Fold well and packs easily. Looks great. Does Not move once you lock it down.

Doesn't fold with lens in place. and the bright metal surfaces are prone to corrosion if left unattended for a couple of months.

I have one of the "older" 4x5s, with gold fittings. It never fails to attract attention. I use the camera for two types of photo:(1) Fine art in-studio work and (2) backpacking it into remote locations for landscapes. With the right lens this is a wonderful camera, easy and fast to focus, swings and tilts are easy and once you lock it down it stays there (unlike Sinar Fs). I recently packed the camera arouond Big Bend National Park and it performed flawlesly. I set it up where Ansel Adams had photographed Santa Eleana Canyon years before and felt like it was the right camera to have there.

Similar Products Used:

Calumet, Sinar F, Toyo G

Relatively lightweight, easy to use, lovely to look at, plenty of relevant movements, long bellows draw. I have the easy bail relatively late-dated (about 1993) model, bought new.

It had two problems. During the first year in high humidity the focus rails got very sticky and tight, and eventually would not move. Zone VI fixed it promptly and for free. Second problem: Big (16 x 20) prints never looked as sharp as they should to my eye. I traced this to a faulty position of the ground glass in the camera. I eventually made careful measurements with machinist parallels and a depth micrometer. The ground glass was 0.019 inches out of position relative to the film plane for several Fidelity Elite film holders. The variation was +/- about 0.002 over the set of holders and various palces on the holders, but the 0.019 was the average. Calumet (who replaced Zone VI) at first said there had never been a manufacuring problem and it have been be something I was doing wrong, but eventually took the camerea back and made the repair for free. The measurements I made following repair showed the ground glass to now be in the correct position. This was clearly a manufacturing defect in this camera (and perhaps not a generic problem with any other such cameras). And, happily, Calumet stood behind the camera and fixed it. But, I have a lot of less than perfect negatives; Calumet to their credit did give some minor compensation in supplies. If your big prints are a hair fuzzy, especially at infinity focus, check this out on your camera. Frankly, this should be checked on any field camera. It was a hard lesson. I also have a recently purchased used Wisner Technical field. Measures perfectly.

A fine camera, nice to look at and very flexible and easy to use in the field. I limit my rating to 4 stars due to the serious problem my camera originally had.

Customer Service

Customer service was as advertized, even with the switch from Zone VI to Calumet. They fixed both problems promptly and for free once they got the camera back. The second problem took some convincing before they would take it back, but they did take it back. It works perfectly now.

Similar Products Used:

Wisner Technical Field.

lite weight/appearance
easy to use

difficult to return tostorage position

great camera, good price

Similar Products Used:

toyo 45G

I have the 4lb version and its is nivce and light for field work

If your not careful some of the adjusting knobs could screw off. I did lose some screws at first but it happened at home and not in the field

I have had the camera one month. The quality seems good but some of the focusing rails feel sluggish. I probably should have tried the Toyo 4 x 5 to determine if it was any better.

Similar Products Used:

None