A 75 Year Old Camera Review
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 7 ก.พ. 2025
- Have you been waiting since WW2 for a decent review of the Graflex Anniversary Speed Graphic 4-by-5 camera? Well your wait is over! Joe gives an in-depth review of this venerable workhorse camera and demonstrates why it is the preferred platform for experimentation with adapted lenses.
I bought one of these too. A 1947 Model. Ebay. $125. I took it apart, cleaned it and relubed it. The cloth shutter was almost never used. so I cleaned out all the old lubrication and pretty much just CLA'd it. What a joy to shoot with now. I mostly just use leaf shutters with it... but what a wonderful camera. I wish there was a modern version of this camera. It was so well built. I have thought about 3D printing one, just to have and share.
This video was really helpful. I just bought a Speed Graphic from a collection. It’s like brand new. The manual has all these little signs that label things but it’s a eye score. If there are clubs to join I will join them. Definitely keeping with your videos. I believe I have the focal plan shutter as well as leaf shutter. I have checked for light leaks and it’s light tight. I want to use this camera because of its History but it is much lighter then my other 4x5. Mine was a flash model but I took the solenoid off for now. Oh Yea I bought the flash as well. How many 4x5 hand held camera are out there, not many.
I have been looking to get one of these cameras for a long time, your review answered a lot of
questions. Great Job Joe
Very informative video, thanks a lot! I just bought one of these to learn large format photography and your video answered a lot of my questions.
Nicely done. I love my 4x5 speed graphic. Great review.
Thank you! It helped me figure out my new speed graphic!
Thanks for the great videos, I bought a speed graphic a few weeks ago, my first exposures were not to bad... next time I will preflash my Harmon Direct paper.
Bravo! What a wonderful and advanced camera. Apart from size this leaves any consumer camera of today in the dust.
Please try East German Beier Precisa IIa with rangefinder and sublime Mayer Goerlitz Trioplan 3.5 75 coated lens!
Thanks Joe! Great video with a wonderful explanation of the camera.
Improvised optics - I love it!
Excellent explanation !
The original lens will have the CAMEROSITY code. My Speed Graphic's lens number begins with EO which translates to 1946. Same year as my Miniature Speed Graphic.
Love your video, your enthusiasm for this camera comes shining through. I recently picked up a Crown Super Graphic off of Ebay as a cheap way of getting into 4x5. The Super Graphic has the benefit of more movements. The downside is the limited ability to use wide angle lenses - at least without some retrofitting, which I'm reading up on. There are some folks on the internet that have figured out how to make recessed lens boards to make this a really neat field camera. Keep up the great work!
Amazing piece of photographic history.
No photo examples ? Looks like an amazing shooter.
Thanks Joe, great video!
Have 2 and love them both. A 4x5 and a 2 1/4 x 3 1/4 the curtain shutters are both off but I don't use them much. The big advantage here is cost. It's about the cheapest way for someone to get into large format to see if they like it,before spending lots of cash.
one other important advantage of these "press cameras", over monoroails and field cameras is the fact the lens can store in the folded state! (normal or wide lenses, depending on how massive the rear element group is), allowing a quicker operation, you do need some assembly, but not as much as the other two types, and as the lens is already on, just add a cable release, film holder and you can shoot!
interesting point about the infinity stops, my Linhof technika iii 5x7" has NONE, in the normal sence, aka the hinged blocks, instead the spring locking bar on the inside has a dent, three in fact, one each for wide, normal and long (NOT TELEPHOTO- this camera has a separate track on top of the focus bed, this is similarly detented for wide, normal and TELE, as this is for lenses esp. designed to focus closer than focal length would dictate{190mm ext. for 210 lens for eg.}); these stops lock in, to determine infinity focus for both focal length & design wide or telephoto, as this bellows system (press camera design) is limiting in how close/far the bellows can extend/retract; the linhof also has a back bellows ext. similar to the Mamiya press cameras, giving an extreme extension (allows a 500mm lens?)- as the ext. is ~560 mm all out, 360 mm ish without the back extended, allowing for a 350 mm lens to be fitted comfortably.
Very helpful. I'd like to hook up a flash unit to my speed graphic and I'm hoping you have some background for me. I'm told to try a Metz 45 flash which attaches to the camera with a bracket to the tripod mount. The camera has a 2-pronged flash plug, is there a special cord for this, most flash units seem to have a single prong. Any advise on flash would be helpful, thanks.
Very good video 👏👏
This is a great camera review. Really well done! Do you have a link to see images you have taken with the various lenses you presented? Would love to see! Thanks for sharing your knowledge on this camera. I have one and am keen to learn all I can.
Here's a Flickr album with paper negative images taken with various lenses.
www.flickr.com/photos/31285363@N07/albums/72157631570171012
Nice... Just got a 3 1/4 x 4 1/4 Speed Graphic in mint condition. Trying to find "stuff" for it (120 back etc)
Great review.
Amazing video Joe, I never thought using another lenses, but I wonder, how do you calculate the fnumber of your diy apertures ? thank you very much, you teach me a whole new experimental world
Focal length of lens (measured from lens to ground glass) divided by aperture diameter is the F/ratio!
above and beyond useful, ta.
Thanks, great video! I think I will get a camera like this.
My biggest selling point is that curtain shutter. I have a 75mm lens that's just a piece of glass but it's an approximate f/1.8 aperture (measured by hand), and stopped down to about f/22 it gets amazing sharpness. A used 75mm f/4.5 is actually more expensive than a whole Graflex as I found on eBay, and I can also use other random lenses I have laying around that are aperture and shutter-less, and thus I'm thinking my Intrepid might've not been a good buy.
I can appreciate your feelings. I have no intention of retiring or selling my Speed Graphic, for just the reasons you mention. But the Intrepid's light weight (and lighter demands on the tripod), plus more movements, means I can carry it places I might not want to with the Graflex.
It allows for larger aperture lenses for less depth of field
Thank You for this intense review. The first in a long time that I enjoyed watching, and if I'm not mistaken, You enjoyed it Yourself a lot. Great camera, would fit beautifully in my collection. I do own two Bush Pressman, one Model D and one Model C . Great cameras, although I wish they had a curtain shutter. But on the plus side : one piece less that can breakdown. And I read that the rear shutter is subject to failure, simply due to their biblical age. Is it asked to much of You to show some more sample pictures taken with the lenses You introduced ? I'd be very much interested to see some samples.
I'll do a proper video with examples later, but for now here are some samples, exposed on grade 2 RC paper negatives and inverted in post:
flic.kr/p/9PnZYY
flic.kr/p/9PnZWY
flic.kr/p/9PnZV3
flic.kr/p/9PnZTs
Question..my speed graphics has a metal template on the top which reads "ROHR X-31630" and im trying to figure out what it signifies. Do you know what that is?
I don’t know what that means, but rohr is German for “tube.”
@@Joe_VanCleave It's also a last name. Maybe he put his name on his camera, because they were a pretty penny back in the day. The serial number is a mystery though. It makes me wonder who had this camera and it's history. My serial number was 869020 so it was probably made around 1951. Anyways thanks for the video it was the best one I've seen yet! I'm new to photography and can't wait to learn more.
Could you provide information on that lens. Thank you.
Kodak Ektar 127mm f/4.7 lens. One of the great lenses for press cameras of this era: www.graflex.org/speed-graphic/lenses.html
Can the ektar shutter be repaired or re-calibrated?
Probably; but the modern Fuji lens cost me all of $125 from KEH Camera.
Joe Van Cleave Really?Thank you for your reply.
it's possibly just dirty and gummed up. remove the lens elements and start squirting naphtha in there and working the shutter. i've got a few 127mm ektars working perfectly like this.
www.bnphoto.org/bnphoto/GenTechShutters.htm
Got one years ago. Shutter is accurate. Looked new in box.
This is an earthquake review of a Speed Graphic.
You should mount the Speed Graphic on a tripod
with a panhead to create a stable overview.
And Illuminate the camera with two soft lights.
Point the camera with an open shutter to an object
to show the focus. the iris diaphragma and the shutter work.
A 1/1000 sec plus a flashbulb is hardly possible.
The coupled distance-rangefinders for the Speed Ca,era have
been made by Kalart USA and Hugo Meyer Germany.
I just picked up one of these at goodwill for $5. I've never paid attention to this particular camera or model.
I should have known about it because before I got my good enlarger, my dad was looking at plans to build one. As I learned camera lenses from these work great on home maid enlarged.
I wish I had this camera set up last Saturday because a steam locomotive came threw our town. It would have been bad ass to use a 75 year old camera to photograph a 100 year old locomotive.
Black and White just won't die.