Tag: Linhof Super Technika 4″x5″

Considering the Zone VI Studios 4″x5″ Sheet Film Field Camera & The Zone System for Learning Photography

A report in late 2020 about yet another Australian university art school choosing to discontinue or downsize its photography course offerings, with students wondering how to access the school’s darkroom and loan equipment got me thinking about how students might best learn photography on their own if needed, specifically analog film photography. 

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Zone VI Studios 4″x5″ Field Camera. This is almost identical to the version that I owned and that was stolen from a Mayfair share studio in London, though mine was in much better condition.
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Polaroid Polapan 55 black & white instant sheet film, now sadly discontinued.

My recommendation to them is to forgo 35mm and 120 roll-film and jump straight into the deep end, 4″x5″ sheet film photography using the Zone System, if they really want to get to grips with the true nature and realities of analog film photography.

The old saying that “your first 10,000 photographs will be your worst” holds true whether you choose analog or digital photography so you may as well expend those 10,000 digitally rather than via analog film and save yourself a whole heap of cash as well as huge chunks processing and printing time and energy.

I learned photography by myself as a child in an isolated outback town by using pre-paid 35mm Kodachrome 64 colour transparency film then posting it off to the eastern states Kodak photo laboratory, racking up my 10,000 photographs while also working as a part-time press photographer for the local regional newspaper group.

An excellent camera system for learning digital photography, the Fujifilm X100V plus

Fujifilm Fujinon WCL-X100 II Wide-angle Conversion Lens for use on Fujifilm X100 series cameras, making the built-in lens equivalent to 18mm (28mm in 35mm sensor format). Image courtesy of Fujifilm Australia.
Fujifilm Fujinon TCL-X100 II Tele Conversion Lens for use on Fujifilm X100 series cameras, making the built-in lens equivalent to 35mm (50mm in 35mm sensor format). Image courtesy of Fujifilm Australia.
Squarehood lens hood for Fujifilm X100V. Image courtesy of Squarehood.
JJC Camera Hand Grip for Fujifilm X100V and X100F, Mdl# HG-X100V. Image courtesy of JJC.
Fujifilm X100V. Image courtesy of Fujifilm Australia.

If I were learning photography by myself during the digital era then I would have chosen to do it with Fujifilm cameras due to their excellent analog-style JPEGs, with the Fujifilm X100V being their best effort yet due to its 4K video capability, its apparently much-improved built-in 23mm lens (equivalent to 35mm in 35 sensor format) and its two conversion lenses, giving you a three lens set versatile enough to cover most documentary and portraiture situations.

Not to mention street photography.

The X100V is probably Fujifilm’s most appropriate camera for street photography if its speed of use matches if not surpasses that of its predecessor, the X100F, with the V’s up-and-down tilting LCD monitor a bonus, if you like that sort of thing.

Set your X100V for shooting Fine JPEG plus Raw, study the customized analog film simulation options shared by websites such as Fuji X Weekly and many others, apply and try them out, treat your JPEGs as if they are colour transparency film, file your raw files for processing later once you begin to make better photographs, and work hard to make the best 10,000 photographs that you can.

Having done that, reconsider your desire to work with analog film, processing and printing then choose to do it in 4″x5″ format with a film like Kodak Tri-X.

During the analog era I would have recommended Polaroid’s magnificent Polapan 55 black and white positive/negative film with its 20 ISO print and 12 ISO fine grain negative but ‘Type 55’ is now long gone from the world.

Linhof Technika folding cameras, fantastic if you can afford them and great for studio portraiture

Linhof Master Technika Classic 4″x5″ “Snow” sheet film view camera. Image courtesy of Linhof.
Linhof Master Technika 4″x5″ view camera can be used with a range of roll film, sheet film and digital backs. Image courtesy of Linhof.
Linhof Press 70 120 roll film press camera for handheld use. Image courtesy of Linhof.
Linhof Technika case. Most of the items in the school’s case were undamaged, luckily. Image courtesy of Linhof.
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Graflex Crown Graphic 4″x5″ sheet film field camera for use in the hand or on a tripod.

I discovered that the university art school I attended after saving enough money from press photography had a couple of Linhof cameras stored away in a closet, marked as terminally damaged by students as there was no local technician capable of or willing to restore them to working order.

The Linhof Press 70 6x7cm roll film press-style camera was tragically too far gone but I found that the Linhof Master Technika Classic 4″x5″ kit had enough undamaged parts to work well as a sheet film camera and so I set about learning to be a studio portrait photographer as the school’s lab technicians were reluctant to sign the camera out for use on location.

Later I discovered a somewhat beaten-up Graflex Crown Graphic 4″x5″ camera in the window of a local camera store going for a low, low price and immediately bought it as a stand and hand camera for portraiture, then when I became aware of Fred Picker’s Zone VI Studios in Vermont, I invested in their hardware, film, papers and photochemicals in order to  push my understanding of photography as far as it could possibly go.

My two favourite lenses, Schneider-Kreuznach 90mm f/8.0 Super-Angulon and 210mm Apo-Symmar f/5.6.

Schneider-Kreuznach Super-Angulon 90mm f/8.0 with Compur shutter in Linhof lens board.
Schneider-Kreuznach Super-Angulon 90mm f/8.0 with Compur shutter in Linhof lens board.
Schneider-Kreuznach Apo-Symmar 210mm f/5.6 with Compur shutter in Linhof lens board.
Schneider-Kreuznach Apo-Symmar 210mm f/5.6 with Compur shutter in Linhof lens board.

The lens that came with my Graflex Crown Graphic was a slightly wider than “normal” 135mm, a “perfect normal” focal length I preferred to the “standard normal” of 150mm in 4″x5″, so I chose a Schneider-Kreuznach two-lens set-up as illustrated above for my Zone VI Studios camera based on the lens set that came with the school’s Linhof Master Technika.

I used and loved my Zone VI Studios field camera for many years until it was eventually stolen by another photographer in a share studio in Mayfair, by which time I had succumbed to severe photochemical dermatitis and stepped away from professional photography for some time.

Wooden and metal field cameras, 4″x5″ and 8″x10″, from Japan and the USA

Zone VI Studios 4″x5″ Field Camera.
Calumet Wood Field XM 4″x5″ field camera.
Calumet Wood Field XM 4″x5″ field camera.
Calumet Wood Field XM 4″x5″ field camera. Image courtesy of @filmcameratokyo.
Tachihara Wista 4″x5″ Field Camera. Image found on ebay.
Tachihara Wista 4″x5″ Field Camera. Image found on eBay.
Tachihara Wista 8″x10″ field camera.
Tachihara Wista metal body 4″x5″ folding field view camera with Fujinon 150mm standard lens, mounted in Linhof lens board, with Fidelity Elite 4″x5″ sheet film holders aka “double dark slides”. Image found on eBay.

My Zone VI Studios camera proved to be light, surprisingly strong and resilient in challenging conditions in the deserts of Western Australia, and it survived a fall when an assistant on a corporate photography job in the goldfields stumbled backwards into it during a shoot.

If I were to go back into analog photography I would have no hesitation in purchasing a contemporary Tachihara Wista camera, though a number of them are available secondhand from Japanese online sellers along with a reasonable selection of mostly Fujifilm Fujinon large format lenses, also secondhand.

Fujinon lenses and cameras were relatively unknown back when I was buying my large format lenses, though I once read an article where fashion photographer Richard Avedon praised the qualities of Fujinon large format lenses on his Deardorff 8″x10″ camera for documentary projects such as In the American West as well as his customary fashion photography.

While other Japanese camera and lens makers such as Nikon also made large format lenses, many professional photographers most praised German-made large format lens brands such as Schneider-Kreuznach and Rodenstock, neither of which now make lenses for large format cameras.

Most of my work was in documentary and portrait photography, but had it involved more architecture, cityscape and landscape I would have added a 75mm lens and possibly a longer focal length such as 240mm.

Instead I found that 90mm and 210mm suited my needs especially given I applied them to a range of film formats in my field cameras including 4″x5″ and 6x6cm through to 6x12cm using a Sinar Vario variable format film magazine for 120 roll-film.

The Pentax Digital Spotmeter, modified by Zone VI Studios

Pentax Digital Spotmeter. I still have my copy of this analog era essential item, in the version modified by physicist Paul Horowitz for Fred Picker of Zone VI Studios in Vermont. Photograph courtesy of Ricoh.
Pentax Digital Spotmeter. Photograph courtesy of Ricoh.
Pentax Digital Spotmeter. Photograph courtesy of Ricoh.
Pentax Digital Spotmeter. Photograph courtesy of Ricoh.
Pentax Digital Spotmeter. Photograph courtesy of Ricoh.
Pentax Digital Spotmeter Zone System Scale VI, Water-Proof Vinyl Pre-Cut Label by James A. Rinner. Photograph courtesy James A. Rinner.
Pentax Digital Spotmeter Zone System Scale VI, Water-Proof Vinyl Pre-Cut Label by James A. Rinner. Photograph courtesy James A. Rinner.
Pentax Digital Spot Meter Zone VI Studios System Vinyl Waterproof Label by James A. Rinner. Photograph courtesy James A. Rinner.
Pentax Digital Spot Meter Zone VI Studios System Vinyl Waterproof Label by James A. Rinner. Photograph courtesy James A. Rinner.
Pentax Digital Spot Meter Zone VI Studios System Vinyl Waterproof Label by James A. Rinner. Photograph courtesy James A. Rinner.
Pentax Digital Spot Meter Zone VI Studios System Vinyl Waterproof Label by James A. Rinner. Photograph courtesy James A. Rinner.

Although Sekonic makes some outstanding multi-function light meters, the legendary Pentax Digital Spot Meter remains popular for its simplicity and elegance, though it can only be bought secondhand.

I still have mine and I really should replace its rather tattered original Zone VI Studios, Inc. scale with a new one by James A. Rinner, available on eBay or was it Amazon?

Spotmeters permit accurate placement of exposure on a chosen Zone System tone for black and white analog or digital photography.

The Zone System requires the use of spotmeters like the Pentax Digital or Sekonics and I cannot recommend the System too highly as it is essentially the foundation of expose-to-the-right aka ETTR, an exposure metering and placement method that forms the basis of accurate digital video and photography exposure and processing as well as for analog film.

Some sheet film camera lenses, accessories and developing gear, developers and books

eTone Dark Cloth for 4″x5″ field cameras. Image courtesy of eTone.
Think Tank Photo 4 x 5 Film Holder Case, now discontinued. Image courtesy of Think Tank Photo.
Sinar Vario 120 roll-film holder for 4″x5″ sheet film cameras in 6×4.5cm, 6x6cm, 6x7cm, 6x9cm and 6x12cm. I had one of these for use with my Zone VI Studios field camera, often using 6x7cm and 6x12cm for vertical and environmental portraits. Aspect ratios = 2:1, 1.5:1, 1.66:1, 1:1 or 1.33:1. Image found on ebay.
Sinar 6x9cm 120 roll-film holder for 4″x5″ sheet film cameras, aspect ratio = 1.5:1 or 3×2. Image found on ebay.
Sinar 6x7cm 120 roll-film holder for 4″x5″ sheet film cameras, aspect ratio = 1.66:1 or 7×6. Image found on ebay.
Linhof heavy duty cable release, pricey but very well-made. Image courtesy of Linhof.
Zone VI Workshop: The Fine Print in Black & White Photography, by Fred Picker, first edition, 1974.
Beseler 45-MXT Motorized Condensor Enlarger for up to 4″x5″ film, with head that can be swapped for cold-light head or colour head. Image courtesy of Beseler.
Beseler 45V-XL Condensor Enlarger for up to 4″x5″ film, with head that can be swapped for cold-light head or colour head, and an optional motor can be attached for fast and easy vertical movement. Image courtesy of Beseler.
Beseler 8278L Combined Colour LED Head for 4″x5″ enlargers, an excellent alternative to condenser heads for black and white as well as colour printing. Image courtesy of Beseler.
Paterson Micro Focus Finder. Image courtesy of Paterson.
Paterson 4 x 5 Sheet Film Developing Tank with Reel (Black).
Paterson developing tray, 5″x7″. I used three of these for developing 4″x5″ sheet film in darkness and larger ones for developing photographic paper under amber or red light. Image courtesy of Paterson.
Agfa Rodinal R09 Spezial analog film developer, best used at high dilution with tank version and stand technique. Also sold by Rollei under its own branding.
Adox Rodinal analog film developer, best used at high dilution with tank version and stand technique.
Kodak Professional HC-110 analog film developer, great for tray development of sheet film.

The images above show some of the hardware and photochemicals I relied upon when teaching analog film photography at several educational institutions as well as for my own work.

My enlarger was a Beseler 45MXT-style motorized 4″x5″ enlarger modified by Zone VI Studios with a cold light source in place of the condenser lens assembly in order to obtain a smoother tonal range and fewer problems with dust on negatives.

I recommend glass or filed-out metal negative carriers to show as much of the negative as possible rather than allowing standard negative carriers to crop your image for you.

During my magazine editorial photography days, I would present clients with prints showing every square millimeter of the negative including their edges and film codes and notches, and  art directors would often include them as part of the page design.

Doing so was especially popular when I was commissioned to make high impact close-up portraits in Polaroid 55 with my view camera and 210mm lens, using camera movements like shift, swing and tilt with the lens almost wide open to emotively emphasis some features while blurring others out of focus and thus importance.

I carried a Broncolor three monobloc flash unit kit with a selection of coloured gels, diffusers,  barndoors, mesh grids and a small lightbox, but nowadays I would opt for a Rotolight HSS LED light kit.

When developing Tri-X sheet film for images that I wanted to give the full negative printing treatment, I would tray-develop it, but if in a hurry I would use Paterson tanks with sheet film reels or I would have them machine-developed at a local black and white lab that used Jobo machines and tanks.

Sheet film reels have the habit of creating marks on the edges of your film whereas standing in pitch black rocking your sheet film in developing trays for hours on end ensured unmarked edges.

My preferred film developer was Agfa’s venerable and highly cost-effective Rodinal, but due to its high dilutions, long developing times and the need for stand development it could only be developed in tanks using the inversion-with-a-twist process.

Links

Coming Soon: Arca-Swiss Universalis II View Camera System for Fujifilm GFX 50S Medium Format Cameras

Rod Klukas, operating under the name Arca-Swiss USA, has released an image of the soon-to-be released Arca-Swiss Universalis II view camera system for Fujifilm’s GFX 50S medium format camera. Like Cambo’s Actus-GFX mini view camera, the Arca-Swiss Universalis II uses the GFX 50S as a digital magazine in combination with existing view camera system elements. 

Magazine editorial portrait photography with large format view cameras using 4″x5″ sheet film, Polaroid Type 55 instant positive/negative film and Linhof fixed-size or Sinar variable-format 120 roll film backs with the choice of 6×4.5, 6×6, 6×7, 6×9 and 6×12 aspect ratios was a passion of mine during the analog era.

I discovered that my subjects responded very differently to view cameras than they ever did to all other camera types, and I easily achieved an intimacy and calmness in my subjects that took more work to obtain using smaller cameras in the hand or on the tripod.

The cameras’ movements – swing, shift and tilt – provided extra creative control of what was in or out of focus, especially when using longer focal lengths like 210mm and even standard focal lengths such as 150mm.

This hardware also came in handy photographing architecture and figures in landscapes when I was a corporate photographer working for mining companies in the deserts of Western Australia.

I miss those cameras and that very craft-oriented approach to photography. It is so rewarding, then, to see similar aspect ratio and camera type choices appearing in the digital era and I hope that more technical camera makers will adopt Fujifilm’s GFX camera series in the way that Arca-Swiss and Cambo have now.

I was lucky to have learned the art and craft of large format photography with a pair of Linhof cameras owned by a university art school, then bought a Cambo studio technical camera followed by a Graflex sheet film press camera then a Wista folding field camera made of brass and cherrywood.

Those who have not been exposed to technical cameras using 120 roll film or sheet film may wish to do a little reading via the lists of links below.

Technical camera & lens brands, current and defunct

  • Alpa
  • Arca-Swiss – no corporate website, see links below.
  • Cambo – my first studio technical camera
  • Deardorff – made wooden field cameras between 1923 and 1988.
  • Ebony – made wooden and all-metal field view cameras for analog photography only but recently ceased production.
  • Fujinon – made some of the most highly-regarded large format lenses, reportedly Richard Avedon’s favourites, but appears to no longer be producing them. Fujinon large format lenses are being sold on eBay at affordable prices. My two favourite focal lengths are 90mm and 210mm, with both available in f/5.6 maximum aperture versions.
  • Gandolfi & Sons – makers of traditional mahogany folding field cameras from 4″x5″ through to 11″x14″ format for decades from 1885 until closing their doors in 2000.
  • Horseman
  • Linhof
  • Rodenstock
  • Schneider-Kreuznach – appears to have gone out of the large format lens business in favour of DSLR and medium format lenses.
  • Sinar
  • Toyo-View – US website, not updated since 2013. Toyo-View cameras are still sold at Adorama and B&H Photo Video.
  • Wista – appears have stayed with analog sheet film cameras. I owned a Wista 4″x5″ cherrywood folding field camera.

Other Links:

Fujifilm’s GFX 50S: New Ways of Seeing and Shooting, More Affordable Big Sensor High IQ

Fujifilm’s GFX 50S medium format digital camera is more revolutionary than the most commonly shared images of it suggest. That is the first thought I had when I began exploring then downloading the product shots at Fujifilm UK’s image bank and I think it is only going to really sink in when more photographers than just the few manage to try one out. 

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The press images hinting at the GFX 50S being more than meets the eye prompted me to download them all and publish them here, below. Specifications lists like the one further down the page are well and good, but seeing is where we will understand the real nature of this camera and its accessories.

The most obvious way of looking at the GFX 50S is as a larger version of the Fujifilm X-T2, but with a medium format sensor instead of an APS-C one. And in a way, that is correct. The GFX 50S has the external form factor of a DSLR except for the fact that we know the GFX 50S – with S, we assume, standing for SLR-like –is most certainly a mirrorless camera with all that implies about its lack of mirror slap and its ability to use an electronic or a mechanical shutter.

But then dig a little deeper.

The Camera

Fujifilm GFX-50S

That pentaprism-like electronic viewfinder (EVF) unit is removable and yet, without it, the GFX 50S remains perfectly functional but as something more resembling a small view camera. Instead of a ground glass, it has a high resolution rear LCD screen.

So does the X-Pro and X-T2, like a slew of other excellent contemporary mirrorless and, for that matter, DSLR, cameras, all providing a live view that is perfectly adequate for using to compose, focus and create your photographs.

Contemporary mirrorless devices push digital cameras beyond the limitations of analog cameras in ways that mean I for one can never go back.

Fujifilm’s X-Pro2, for example, might be considered three cameras in one, in analog terms. In one way it is a small view camera not unlike the 120 roll film  Linhof Technika 70, one of two Linhof Technika cameras with which I learned professional photography, the other being a Linhof Super Technika 4″x5″ sheet film camera with optional roll film magazines and a case full of accessories.

The Universal 4″x5″ back with Ektalite Field Lens.

Although purchasing my own Linhof was beyond reach, the lessons learned on those two amazing cameras have stayed with me for life. They intimately shaped my portrait photography style.

Even when I used other view cameras, usually field cameras, for my work as a magazine portrait photographer, I often did so with a Linhof variable format 120 roll film magazine for more shots, faster operating speed and the choice of shooting square, rectangular or panoramic aspect ratios.

While I often find myself using the monitor of my X-Pro2 and other digital cameras as if a small view camera’s ground glass, there is no substitute for the real thing. It is all about the experience on both sides of the camera.

For me, a contemplative experience of care and precision. For my subject, an experience of respect, sometimes awe, and oftentimes an hypnotic fascination with this remarkable high precision machine into whose eye I was asking them to gaze, unflinchingly.

Then consider the images of the tilting EVF along with the images of the tilting monitor, both so reminiscent of the town lens reflex cameras that provided me with lessons in another way of seeing and photographing.

The Lenses

Although I learned that on an art school Mamiyaflex C330 TLR with interchangeable lenses, I chose Rolleiflex T and Rolleiflex 2.8G cameras for my professional use, for urban documentary and portraiture. All three left me with an appreciation of square format, 1:1 aspect ratio, for those times when I wanted to draw my viewers’ attention in so clearly it was like an arrow into the centre of a bullseye.

All my cameras were secondhand until I discovered 120 roll film rangefinder cameras and 120 roll film DSLRs. I won’t bore you with a list save to say that it was with the rangefinder cameras where I most felt at home due to having discovered Leica M-Series rangefinder cameras as a teenaged press photographer way out in the sticks working it all out for myself.

The Heritage

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Rangefinder cameras have a special place in my heart to this day for their immersive window into the world, their sense of deep space and spatial relationships across the frame as well as forward and backwards.

After the demands of commercial work caused me to invest in 120 roll film DSLRs, while conceiving the magazine I later went on to cofound, I discovered Fujifilm’s GX680 Professional series, a remarkable creation combining the best of view cameras with the best of DSLRs, but one which regrettably, I never got to try out.

Another range of Fujifilm analog cameras that I was luckier with were its 120 rangefinder cameras that now live on in my hands in ghostly form as the X-Pro2.

When the late, great photojournalist-turned-landscape photographer Michael Reichmann favourably compared the Canon EOS D30 DSLR’s sensor to Fujifilm Provia 100F film, it was clear that digital photography had attained the ability to match the look of analog.

Fujifilm’s X-Pro 2, X-T2 and the coming X100F with their 24 MP sensors  produce image quality far above that of 35mm film, rivalling if not surpassing that of low ISO 120 format film. We have so much to be grateful for.

There is just one thing I am a little peeved about, though, and that is that we have lost the wide variety of cameras we had during the analog era.

We now have remarkable image quality to the degree that images made on medium format DSLRs can surpass the resolution of 8″x10″ sheet film as Mr Reichmann demonstrated in another of his famous reviews.

But what all this testing, side-by-side comparisons, digital up against analog and so on fail to do is consider the experience of the cameras and lenses in question, on both sides of the sensor, and what that contributes to the images we make with them.

Image quality is crucial of course, and I say that as someone who commissioned photographs for 48-sheet posters during my advertising agency days and who now is contemplating a possible return to the art gallery wall.

For me most of all the experience of the photographer and the subject is what reigns supreme and always will.

The Specifications

Recommended Reading:

Recommended Viewing:

More GFX Challenges videos were released to go with the January 2017 announcement of the Fujifilm GFX 50S.

Image Credits:

Header image by Carmel D. Morris.