Horseman SW612 Thoughts

Just purchased a Horseman SW 612 with a Rodenstock 45MM F4.5.

#1 Anyone who owns one or has used one, what did you use it for. General thoughts on it applications, etc?

#2 If it needs service, whom would you recommend?

Thanking you in advance

PS: I normally shoot Hasselblad, 6x6, various bodies and lens, and 903 SWC - all film

I have a Lomo Belair, which is similar in format to your Horseman (6x12). I use it for street and landscape work, although with the right lens, I suppose you could use it for studio/portrait work if you were so inclined. I'm not afraid of turning it vertical when the image calls for it.

1. Hand-held architectural. I ended up getting the one with a 35 APO-Grandagon, since I had a 50mm on my Fuji 6x9 already. You could use this indoors, but you'd want a groundglass panel to focus - and with wides, more likely an accessory rangefinder to establish distance.

2. There is not much to break on an SW612. The lens unit can be repaired by anyone who works on large format lenses. The film back is made by Mamiya and is similar in function (and most parts) to almost every back ever made for Graflex, Mamiya, Horseman, or Silvestri.

Having owned a Belair as well, the Horseman version of 6x12 is smaller on the long dimension (114mm), the lenses are quite a bit better (as you'd expect at 20x the price new). But the Belair is more fluid in handheld use, since it is thinner and lighter.

Dante

Another thought - unless you're shooting something super-wide, like dante's 35mm, you will have significant parallax error from the finder to the actual film plane at close distances. For critical focusing and composing, as he mentioned, a ground-glass focusing back would be strongly recommended.

If you are shooting 6x9, I would strongly consider a Leica 12011 Universal Wideangle Finder M. It has projected(!) framelines for 16 (=35mm), 18 (=38mm), 21 (=45/47mm), 24 (=55/58mm), and 28mm lenses (=65mm), which correspond to the Horseman focal lengths. It has a parallax corrector for various distances and a top-mount bubble level. I like it a lot better than the Horseman finder (though to be honest, I have had this thing for a week, so no hardened opinions quite yet). Funny thing is that I never used that finder on an actual Leica in all these years...

The Horseman is considerably fatter than expected, and although the shutter release and winding are convenient compared to most similar cameras, it's no Brooks Veriwide 100 in therms of overall ease of handling.

I also feel like the SW612 scrimped a bit on accessory shoes; it would be nice to have a 4-way level and possibly a rangefinder!