Bought a Horseman 4x5, then...?

[Zane Yau]

Hi guys

I am new in LF photography and have recently bought a Horseman Woodman 4x5 camera body.

I know I need to get a lens (90mm I think), a lens board and some film holders...

I have been looking at Keh.com. It sells a Nikkor SW 90 f8 for about $800 (EX+ con), then there are other brands which sells for less $400-600 for Fujinon and Caltar (?)

With lens board, I am totally confused as to which board goes with which lens... The seller advised me to look at the Copal no (0 or 1) but Keh doesn't specify the Copal...

Also Keh doesn't sell sheet film holders - only B&H has some of them...

I know all these are probably stupid amaterish questions. I would appreciate anyone's input in relation to the above or just point me to a site which tells me how to shop for large format equipment?

Thanks in advance!

Zane

 

[fschifano]

That 90 mm. lens you're looking at gives an angle of view approximate to that of a 24 mm. lens covering the full frame 35 mm. format. Are you sure that's what you want to start out? The "normal" lens for that format is somewhere from 135 mm. to 180 mm. Good examples in this range of focal lengths can be had for much less money. If you do decide that the 90 mm. lens is for you, check to make sure that you'll be able to focus the thing at infinity. At infinity, the lens standard needs to be very close to the back. Some cameras cannot compress the bellows enough to accomplish that.

The lens board is nothing but a board with a hole in it. The lens mounts in the hole. The hole needs to be the right size to fit the lens. Sometimes you find something called a recessed lens board. These make possible the use of wide angle lenses for some cameras that can't compress the bellows enough to achieve infinity focus with short lenses.

Film holders for 4x5 come up pretty often on Ebay, but I don't recommend you get them there. Often, they've had hard lives and are pretty beat up. They may have some light leaks. Prices often get bid up too high for these things too. Get a few new ones, treat them gently, and they'll last a lifetime.

 

[Mick Fagan]

Zane, at first I thought this must be the one that sold in March on the auction site, it was located in Sydney and sold with a lens and some film holders. Obviously not yours.

I would suggest you look at a secondhand Fujinon W 6.3 150 lens as a far cheaper starter lens. I picked up one from the USA last year for $252.00 AUD landed from a private seller on the LF site. This is one of the quite cheap but quite good lens that make your new hobby interesting.

The Australian prices for a lot of stuff are a bit over the top. Currently the USA with it's falling dollar is very good value for money.

Badger graphics in the USA is good value for 100 sheets of Ilford 4x5 FP4+ www.badgergraphic.com/

The current price is $85.95 for a 100 sheet box. By purchasing 2 boxes the freight works out great and you will find the film is literally 50% cheaper than purchasing it in Australia.

Secondhand 4x5 film holders run from around $20 to $30-35 locally, at least that is what I have found.

90mm is quite wide for a 4x5 and unless you really like wide pictures it wouldn't be my first choice. I have 90/150/210/400 and I use the 150 the most, followed by the 210.

he 90 will more than likely be very limited is it's coverage, whereas the 150 will possibly give you more coverage than your camera can utilise, always good.

A 125 would be the shortest I would consider if I only had one lens. I haven't used one but I have been shooting alongside someone with one and I popped it on my camera for a look see, very nice moderate wide lens.

The fujinon lens are extremely good value and some are reasonably priced.

http://members.aol.com/subgallery/

Check this site out for info on the Fujinon lenses.

Caltar lens are also good value, I have a caltar 213mm 6.8 (I think) which is surprisingly sharp. It is about 35 to 40 years old, I believe.

That will get you started.

Mick.

 

[mjs]

Welcome to large format photography! I hope that you'll enjoy it as much as the rest of us seem to.

View camera lensboards have holes in the middle for the lens to fit through. Most large format cameras don't have built-in shutters, instead each lens comes with its own shutter. Copal is the most common brand of shutter, and I believe the only one still in production. Common older brands of shutters included Compur, Ilex, Seiko, etc. Shutters came in sizes from "00", "0", "1", "2", "3", "4" and "5"; the larger the number the bigger the shutter, and generally the larger sized hole through the lensboard required. Many of these sizes are obsolete: only sizes "0", "1" and "3" are still made, as far as I know. Other sizes may be encountered on older used lenses.

Lensboards themselves are usually pretty simple, either a flat piece of wood, metal, or plastic or two flat pieces, the inner one slightly smaller than the outer one in order to make a light trap when fitted into the camera. The manufacturer of your camera will sell you lensboards, as will any number of other retailers, mail order dealers, and people who specialize in that sort of thing. Or you can make your own: they're really very simple to make. Sometimes lensboards from one brand of camera will fit other brands: Linhof/Technika lensboards, for example, are something of an unofficial standard and fit several brands of camera.

A pretty common range of lenses for your kind of camera would be 90mm, 150mm, and 210mm. If I recall rightly, your camera can extend out to about 12" (300mm) or so; this limits the focal length of the lenses you'll be able to use with it. 210mm to 240mm will be about as long as it can handle and still be able to focus closer than infinity; a 300mm lens might be able to focus down to 20 feet or so, but probably not much closer. Telephoto lenses require less bellows extension in order to focus and you could probably use a somewhat longer lens of that design, but there are disadvantages to that design and they're going to be rather expensive. In any case, common practice is to have a lensboard for each lens you have, so that you don't have to swap lenses between lensboards in the field. Older lenses screwed into a flange which was itself screwed to the front of the lensboard; newer lenses have a thin metal ring, a nut if you will, which screws onto the back of the lens and holds it tight against the lensboard. You often have to unscrew the len's rear element to fit the lens to the lensboard, then screw the rear element back on when you've finished mounting the lens. This leaves the delicate shutter mechanism exposed and care is reqiured as the exposed bits are easy to damage and expensive to repair. This is also why most of us don't want to have to mess with changing out lensboards in the field. Thus, the procedure is to decide on the lens (so that you know what size the shutter will be,) before you make or buy the lensboard. That said, if you have a lensboard with a hole for a Copal 0 or 1 shutter go ahead and keep it because almost all of us have at least one lens with this size shutter: they are by far the most common.

If you can find a copy, get Steve Simmons' book on using large format cameras ("view cameras") and you might also find useful information at his web site, www.viewcamera.com. His book is the best I've found for beginners and was very helpful to me when I was starting out. His magazine is also pretty interesting.

Mike

 

[Zane Yau]

Thanks a lot guys for the valuable info. Getting into LF is so different to getting into medium format, everything's so different. it's like learning a new language or starting a new university degree or something

Mick's suggestion about starting with a 150 lens is not a bad idea. I always shoot with one wide and one standard lens when I use medium format. I will do more research and come back if I have more questions.

fschifano, i think I will be getting most of my stuff from B&H and Keh.

Mike - thanks a lot for the detailed explanations! The seller of the Horseman also recommended getting the View Camera book to learn about tilt shift and all those movements which I presently don't understand.

 

[keithwms]

Get thee a Fuji PA45 back and some fuji fp100b45 and/or fp100c45, you can learn much with that, and very quickly. Expensive yes, but you learn instantly.

For learning about movements I would recommend a fastish lens, say an f/5.6 or so, and a good loupe. If you look on the hevanet site at the LF lens reviews you will see many options for fast, good, and inexpensive lenses that cover 4x5.

The Nikons are kind of a special deal right now. Nikon stopped making LF lenses recently, and the prices for the remaining ones have been going down. Many of these are superb and can be had brand new. Some of the ones to look out for are the 300M/9, the 90/8, the 360 tele (convertible) and I also like the 65/4 very much. The 120 macro is very affordable and good.

P.S. Talk to Dirk at megaperls webshop, sometimes he can get you special deals on short or outdated fuji instant film.

 

[Zane Yau]

thanks for the tips Keith ... not a bad idea with the polaroid back

Do you know the best place to get these Nikon lenses?

 

[Nick Zentena]

B&H is the main place that might have new old stock Nikons left. But they've run out of some types.

KEH lists lenboards by the size of the hole. If you go over to the largeformat.info website they have a list of what the hole size is for each shutter size. Just match them up.

KEH also tends to have used film holders but they come and go.

The Nikon 90mm has plenty of coverage for most 4x5 users. Covers a bit more then 5x7. Best deals from KEH are the bargain grade lenses. The other slow 90mm have less coverage. Wide lenses have other issues you should consider. So it's better to start with a "normal" lens and then decide about a wide.