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This is the second Crown Graphic I've owned, the first was a "special" with the 135mm Xenar lens, in overall good condition. Sold it, regretted it, and bought another one. This one is the Crown Graphic with the Kodak Ektar 127mm/4.7 lens. Outstanding lens, slightly sharper than the Xenar in my opinion. As far as shooting: these cameras were made to take pictures under all sorts of conditions and are very tough. Perfect for backpacking. Can be focused and shot handheld using the top mounted rangefinder. Add a roll film adapter and it's like having two cameras in one. Shooting in dimly lit situations? Push the red button on the rangefinder and simply align the two projected light beams into one. Someone modified mine to replace the bulb with a laser. Works great! Find a good clean used example with a top mounted rangefinder and the Kodak Ektar lens. You won't be disappointed.Read full review
Verified purchase: Yes | Condition: Pre-owned
The Graflex cameras provide something that most other cameras can not do: 4x5 hand held. If you find Medium Format slightly inadequate, but still want to retain the hand held work flow, I would recommend the graflex. I would recommend it over the polaroid razzle and littman's as well, because the design and hand palcements are more intuitive, and the engineering is more precise despite the lower cost. Plus it's actually made so you can use different lenses, though It's not something you can do during a photo shoot. I personally have the 135mm Xenar lens, It's very sharp, but I'm sure a modern lens would be slightly better. It certainly won't date your picture quality though. Over all, I like that it's relatively quick to take pictures with and is easy to fix if something goes wrong. It's a great user camera.Read full review
If you are thinking about large format photography, and you want to experiment with outdoor and landscape shots, the Crown Graphic is a good place to start. Positive aspects; you can buy them fairly cheap, although you need to really try your hardest to be aware of the condition. Critical items are the bellows integrity, ground glass, and graflock film holder for starters. If these are broken or defective, you are in for repairs before you even try to take pictures. A lot of the lenses on these are not perfect, but you can still take nice photos if the shutter works ok. Often they don't. They may snap at higher speeds, but often get sticky or down't work at all at 1 second speed. Even if everything is in reasonable condition, it helps to be mechanically handy with these. They need some TLC. Ok, assuming you have a working camera, the fun begins. The Crown has the advantage of collapsing into a reasonably portable package as compared with a monorail camera. You will need a very sturdy tripod as well. This camera is somewhat heavy. A light meter is also a good idea, although you can start out using the meter in your SLR camera for settings. Setting up each shot will take 10 minutes or more typically. You don't want to waste film with this one, so plan carefully. The movements on a Crown are limited to some rise of the lens board, some back tilt, and a fairly small amount of side to side shift. The base also will drop so you can use a wide angle lens. Extra lens boards and lenses are readily available in the market if you want to experiment. The maximum bellows extension is not quite as much as you may get from a monorail camera, thus limiting macro abilities. Overall, if you are really interested in large format, it is a great time to pick up cameras and accessories at a good price. Have fun, that is what it is about. I gave 4 stars on features due to limited movements. 4 stars on ease of use because hey, it is large format, it is not easy. But it is easier than a monorail if you are going out of the studio. Size and weight is also better in this respect. Value, well if you are doing LF, then the value is there.Read full review
Ease of use? No, it's clunky and clumsy. But the Crown Graphic is a magnificent icon of 20th century photographic technology. While 4x5 film is hard to get hold of and to get processed (unless you do it yourself) there is a 6x9cm back (and a 6x7 and 6x6, though those don't make much sense in practical terms) which allows the use of 120 film that is still fairly easy to get processed. Of course, 6x9 is only a training mode for a 4x5 camera (you need to tape some sort of mask on the fresnel screen to let you see what is in the frame) and, sooner or later, you will want to find a way of using the full capability of the camera to produce a huge negative. Watch out for the variants on this camera, which include 3x4 (for which film is no longer available) and the Graflex back, which is bigger than the standard Graflock back and isn't much use for anything any longer. The 4x5 model, however, is still a superb and usable camera with a good number of movements, such as back tilt, drop bed/front rise, mimicking forward tilt and, of course, front rise. Make sure you get a camera with the ground glass back still in place, without that I would say 80% of its usefulness is gone as you will rely on the viewfinder or infinity stops for focusing. The ground glass lets you fine-tune the image, including making macros and using tilt and rise. The Crown Graphic is obsolete, of course, but it is still an education and great fun to use. For $200-$400 as the cost of a complete system, it is a marvelous bargain. I would, of course, recommend it to a friend - but only one who was a slightly eccentric camera-buff.Read full review
First off, this "ground glass" is not glass at all. It is acrylic. Of course I expect the Fresnel lens to acrylic but not the ground glass. That being said, it does produce a pretty crisp image, and being acrylic it weighs less and will not shatter. An equal surprise, and very pleasant one at that, was the inclusion of a grid overlay screen. I was prepared to scribe one onto the ground glass but the overlay negated having to do that. It really make composition easier. I think the whole package is a litttle overpriced at almost $100, but it works and is one of the few new available. They got you by the short hairs.
Verified purchase: Yes | Condition: New