The Retired Rambler: Assignment: A Day's Shoot With A Graflex. Wonky lens, amazing results.

As I've said before, I like to do a one-camera-one-lens shoot from time to time.

It helps me focus on what I'm shooting, not what I'm shooting with. With two lenses you double the chances of having the wrong lens, while with one you look for subjects that fit your equipment.

So it was last week.

My friend Larry Carr and I are both proud owners of Graflex Cameras. These are the first single lens reflex cameras, made from the early teens into the late 50s by the same folks who gave us the vastly more famous Speed Graphic. Unlike the SLRs today (often digital), these are also large format -- the small ones used film two inches wide, while the bigger ones shot 4 by 5 inches or even 5 by 7.

Ours are the smaller ones, thank God. In any size, the Graflex is a bit of a bear to use.

There is nothing automatic. It has a complex system of winding the curtain until one of five slit widths is in place to expose the film. You set a combination of slit width and spring tension to make a shutter speed, and the cameras we have don't even stop the lens down to take a picture after you focus. You open the lens to focus, then stop it down to shoot. Mostly, I selected high shutter speeds and wide lens openings so I didn't have to mess with it.

They are the fullest manual cameras made.

Overhead shot in the mall of a child playing.

Which of course is the fun.

Mine is an RB Graflex Junior, made about 1920. Larry's is a simple RB Graflex, made about 1947. The RB means it has a rotating back which can be turned to take either horizontal or vertical pictures. The viewfinder has a mask that shows you both options at the same time, with the lens covering enough to take either way. You have to remember which you have the camera set on, because nothing in the viewfinder tells you.

After I got a roll back for mine, Larry and I decided it would be fun to take ours to Salt Lake City for a day of shooting. So we did, both shooting black and white film. I was shooting cheap stuff, Arista EDU 400. Larry was shooting Fuji.

I should mention, the lens on mine is a Baush & Lomb made Zeiss Tessar, which would be a really good optic if it didn't have what looks like fungus inside it, and cleaning marks on the adhesive inside the lens.

Shopowner. Funky cameras are
great ways to make friends.

Still, the image on the viewfinder looks good. I had hopes, and have to admit I was pleasantly surprised. The images in scans look really good, sharp, nice bokeh (that out of focus part) and with a nice feel that an uncoated optic gives because of the way the light bounces around in them.

Plus, all the shots have out-of-focus background, mostly because I was shooting with an open lens so I could see on the ground glass. Even in bright sunlight I was using f-8. The lens is 5 1/2 inches, or about 135mm.

This is why so many old images taken with these cameras also have narrow depth of field, which helps isolate what you are shooting from the background. Camera reviews of modern digital cameras talk about this as a "professional" feature, but it used to be the way it was, and does make for nicer images.

Larry came up with a good tip for anyone shooting one of these. Since the shooting sequence is so complex, count "1, 2, 3" after every shot: 1 is to push the mirror return lever back down, 2 is to wind the shutter (two clicks!), and three is to wind the film.

This assumes (4) that you remembered to take the dark slide out in the first place. If not, go back and shoot the picture again.

So we had fun, and people everywhere commented on our cool cameras. How often does that happen with a digital, eh?

I'll shoot it some more. You should be working so well when you are 95, eh?