Comparing DLC cameras to others

_T_ · Dec 14, 2025

Milpool said:
Yup, something like that but with extension / ability to use regular lenses would be nice. At one time I thought something like the Walker XL might work decently for me but in the end it had some no-go characteristics and would probably have been more trouble than it was worth.

Cambo makes a camera called the actus repro that does exactly this. I don’t think they are producing them anymore but they are still available new from cambo usa’s website and on b&h. I guess these kinds of things sell pretty slowly. Sometimes I will see a second hand one on eBay for a slightly better price but for a second hand camera the minor savings you get that way makes it pretty easy to justify spending a little more on a new one.

Actus Repro Camera Body

Actus Repro * SPECIAL ORDER Can NOT Be Returned The ACTUS optimized for archival and repro photograph When digitizing flat art, film or documents proper alignment between sensor and front standard is crucial. The front standard of the Actus Repro has no Tilt and Swing. We maintained the rear...

www.cambousa.com

Ardpatrick · Dec 15, 2025

blee1996 said:
@DREW WILEY Thanks for the gravity angle finder suggestion. I will get one and try it not only for LF camera, but also for aligning my enlarger.

Back to the original topic: I have Wista DX wooden field camera and Arca Swiss F-Line monorail. Both are quite fast to set up in the field. And the Arca Swiss has the most precision feel and refinement. It is even slightly better than Sinar F/P in terms of workmanship. I have bag bellows for the Arca Swiss but never used. My wide angle 4x5 landscape stops somewhere around 90mm.

I don't hike with the Arca Swiss, but it can be packed down smaller than similar Sinar system.

The Arca Swiss F does seem next level. I found an affordable one on eBay but even though it’s listed as an “F” I suspect it’s actually an Arca Swiss Discovery. Not a bad camera but not the same thing.

I’ve been absorbing the advice here and looking at options online. Arca Swiss is very pricy indeed. Objectively I don’t think the prices are excessive (compared to a bag of groceries) but I’m also seeing loads and loads of used Sinar F/ F2 cameras with standard & wide bellows for about the same price as an Arca Swiss bellows! As a longtime owner of a Sinar, I’m well aware of its strengths and limitations but at those prices it might be worth it as a second, horses for courses camera.

Or just sell the DLC, supplement a modest cost differential, buy a TK 45s, and be happy!

abruzzi · Dec 15, 2025

Ardpatrick said:
The Arca Swiss F does seem next level. I found an affordable one on eBay but even though it’s listed as an “F” I suspect it’s actually an Arca Swiss Discovery. Not a bad camera but not the same thing.

I’ve been absorbing the advice here and looking at options online. Arca Swiss is very pricy indeed. Objectively I don’t think the prices are excessive (compared to a bag of groceries) but I’m also seeing loads and loads of used Sinar F/ F2 cameras with standard & wide bellows for about the same price as an Arca Swiss bellows! As a longtime owner of a Sinar, I’m well aware of its strengths and limitations but at those prices it might be worth it as a second, horses for courses camera.

Or just sell the DLC, supplement a modest cost differential, buy a TK 45s, and be happy!

Discoverys are easy to tell. Shift on an F-Classic is a pinch clamp--squeeze the clamp and the standard loosens and you can slide it back and forth. Discoverys have a screw knob to loosen/tighten the shift clamp. Discoversy also do not have geared focusing on the front carrier.

F-Classic Shift pinch clamp:

Discovery Shift Clamp:

For focusing on a discovery you can see the front standard only has "lock" whilke the rear standard has lock and focus:

I don't know if it is all of them, but the Discoverys I've seen have some yellow knobs. The F-Classic (and F-Metric) are all black and grey.

Ther than that they are basically the same camera.

EDIT: Something not mentioned: There are also the "Oschwald"era cameras. Arca Swiss was sold somewhere around 1984, then the F and M models started coming out. Sinar Maintained a high degree of interchangabilityfrom the 1947 Norma to the last cameras they made. There is some, but a lot less intechagability between Oschwad and Vogt era Arca Swiss cameras. If the camera has a lot of visible chrome/silver/bare metal then is is almost certainly a Oschwald camera. They are much cheaper but I've never used them so I can't comment on build quality.

blee1996 · Dec 15, 2025

At least in the US, Arca Swiss is significantly more expensive and significantly less common than Sinar. So eventually I went with Sinar for 8x10 and 4x5 dual-format. But I kept the Arca Swiss F since it is just such a lovely camera.

Ardpatrick · Dec 15, 2025

blee1996 said:
At least in the US, Arca Swiss is significantly more expensive and significantly less common than Sinar. So eventually I went with Sinar for 8x10 and 4x5 dual-format. But I kept the Arca Swiss F since it is just such a lovely camera.

The relative costs / availability are the same in Europe. But the real acid test is which camera, Sinar or Arca Swiss, do you actually use more regularly and why?

blee1996 · Dec 15, 2025

Ardpatrick said:
The relative costs / availability are the same in Europe. But the real acid test is which camera, Sinar or Arca Swiss, do you actually use more regularly and why?

My photography needs are different from yours, thus my preference might not matter to you.

I use Sinar more indoors for portraits and still life because: I need 8x10, I use Sinar Copal shutter for barrel lenses. For outdoors, I use wooden field camera instead of monorails.

isaac7 · Dec 15, 2025

Ardpatrick said:
I’ve been out and about around the city with my Canham DLC 4x5, a recently acquired wide angle bellows, and some likewise new to me very wide lenses (72 / 58mm).

I’m clearly a little rusty with this camera although I’ve been shooting LF for 25+ years and own the Canham since 2009. I posted elsewhere about tripod head issues, but I’m having some camera specific issues too - the Canham is metal, folds / unfolds, and does not have any zero detente’s. I was advised to zero camera movements by ‘touch’ to verify standard alignment and that’s probably sufficient for landscape and / or with longer lenses. However for urban buildings / streetscape and wide lenses, I’ve had shots where even quite marginally non-aligned (to touch) standards have produced surprisingly unsharp results across parts of the shot. Of course very wide lenses are very unforgiving of any inaccuracy of alignment. The older DLC also has lousy bubble levels which is an inconvenience.

The DLC is generally a wonderful camera, but I’m wondering if I could find a better tool for my photographic needs - something that can be compact for portability, assembles accurately and has good movements & controls? I could sell the Canham and for similar money buy f.x. a Toyo View VX125, an Arca Swiss F, or a Linhof Technikarden. I have a sense of these cameras but haven’t used any of them. If it’s not already clear, my preference is a light metal 4x5 with plenty of movements.

Maybe there is little advantage to any of them. There are previous threads comparing these cameras, but maybe someone here has experience of these cameras compared to the DLC?

I should finally acknowledge that as I get older I get less tolerant of tools that ‘kinda’ work. Getting out to shoot LF film is not a convenient thing to do. It’s a commitment and film isn’t cheap anymore. Having to fiddle around just to level and align a 4x5 in Northern European winter weather and diminishing light, is less tolerable than it once was!

I never used the European monorails but I loved my Horseman copy. Pretty sure they are mostly compatible with Sinar stuff. Once you rotated the standards everything could lay flat and allowed me to pack everything in a normal-ish backpack. Set up was quick and it was rock solid.

DREW WILEY · Dec 16, 2025

No; only the Horseman bellows are really interchangeable with Sinar. The lensboards are the same size, but not interchangeable the Sinar direction due to the special perimeter grooves necessary in the Sinar version. The rails and standards are completely different.

I have a 28 inch extra-long Horseman box bellows for my Sinar to facilitate long lens work. It doesn't sag, so alleviates the need for two regular Sinar bellows along with an intermediate standard. But what I really prefer for extensions up to 24 inch is the old tapered 4x5 Sinar
Norma bellows, which is more versatile than the later box (square) style. I was lucky to find two of these in mint condition.

Imaginaut · Dec 16, 2025

I am fortunate enough to own a DLC and an Arca F-metric, and I consider both to be peerless cameras. The DLC is perfect for its use case as a light, flexible field camera and I have had success with lenses as wide as 65mm, but you do have to be cautious that the bellows does not deflect the standards with large movements. I don’t believe it has an equivalent for its application in field use, but it is not an architecture workhorse.

The Arca bag bellows are excellent and I use the F Metric with a 58mm lens frequently. Having geared rise and orbix on the front standard is remarkably convenient, and it is altogether a more precise camera than the Canham. But I expect that, given that it’s much bulkier and weighs half again as much. And it’s a wonderfully compact and lightweight monorail! There’s no free lunch in camera choice.

It is entirely possible to use the Canham consistently and accurately with wide angle lenses, but it does require care and focus. That said, if you find the DLC practical in other use cases I think it is entirely reasonable to supplement with a separate monorail. Arca Swiss vs Sinar comes down to a balance between cost and bulk, in my mind. One additional thing that may be worth considering if parallelism and rigidity of the standards is the primary goal is the Arca M2 model, which eliminates lateral movements at the front standard and rotational movements at the rear standard. It’s aimed at 6x9 and digital work, but can be used for 4x5 as well.

Ardpatrick · Dec 16, 2025

Imaginaut said:
I am fortunate enough to own a DLC and an Arca F-metric, and I consider both to be peerless cameras. The DLC is perfect for its use case as a light, flexible field camera and I have had success with lenses as wide as 65mm, but you do have to be cautious that the bellows does not deflect the standards with large movements. I don’t believe it has an equivalent for its application in field use, but it is not an architecture workhorse.

The Arca bag bellows are excellent and I use the F Metric with a 58mm lens frequently. Having geared rise and orbix on the front standard is remarkably convenient, and it is altogether a more precise camera than the Canham. But I expect that, given that it’s much bulkier and weighs half again as much. And it’s a wonderfully compact and lightweight monorail! There’s no free lunch in camera choice.

It is entirely possible to use the Canham consistently and accurately with wide angle lenses, but it does require care and focus. That said, if you find the DLC practical in other use cases I think it is entirely reasonable to supplement with a separate monorail. Arca Swiss vs Sinar comes down to a balance between cost and bulk, in my mind. One additional thing that may be worth considering if parallelism and rigidity of the standards is the primary goal is the Arca M2 model, which eliminates lateral movements at the front standard and rotational movements at the rear standard. It’s aimed at 6x9 and digital work, but can be used for 4x5 as well.

Super advice. Thank you. I am now thinking in terms of two cameras - the DLC for travel etc and a compact monorail for the architectural work.

isaac7 · Dec 16, 2025

DREW WILEY said:
No; only the Horseman bellows are really interchangeable with Sinar. The lensboards are the same size, but not interchangeable the Sinar direction due to the special perimeter grooves necessary in the Sinar version. The rails and standards are completely different.

I have a 28 inch extra-long Horseman box bellows for my Sinar to facilitate long lens work. It doesn't sag, so alleviates the need for two regular Sinar bellows along with an intermediate standard. But what I really prefer for extensions up to 24 inch is the old tapered 4x5 Sinar
Norma bellows, which is more versatile than the later box (square) style. I was lucky to find two of these in mint condition.

Well apparently I didn’t do enough research lol. I did use a Sinar shutter on mine so that’s probably what made me think there was more compatibility between the companies.

DREW WILEY · Dec 17, 2025

That's because Sinar boards can be used on Horseman cameras, but it doesn't work the other way around. One also has to be cautious about generic Sinar/Horseman boards, because those might not properly fit Sinar either.

Comparing DLC cameras to others

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