I've been a staunch supporter and user of Ebony View Cameras - my first LF camera in 1999 was an Ebony SW45; a superb camera with all the movements I needed and superlight to carry! I then got seduced by the outstanding 45SU ... marketed as "the ultimate wooden camera". In my opinion and experience this is still without doubt the "best" 5x4 available and despite many challenges to the usefullness of the asymmetric movements it proved to be my ideal camera ... for a while ...
The big problem was the value of the thing! It was a wooden camera with a price tag in excess of £4400 and if I'm honest I would get palpitations whenever it left the house. Plus, it was so pretty! It didn't look like a camera; Hiromi truly created works of art in his designs and so I tended to leave it "safe" in its box and it didn't get anywhere near the use it deserved.
My other major issue was also a gradual change in film format!
Over the years I'd tried both 5x4 and 10x8 sheet film formats as well as 6x17 (both in a roll film back and in a Fuji GX617) and found that 10x8 was too heavy/cumbersome in the field - needed a pack-horse to cart the stuff around! So I'd stayed with 5x4 and 6x17.
Recently I've been using the 6x17 in preference to the 5x4 as I found the square format difficult to compose with - I've always had a thing about panoramas! As you probably know, a frame of 6x17 is about half the size of a sheet of 5x7 and the more I used the 6x17 it became obvious that 5x7 was my "ideal" format?
Checked the price on an Ebony 5x7.
When I'd recovered from the shock the hunt was on for an alternative and I realised that my loyalty to the Ebony brand was waning.
How do you find a camera that can match the quality of construction of an Ebony? With great difficulty! However my worries were short-lived, I found a worthy alternative in the shape of Mike Walker's "Titan 5x7 XL".
I sold the Ebony - I made sure it went to a good home with someone with previous experience of looking after an Ebony! I'm still adamant that they are the ultimate in wooden cameras ... even if they do cost the earth!
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I guess it depends what you want out of Large Format photography doesn't it? When I bought my first Ebony, it was because I wanted something about as far away as you could get from the Canon digital kit I use on a daily basis for work.
ReplyDeleteSince the day I got my first Ebony, I've been crafting images with a piece of furniture - very different from snap happy wedding and portrait photography.
Buying your 45SU was a slight compromise really, as I could really do with the "Autofocus" - just shows that I'm not really patient enough to deal with centre tilt. The most important thing though was to stay with a beautiful camera.
One question I did have though, Paul was that do you think you notice a difference in the resulting larger film size between masking off a 5x4 and a 5x7? Not that I'm complaining, but wouldn't the results be similar unless you print to a hug size?
Hi Paul, you describe exactly how I used to feel when I first started using the Ebonies - the whole process was a real pleasure that was intensified by using such fine cameras. However, it soon became apparent to me that the camera itself was becoming too important; more imporatnt than the photography itself. I also struggled with the squarish format of 5x4 and invariably found myself cropping to a more rectangular format or using roll film backs (6x12 and 6x17). The 5x7 format was a real revelation - I'd dabbled with a 10x8 Deardorff but the whole set-up was too big/cumbersome for my type of photography. I find the bigger image much easier to compose within and also I do find an increase in quality - although that wasn't the reason for choosing this format. If you think about it the 5x7 negative is almost twice the size of a 5x4 negative so there is less enlargement required. To mask a 5x4 negative to the same proportions would further reduce the image size to about 5x3 ish - even less image area to play with. I don't plan on printing huge sizes at the moment - I am waiting delivery of an Epson 3800 but prefer smaller, more intimate sized prints if truth be told. The other reason for the move to 5x7 also involved the use of the 6x17 format. I used a Fuji GX617 but now I can crop a sheet of 5x7 to 6x17 or use the Canham roll film back BUT I also benefit from camera movements - I missed this option with the Fuji.
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