Wista Field 45SW / DX?

What is the main difference between these two Wistas?

I am more a ultra wide angle / travel person and would like to be able to use a Schneider 47mm and 65mm on a Wista. Should I get a 45SW or 45DX?

I also hear quite a bit about the Chamonix 4x5... can I use a 47mm on this one?

Thank you!! JC

Hi and welcome to APUG. I'm a new owner of a Wista DX, but I don't know much about the differences between the DX models and SW models. There are however many Wista users here, so I'm sure somebody will be along shortly to assist.

I thought the SW had removable bellows, which would be handy if you could find bag bellows for your wide lenses. The 65mm certainly works well with my Wista 45DXIII, I am not confident a 47mm would work without a recessed board...

Marc

The SW looks like my DX from the front and will function identically when it comes to lenses. I use a 65mm with mine but need to use rear tilt and also tilt the front standard back and raise the lens panel to stop the front of the focus bed appearing in an image. My guess is a 47mm would be quite fiddly to use as it's shorter still.

Ian

JC,

I own DXs (three at last count), which I use 75mm lenses on regularly. I can get enough movement by kinking the bellows a bit to vignette. The lenses are all on recessed lensboards.

That said, I would hate to try anything shorter. Dealing with movements would be a real hassle, and the DX bellows jam up rather soon. I have to kink them to get the 90mm f/8 to the edge of its image circle as well. The kinking makes permanent folds in the bellows, which looks bad, but doesn't seem to do any damage. Still, it's a hassle and I don't think shorter than 75mm would be easy to deal with, if possible at all, even with a recessed board.

If I were you, and really wanted to do lots of work with very wide lenses and movements, I would look at one of the field cameras that offers bag bellows.

Just my 2 cents.

Best,

Doremus Scudder
www.DoremusScudder

Thanks guys!

I end up getting a 4x5 HZX-II with an extra bag bellow. It was kinda hard to come by a Wista 45-SW model on eBay recently anyway.

Just ordered a Nikon 90mm f/4.5 and a Schneider 47mm... can't wait to test them and report the result.

With the SW-model you can use bag bellows as well as the ordinary bellows, with the other version of the Wista Field you have fixed standard bellows.
If you want to use a 47mm you should go for the SW and a recessed lens board.