cameras, all those extra geared features create surplus weight and balance issues which would require a corresponding much heavier tripod support, especially at long focal lengths. But ironically, long lenses on
medium format SLR's can be even harder to support. And none of these cameras balance well. So it's all relative. Just shoot what you enjoy.

 

[David A. Goldfarb]

One can manage perfectly well with any of these systems, and I have different cameras with different kinds of tilts and swings.

The Sinar C (P rear standard/F front standard) is an intermediate option, if one wants a lighter version of the P for the field. In practice it works the same way as a P, but you might have to apply an additional rise/fall/shift on the front standard when transferring movements from the rear standard, to compensate for the different mechanism.

 

[DREW WILEY]

Yeah... Sinar and comparable monorails must be thought of as systems, which means you can easily replace worn components or even configure one model into another, depending on needs ... basically having your cake and eating it too (for the right price, of course).