4x5 + DSLR An Experiment

I did an experiment recently to see if I could use my DSLR with my view camera.

I have seen the digital scanning backs or medium format digital backs people have purchased but the several kilobuck price tags places them clearly out of my budget.

Then I saw that some people were buying adapters to allow the use of their DSLR with their view camera. The price was only a couple of hundred, so it was of more real potential.

Then the brainstorm happened....

The modular nature of an Arca-Swiss camera means the ground glass uses the same frame as a lensboard. Meaning I thought I could mount the camera to a flat lens board and use it in place of the ground glass.

I had a flat lensboard so I bought a cheap $15 set of extension tubes off ebay. A buddy took the flat lensboard, took the #1 sized lensboard hole and widened it a bit. Then he epoxied the extension tubes to it.

Viola!-an instant digital camera mount.

The only thing we had to do was play with the extension tube pieces until we got right distance so the camera prism could clear the board.

Once we had that, all I had to do was pop off the ground glass, pop on the new lens board, and mount my Canon DSLR on the extension tubes.

It fit great.

Then with live view I could now compose and focus!

I was able to use both my 210mm and 125mm lens. Although it was a squeeze to make the 125mm work and in this setup anything shorter was out of the question. Remember since I am using the DSLR sensor the lenses act like they would on the DSLR too. So 125mm is slightly wide on the 4x5 but fairly long on the DSLR.

I was still using the large format lenses, still setting the aperture on them, still using movements too. I had just replaced film with a digital sensor. Albeit, a tiny one.

By using Aperture Priority mode on the camera plus live view, it was easy to focus and the camera could still get the exposure!

Images were sharp and had good color.

This not only worked, it had potential.

Then I expanded into what I was really hoping to do-use the movement features of the camera to stitch images into panoramas.

That was when I found the limits.

The Arca-Swiss model I have-the Discovery has all that Arca modularity but it also has friction movements.

Meaning that to shift, I have to loosen a knob, slide the frame, and retighten the knob. What I found was there was ever so slight focus shift when I did that.

So the stitching of panos was lost. Or at least I found it was much easier just to hand hold and use the DSLR as opposed to using the view camera and DSLR to try to stitch.

So an experiment that kinda worked.

I can use it and get an image. however I think you would need a camera with geared movements to take advantage of the shift and stitch.

So the merger of digital and large format is still not happening for me. I'll just do hand held stitches with the DSLR and stick to film with the view camera.

The Upside Down and Backward Thing

One of the first things people notice when I show them the ground glass of an image I am taking is the image is upside down. Then they realize it is backwards too. It is a little disconcerting at first. Your brain and your SLR see the world right side up and this new way of seeing takes a while. It was one of the things I was most concerned about when I got the 4x5 too. Luckily, it was something that I got used to fairly quickly.

It does slow one down a bit. It makes you think. It makes you contemplate the scene. I have heard it say that seeing an image upside down makes you look at a composition based more on shapes and lines than as normal objects. Under the dark cloth it is you and an upside down view and that promotes you to really work that image.

That work is something you just cannot really get at 9 frames per second on an SLR. This is a whole different way to photograph. It is also more like 9 frames a morning.

I find the location and then walk around it. Maybe take a few digital snaps to check potential compositions. Then it is set up the camera and start looking at the world upside down.

Everything counts in a frame of film. Even the empty space matters. Upside down helps with that. Space, shapes, lines are all helped by the different view. I can't fully say upside down makes me compose better but it does make me think better or at the least it makes me think longer.

Here is another image from when I was photographing trees along the river. This is my view of the trees. The dark day really made the image stand out on the ground glass. Normally it is too bright to see the image without a dark cloth, but today it was dark and dreary- the image stood out plainly. I thought it was the perfect day and a perfect way to show it.

Use a view camera and the world is upside down.