Opinions on speed graphics?

[m1tch]

That's very true, it would be rather expensive to find a large format lens that shoots up to 1/1000s as the original one shot up to 1/400 and the one mine has shoots to 1/500 although saying that its not really the camera you would use for action sports lol but I guess it means I can use faster film wide open.

 

[jp498]

I like soft focus/pictorialism and often have to shoot pretty wide open, like f5.6 sometimes. For reasons of quality and experience, I mostly use TMY2 film. I do use the higher shutter speeds on the speed graphic. I know in the summer I sometimes shoot 1/680th of second. Mine is older and has a 1-6 tension adjustment meaning an excessive variety of shutter speed choices.

 

[removed account4]

That's very true, it would be rather expensive to find a large format lens that shoots up to 1/1000s as the original one shot up to 1/400 and the one mine has shoots to 1/500 although saying that its not really the camera you would use for action sports lol but I guess it means I can use faster film wide open.

well ...

i wouldn't count on the shutter being exact on all the speeds, it is easy to test
with a shutter speed tester though ...
as long as you de-tension the spring when the shutter isn't being used you should
get another 50-60 years of hard-use out of that camera

i like photographing wrecking balls knocking down buildings with mine

 

[Dan Fromm]

That's very true, it would be rather expensive to find a large format lens that shoots up to 1/1000s as the original one shot up to 1/400 and the one mine has shoots to 1/500 although saying that its not really the camera you would use for action sports lol but I guess it means I can use faster film wide open.

Your post made me giggle. In the US sports photographers used Speed Graphics and Graflex reflexes and long lens cameras based on Graflex SLRs until the late 1950s. Buy a copy of the book Graphic Graflex Photography -- any edition will do -- and read about how the cameras were used.

About the language we speak. What we call a lens' speed is a dimensionless number sometimes called the relative aperture. The lens' focal length divided by its entrance pupil's diameter.

The speeds you mentioned are measured in seconds (or fractions of seconds) and are called shutter speeds. The highest shutter speed of leaf shutters in general use is 1/1000, Graflex made the shutter, offered it for, IIRC, two lenses, and most of them are kaput. Next fastest is a Kodak shutter that went to 1/800 and was offered with one 101 mm lens; most of them are kaput too.