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St. Patricks Day Parade

Cameras

Wisner 4x5 Technical Field Camera
I purchased my Wisner on E-bay from the widow of the recently deceased Clark Partridge who, unbeknownst to me at the time, was a good friend of and trainee under Ansel Adams. Had I known this during the transaction, I wouldn't have been such an ass in insisting that Paypal or another secure payment system be used. My mystery seller claimed to be ignorant of these things, adding that her husband, who had been a Wisner dealer, had recently died and that she was liquidating all of his merchandise as quickly as possible. These claims would sound suspicious to anyone who has ever been cheated out of a buck on ebay (Woody Allen 6 DVD Set, Winter 2001...still very bitter). Not wanting to risk being taken again, I e-mailed Ron Wisner himself to confirm Clark's status as an official dealer. Sure enough, Clark was a good friend of Ron's as well and he assured me that the transaction would be safe. So in the end, I supposed I indirectly offended Ansel Adams, Ron Wisner, and the widow of a good, honest man. But enough of this; on to the camera.

Before choosing the Wisner, I went through the maddening process of trying to decide whether I needed a Wooden camera or a metal one, a matter claiming vehement supporters on either side and in the end, largely arbitrary. Wood is traditionally lighter and has the cosmetic advantages of looking older and therefore more iconic and pure. The downside is that wooden cameras tend to be bulkier and more susceptible to complete annihilation when falling off their tripods and bouncing down jagged rocky precipices. Metal cameras can also achieve complete annihilation in such cases, but overall, triumph in resilience. They're also more resistant to humidity and generally more compact. Their downside is that they are heavy and--if I have my facts straight--sometimes offer less movements. For me, it was the amazing E-bay price tag that made the decision for me, although I leaned towards the Wisner from the very beginning. Whether you shoot with it daily or leave it up on an old rickety tripod in your living room as furniture, you really can't go wrong.

The craftsmanship in the camera is really stunning, so meticulously done that it's earned Ron Wisner and his craft minions articles in woodworking magazines and other non-photographic publications. Upon first handling, one's first reaction is a fear of harming it, scratching the varnish or treating it with the unnecessary care one would of an object so seemingly antique. Interestingly, the first thing most people ask me while I'm shooting is how old it is; most people expect to see cobwebs and resultantly, a piece of technology far less superior than the latest digital model they might be hiding in their shirt pocket. Those are my favorite moments: when I throw the dark cloth over them and persuade them to take a look through the ground glass, explaining how pure the process is and how no digital camera could ever match the quality of images its capable of producing. We have to have pride in our toys, after all, or their cumbersome nature isn't worth tolerating!

The Technical Field has more movements than virtually any other field camera, although I must confess to having not utilized many of them yet. The rear tilt is geared which makes back movements very precise and painless. Also geared are the front and rear racking (focusing) knobs made possible by inlayed gear treads inside the wood itself. I guess you'd have to see it, but trust me: its very impressive.

One thing that has puzzled me about my specific use of the camera is the nature of the bellows requirements. Possibly owing to idiosyncrasies in my particular shooting habits, I've yet to use the accordion bellows. It's usually front tilt combined with distant focus--and therefore closely racked standards--that makes the rather rigid accordions somewhat useless; one of the first things I do when setting up the camera is change over to the bag bellows. This can be slightly annoying especially when it's below freezing out and the fingers are clumsy with cold. I also find the bag bellows hard to pack. While they do lay quite flat, I worry about their safety when any type of weight is shifted their way. But no light holes as of yet. I'll keep my fingers crossed.

For a complete list of movement and camera specifics, see what Ron Wisner has compiled here.

Nikon F80 35mm SLR with Exposure-Imprinting
Review coming soon...

Canon EOS Rebel 2000 35mm SLR
This little chunk of plastic is dear to my heart; it is my second first camera I've ever owned. The first first version was stolen at the Atlanta Airport after I left it hanging in a men's bathroom stall. It was quickly replaced.

The price tag is low for this entry-level SLR--and in some ways, very indicative of quality--but for most purposes, it offers more than one would think. Depth of Field preview is fairly uncommon for models of its class, but the Rebel offers it through a little button on the lower left side of the lens. With 35mm photography, however, the viewing area is so small and the entering light so sparse as to render this function somewhat useless when used in less than ideal conditions.

Another plus of the camera is its relatively light weight. If you're a regular backpacker or hiker and are concerned with pack weight, this could be the model for you. The downside of this is, of course, that the camera is very...well...crushable. When attempting to feign off bears or large teethy fish, the Rebel 2000 is less than effective. It can, however, be used to take pictures of bears and large teethy fish and then forcefully thrown at them as long as the photographer is simultaneously running in the opposite direction. I do not speak from experience.

One unfortunate aspect of the camera is the abysmal quality of lenses with which they are often bundled. I use the 28-80mm f/3.5-5.6 zoom but I really don't know why. The body of the lenses are plastic, like the camera, and at times I've been inclined to think that the actual lenses are plastic as well. Color saturation is relatively poor with these lenses and sharpness is sometimes questionable. If you have the option, buy the camera alone and add better lenses later. For a good review of the camera, see this photo.net post.

Lenses

Rodenstock Apo-Sironar S 135mm Lens
The Apo-Sironar 135mm is roughly the equivalent of a 45mm lens in 35mm photography, a slightly wider-angled lense than the "normal" 150mm. These "normal" lenses are called such because of the way they recreate the actual field of vision of the human eye, which I believe is 72°. The 135mm produces a field of 75°, a difference that might seem negligible on paper but is actually quite a difference in a photograph.

Ansel Adams claimed to prefer lenses that were slightly wider or narrower than "normal", but I guess its strictly a personal preference largely determined by what you shoot. As a first lens and considering my proclivity towards landscape and architectural work, the 135mm has been perfect: wide enough to capture the girth of rivers while narrow enough to shoot people, or at least people smaller than rivers. When money finally decides not to run in fear from me, I'll buy a 90mm and 210mm lens to round out my outfit.

There are other 135mm lenses besides the Rodenstock, but none offer an image circle anywhere close to the size of the Apo-Sironar. At 208mm, the Rodenstock's circle is 13mm larger than the Schneider's, quite a difference when taking my Wisner's capacity for movements into consideration. The bigger circle simply means that there is less risk of vignetting, or less risk of the image falling off the film area.

Concerning quality, you really can't do any better. The Apo-Sironar S is different from the cheaper N-model in its improved anti-glare coating, which helps improve color saturation among other things. Every image I've ever achieved with my Rodenstock has been sharp as a tack. Overall, they are stunning pieces of work.

Canon Zoom Wide Angle-Telephoto EF 28-80mm f/3.5-5.6 II
I'm not going to lie to you; this lens is pretty poor. If you buy a Rebel 2000 kit, be warned: this is the lens with which the camera is most often bundled. You'd be better off buying the Rebel body separately and getting one of the nicer lenses. The color saturation produced by the lenses is not stellar by any means. I assume that this is because of lens flare produced by a lack of lens coating, but I'm not sure.

I will say that it's been a reliable friend and has certainly produced better images than inflexible point and shoots and cheaper SLRs. If you're thinking cheap, this could be a good first step.

Canon Zoom Telephoto EF 75-300mm f/4.0-5.6 III USM
Zoom lenses simply cannot produce the same quality as fixed focal length lenses. There's simply too much mechanical movement going on to allow for the rigidity required of truly sharp images. But unless you're going to be doing huge enlargements, the difference can be nearly invisible. I've found the images made with my Canon 75-300 to be much sharper than those from my 28-80mm. The lens also focuses much faster and is constructed out of something other than what Barbie's ass is made of.

Bags

Lowepro Pro Trekker AW Photo Backpack
Of the non-home-spun varieties, there are basically two ways that large-format camera equipment can be carried: by hard case (boxy, briefcase-type things with custom cut foam) or by pack. While one could easily leave their equipment in a frame pack for studio storage purposes, a hard case can't--in good sense--be lugged up the side of a mountain. In other words, packs are simply more versatile.

The wonderful thing about Lowepro's packs is the frame system; for my money, it's more comfortable than those in the best non-photo hiking packs like Kelty, Gregory, or REI. The shoulder straps are about twice the thickness and are "collar cut" to avoid chaffing the neckline. For most purposes, there's no reason why a photo backpack should be any less comfortable than one suited for general hiking. With pack fully loaded (Wisner Technical Field 4x5, air can, film holders, one LF lens, two 35mm lenses, one 35mm body, film, meter, darkcloth and accessories) 50lbs. of photo equipment doesn't feel any lighter than 50lbs. of camping equipment. It's all a burden to carry but less so if the weight can rest squarely on the hips, where it's most comfortable.

Lowepro claims that the Pro Trekker AW is of a size (21W x 15D x 23.5H in) perfectly compliant with FAA carry-on regulations. This might be true if ones favorite method of storing luggage was to forcefully beat it into a cooperative, overhead bin-friendly shape. But camera equipment doesn't smile upon violent blows from the fist as readily as do piles of wool sweaters and undies. If there's any resistance at all, it's usually time to find space under a seat.

Of the 6 planes I've taken with my Lowepro, only 2 have been conducive to overhead bin storage. The problem seems to be caused by the shoulder straps which, after enclosed by the otherwise handy zip-up travel compartment, create a bulging hump that never seems to want to cross the overhead bin edge threshold. Threshold is a great word. The flip side is that I've always been able to fit the bag under a seat, albeit in ways that sometimes necessitate a strategically placed jacket or turban to conceal any protrusion from nosy flight attendants.

As for the space inside of the bag, it is ample and very easily molded into convenient compartments by the detachable velcro strips. There are several optional add-on compartments that one can buy, but the two the bag comes with (I think it comes with them...or did I get a little click-happy...)seem to do the trick. I use a bath towel as a darkcloth and can roll it tight enough to fit in the long, tubular side compartment. Food, a change of clothing, or other gadgets can fit on the other side. Attaching a tripod is very simple, thanks to the quick-release snaps, while carrying it is quite a different story. Whether the tripod is mounted on the back of the pack--and therefore nearly a foot in back of the body--or on the side, a significant amount of physical counterbalance is required. I spend a good deal of time listing to one side or another after the average hike. The best answer is to detach the head of the tripod and stow it in the pack so that the center of gravity remains as close as possible to the body. Now if they could only make quick release tripod heads...

Overall, the pack is wonderful. THe only problem with these packs is that they hardly leave any room for things like a bedroll, tent, large quantities of food, etc. Many people have had success in reto-fitting their internal frame packs with egg crate and layering their equipment that way. I've heard that front panel access packs are the best way to go with this method, so that the whole pack doesn't need to emptied to access whatever is at the bottom. Lenses and other fragile equipment can be carried in padded Tupperware containers and the camera can be carried wrapped safely in the darkcloth for protection. I might look into this sometime in the future, but for now, the Lowepro is perfect for me.

Accessories

Pentax V Analog Spotmeter
Up until I bought the Pentax, I used the spotmeter setting in my Rebel 2000 to do all my metering. I convinced myself that there was really no need for another meter when I already had a decent one in my 35mm camera. This is just naive and foolish. If you could have seen me under my dark cloth with the 35mm camera around my neck, swinging and banging into the tripod, you would have laughed heartily. My other neat trick was to repeatedly forget the 35mm at home when going on large-format outings, sometimes going as far as 3 hours away only to have to return because of no meter. If I were Ansel Adams, I might know the candles per square inch of standard light sources and could therefore function without a meter, but this will probably never happen.

So I finally broke down and purchased a Pentax. The only slightly annoying feature of the meter is its reliance upon the IRE (Institute of Radio Engineers) scale as a basis for determining value placement. As someone who learned photography purely from Ansel Adam's books, The Camera, The Negative, and The Print--and thus wholly reliant upon his way of interpreting the zone system--I'm finding the IRE scale to be a bit awkward. It's supposedly a very handy tool, used by television and radio people worldwide, but I'm stubborn and find more solace in working directly with f.stops. THE IRE scale interprets values similarly as the zone system--with 1 being black and 10 being white--but seems to operate on a different type of logarithmic scale. It seems as though the IRE scale might even translate directly over to the zone system, but as the meter is relatively new, I haven't had the opportunity to investigate this in detail. This great Photo.net post seems to shed some light on the subject.

As for general functionality and ergonomics, the meter is quite simple--refreshingly so--from it's digital counterparts. In appearence, it looks more like some kind of Buck Rogers space tazer than a photographic tool--although I suppose a space tazer could come in handy when feigning off the bears and large teethy fish discussed above. It's slightly bulky but fits perfectly in my Pro Trekker AW, nested in an honorary place next to the Wisner 4x5. I'll write more on it as it is used...

Bogen/Manfrotto 3021BN Tripod Legs with Bogen 3039 Super Pro Head
I think that one could drill for oil with this behemoth and still find it working perfectly afterwards. The head alone is rated at 26lbs and with my Wisner weighing in at around 6 lbs., what I have is a grossly overqualified tripod. For large-format photography however, the extra weight is pretty handy in assuring that a $2,000 camera doesn't topple over in a stiff breeze. It's also good for grounding out vibrations that can detract from image sharpness.

The two large bubble levels come in handy, especially when the ones in my camera are misbehaving, which they often do. And the weight can be a pain when hiking. I've found that the best method is to detach the head from the tripod and carry it in the pack, keeping the center of gravity close to the body and minimizing strain on the lower back. Overall, you can't really go wrong with Bogen. Next up: carbon fibre!