Another crazy, impulse purchase has occurred. I bought a Tomiyama Art Panorama 170. The 6×17 format is something I’ve always fancied trying. Having messed about with swing lens cameras of various makes and formats I wondered what it would be like to make really wide, rectilinear panos.
The choices to shoot 6×17 are limited. The most flexible camera would be one of the dedicated Shen Hao view cameras. These are gorgeous but pricey. Another option is to get an adapter back for one of my 4×5 cameras. These are let down by the lens support. You need to use a recessed lens board for a 90mm lens (which can be a complete pain) and then get restricted movements on a regular field camera. The longest focal length useable is about 180mm before vignetting occurs on the internal 4×5 aperture of the host camera. That means that, out of the box, I could only use my 150mm lens with an adapter. I could remount my Schneider 90mm Super-Angulon on a recessed board but that would make it harder to use on normal 4×5 film. Adapters are tempting because they are cheaper than a dedicated camera but they come with restrictions and hassles that add up.
There are some modern, 3D printed, dedicated 6×17 cameras but I’ve used 3D printed cameras before and they didn’t spark joy. That leaves dedicated cameras with a viewfinder on top. Of these there are the Linhof Technoramas and the Fujifilm GXs. These are good but rare and come in at over £2,000 often with extra shipping and import duties. They are also more complex than view cameras in having sophisticated winding mechanisms. The Tomiyama that I have bought is a bit of an oddball. It feels more like a piece of industrial equipment than a refined production camera. Its construction is simple and it has a basic peep-window film advance that can’t go wrong. It was also a lot cheaper than a Linhof or a Fujifilm!
The other thing that tipped me towards a viewfinder style camera is the Scottish weather. Often it isn’t clement enough to wrestle with a focussing cloth, bellows and movements. I have view cameras that I don’t get to use because of the wind and rain so something that is a little more robust is attractive. Having said that, after three rolls of film I’m already missing movements! A rise and fall front would be nice. This is partly because I’m stuck in town for a while and any tilling forward and backwards of the camera is betrayed by verticals at the sides of the frame. This won’t occur so much in natural scenes.
Two interesting side effects of my purchase are that I’ve suddenly become relaxed about scanning negatives. I’d been going through a phase of only darkroom printing but this isn’t practical with 6×17. The lack of movements on the Tomiyama also inspired me to get my Cambo 6×12 holder out again. This is a nice film holder for 4×5 that slots behind the ground glass. The workflow for using this holder is like using regular sheet film holders and much preferable to having to remove the focussing screen to fit a Graflock film adapter. The last time I used it I had a light leak I couldn’t solve but now I think the leak may have been due to the camera it was on rather than the holder itself. The Cambo holder also has a tendency to mangle films if you aren’t careful!
This could turn out to be a nice combination: The Tomiyama for full 6×17 in specific landscape settings. The 6×12 back on my Chamonix for more controlled, but less wide, panoramas.