Using a Speed Graphic hand held - doable?

Dan Fromm

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aleksmiesak said:
So what would be a benefit or reason for a non-shuttered lens? Pardon, if that sounds ignorant but I'm totally new to this
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I shoot 2x3 Graphics, use a Pacemaker Speed with focal plane shutter and a Century (Pacemaker Crown with plastic body and no body shutter release). Here's my take on using lenses in barrel with these cameras: http://www.galerie-photo.com/telechargement/dan-fromm-6x9-lenses-v2-2011-03-29.pdf The ideas apply to all sizes of Graphics.

Oh, and by the way, you'll find that you need a Crown too. Crown Graphics have thinner bodies than Speeds, will focus to infinity with shorter lenses than Speeds. Speeds can focus longer lenses than Crowns.
 

Sirius Glass

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A non-shuttered lens is called a barrel lens. Barrel lenses are less expensive because there is no shutter and most people want a lens with a shutter. The older barrel lenses can be soft focus lenses which are useful for portraits and for atmosphere in some situations. You might want to order Creative Graflex Photography by Jay Allen for a good tutorial on barrel lenses. Email Jay at jay10allen@msn.com
 

Ian Grant

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The major difference between the Crown and Super Graphics is the extra movements and rotating backs of the Supers, this really does offer far greater flexibility. I was using a Crown Graphic when I knew I would proably have to work hand held instread of my Wista 45DX. By chance a bargain priced Super Graphic with some issues was listed on a Forum and it's proved to be a good decision buying it. I had it functioning quicly with a back focus panel off a Cambo before finally ghetting a complete back oon this website.

Two years later and I've not yet found an occasion where the Super Graphic hasn't had enough movements for my landscape work, quite unlike my Crown Graphi. The Super Speed Graphic has a Graflex Optar lens in a leaf shutter with a faster than normal 1/1000 sec top speed.

Ian
 

pentaxuser

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As others have said,mopar_guy, thanks for your interesting explanation on the Ringside model. I had never heard of this.

pentaxuser
 

wiltw

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Reminiscing about shooting hand held Speed Graphicm loaded with 4x5 Royal Pan (ASA 1250) for night football games!
 

David A. Goldfarb

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It's interesting to think about an era when cameras were so easily and routinely customized. Big Berthas also seem made to order in many cases. You didn't have to build every feature into the camera, because there was so much flexibility to begin with, not having proprietary lens mounts, and cameras being made out of easily workable materials. Large format is still pretty much that way, but Graflex was a major camera manufacturer. Maybe there is some rarified stratum of photographic elites who can ask Canon or Nikon for custom camera mods, but it's hardly the routine.
 

mhcfires

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Prof_Pixel said:
I can remember using a Graflex Stroboflash IV with a Speed Graphic in the late '50s as a photographer for the U of M Michigan Daily paper. The battery pack for the Stroboflash IV was 9.5 pounds and we all walked around stoop-shouldered.
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You may have walked about stoop-shouldered, but at least it was slung over your shoulder, you weren't attacking your arthritic wrists with another 9.5 lbs. I guess I need to take out the old Pre-Anny a bit more often.
 

Ian Grant

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Super Graphics do fetch much higher prices, have a look atcompleted prices on Ebay. Also remember that there will be fewer available in australia than the US and if you bought one elsewhere the cost of shipping and any taxes would add a considerable amount.

If it's $495 with a lens that's in line with typical prices they tend to sell for, without a lens if it's in excellent condition it's still what some people will pay for one.

I've compared why I prefer my Super Graphic to my Crown earlier in the thread, they weigh about the same, your paying for the extra features.

Ian
 
OP
OP

hoffy

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OK, thanks for the reply Ian - I had a look at it (not that I could do much), but I have to admit I was suprised by how bright the rangefinder was on it, compared to my Koni-Omega.

I was kinda hoping you would say "too much" - its going to take me a while to save the coin for that - man, I'm not going to be able to buy coffee for a while to come....
 

graywolf

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Speed Graphics were ubiquitous from the mid-1920's to about 1965. Through all those years they were the newspapers camera of choice. Flashbulbs would only used from the mid-late 1930's, so the reason for an in-the-lens shutter was not originally for flash. What it was for was rapid photography.

The usual front shutter back in the 1920's & 1930's was a "Press Shutter". A press shutter was a self-cocking shutter that you only had to push the lever to shoot a photo, combined with a Film Pack (8-12 exposures back then) you could shoot as fast as you could pull the film tab and press the shutter. Two shots a second were easy.

However, the Press shutters had one problem. The top speed was only 1/50 or 1/100 of a second. A lot of action shots required a faster shutter than that. That was what make the Speed Graphic so popular, it had that fast focal plane shutter when you needed something faster than the Press shutter.

That does not mean that all the other nifty reasons people have listed here did not apply, but that slow Press shutter was the main reason back in the day. BTW, I believe that Copal still makes a Press shutter, they certainly were making them 20 years ago.
 

Ian Grant

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Tom, you need to qualify that because that's only true for one country. else where in the world things had changed and even a few US photographers had moved on.

Graflex lost out to Linhof and MPP in Europe, they had cameras with what people wanted = more movements, the Compur shutters werfe so food a focal plane shutter was just a luxury for longer lenses with no shutter.

If Graflex had brought out the Super Graphic in the late 1940's things would have been quite different but they sat on their arses and lost sales hand over fist.

Ian
 

graywolf

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Well, Ian, a technical camera is not a press camera, and a press camera is not a technical camera despite folks trying to interchange them. The Speed Graphic was actually made from 1915 to 1973, but was not so commonly used in the early and later days.

Yes, you are correct, in a way, I was talking from a USA centric viewpoint, but it was an America camera I was talking about. And there was an American equivalent to the Linhof & MPP, the Meridian. None of those cameras sold anywhere near as well as the Speed Graphic, even today you can find 100 Speed graphics for every one of those cameras, at least in the USA. At one time in the USA just about every professional photographer owned a Speed Graphic. In the news, weddings, sports, industrial photography areas they were the choice probably 1000 to 1 over everything else. In baseball and horse racing the Graflex SLR was more popular, but those were used from the press boxes with 3000mm or longer lenses (Big Berthas, as they were called), from the sideline the Speed Graphic was king in those areas too. When you ignore the brand, there were hundreds of competing brands out there, and just talking about press cameras "ubiquitous" is not too strong a word.

Prior to 1955 in the USA National Geographic was about the only magazine that accepted 35mm color slides for publication. From 1955 to 1965 many more publications would take 6x6 transparencies, only after that did 35mm really become acceptable for publication. Industrial photographers were still using the 4x5 press camera for most of their work into the late 1970's when the rest of the world had gone to their Nikons. Through the 1960's & 70's Nikon owned the publishing world, the Nikon F & F2 probably being preferred 10 to 1 over the other brands. Compare that to the 1000 to 1 for the Speed Graphic.

Yes, in Europe the Rolleiflex, and then the Leica were the choice for a long while, but for publishing, no camera was used more than the Speed Graphic. I would wager that is probably even true worldwide, although for a shorter period, there are a heck of a lot of Graphics floating around outside the USA.
 

Ian Grant

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wblynch said:
So, all those old Life magazine photos were taken with Speed Graphics? ..cool
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No many were shot with Leicas, Rolleiflexes and a variety of other cameras as well as Speed Graphics. Frank Capa used a Leica, Lee Miller a mainly a Rollieiflex and later may Life magazine phographers used Contax then Nikon rangefinder cameras.

In Europe there were press cameras with with remarkably fast lenses for the 1920's, like the Bobette II (Zeiss Ikon/Ernemann) with a choice of 3 lenses f1.3, f1.8 or f4.5, Meyer also sold a press reflex with an f1.5 lens.

Ian
 

graywolf

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Many of those from the 1930's & 1940's. In the 1950's Rollei's and Leicas were often used. And, by the time life went to color the Speed Graphic was seldom used for publication work anymore. Very few American Magazines used 35mm color prior to 1965, and not many would accept 35mm B&W prior to 1955. European magazines were about 10 years ahead of the US in accepting 35mm work, generally. It is a simple fact that in the 1930's it was hard to do a decent 35mm enlargement bigger than 5x7. Where 35mm was used it was usually for situations where the photographer could not get away with a bigger camera, sort of like where you would use a camera phone today. Of course, there have always been avant-garde photographers pushing the envelope of what is being done, their work was more acceptable in Europe than in the USA. Their work was also highly publicized, so reading about them gives the impression that it was the norm, but most working photographers were still using press cameras back then.

To give a more realistic idea, back in the mid 1970's (1974 if I recall correctly), I was involved in a program sponsored by the US government, a couple of state governments, and a half dozen corporations. The photographer shooting the publicity photos was using his issued Speed Graphic for the B&W shots, and his personal Pentax for the color slides. What most people seem to forget is that if it was reported in the news it was out of the ordinary, the news media does not report the ordinary as there is no interest about what everybody knows. But when you do research decades later where are you getting your information from?
 

PKM-25

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Somewhere around my office I have a set of 4x5 RDP100 chromes from 1988 that I shot on the flight deck of an aircraft carrier during flight ops with a speed graphic. I know it was a readyload, so at the time, I thought it could be done...

The FDO was a little skeptical of letting me do it, but I promised him "No FOD sir, no FOD!".........
 

David A. Goldfarb

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Presumably, you explained that you were following the instructions in the Graflex SLR manual, indicating that the Speed Graphic was the right camera for the job.

"Do not use the Graflex [RB Super D] for photographing near-by action such as aircraft carrier landings. When you are peering into the focusing hood, dangerous activity may come too near before you detect it."
 

Steve Smith

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PKM-25 said:
The FDO was a little skeptical of letting me do it, but I promised him "No FOD sir, no FOD!".........
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What is an FDO and an FOD?


Steve.
 

nworth

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Speed Graphics were used as handheld cameras for many years. They are designed so that you can get a much firmer grip on them than you can with most cameras. That is especially true if you keep the flash tube on the camera and use the solenoid shutter release. You will probable get a much sharper image at 1/100 that way than at 1/250 with a usual camera. That said, a tripod is the way to go if you possibly can.
 

RodKlukas

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Remember too, that many news guys when hand holding used flash. The effective shutter speed for exposure was therefore the burn time of the flashbulb. Much faster than the shutter.
Also the Flash light source is contrastier and so gives the appearance of additional sharpness.
Rod
 

BrianShaw

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wblynch said:
Flight Deck Officer / Foreign Object Damage

USS Oriskany CV34 1975-1976
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I know what you mean. I documented FCLP (NAS Beeville) for a simulator training study using SuperGraphic and sheet film in the late 1980s. Great memories!

Note: FCLP = Field Carrier Landing Practice, the process for student pilots to prove they learned carrier landing in the simulator by practicing it on a runway that is marked-out like a carrier deck.
 
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