CAMERA REVIEW :
WISTA VX

Photography is an expensive hobby. At some point, most of us look at our collections of equipment and wonder how something that started as a relatively modest activity has grown into an investement that may rival what we spend on entry level cars. Since I started this site as an exploration of a rational way to get started in large format photography, I probably owe you an explanation of how we got to this point.

I'm cheap, I like to tinker, and I don't do photography commercially. This leads me away from expensive new cameras and lenses. But gnawing at the edges of my buying habits is often a question of the marginal utility of newer mechanics and optics. So in my quest for the perfect 4 x 5 kit, for me, at one point I bought a Wista VX for about twice the price I would have traditionally spent on a technical camera.

The path to this purchase included the following:

• A Crown Graphic 23--a return to my youth--light, excellent 101mm Ektar, limited standards movements and a fixed back keep this from being a useful camera for architectural and some landscape work.
• 4 x 5 Speed and Crown Graphics--ditto, but a move up to LF images.
• 4 x 5 Graphic View--Modest, but generally adequate movements, rotating back, decent extension; at the border of being heavy for field work done when hiking.
• Kodak Master View 4 x 5 monorail--Rotating, but non-Graflok back, decent standards movements; too heavy for field work.
• Cambo NX - Modern monorail, very available, modestly priced, generous standards movements, rotating back, gobs of accessories. A nice studio camera, but too large and heavy for field work.
• Meridian 4 x 5 technical cameras--An early Technika clone with some surprising features.
• Gowland/Calumet Pocket View--A three pound monorail with full movements and a rotating back.

While I have developed a growing fondness and respect for the Wista VX that eclipses my initial comments that had a distinct incremental bent, I have left them in this form because they address the question that others coming to this point may ask: "What am I getting for the extra cost of a Wista (or Toyo) technical camera.

The Wista VX is the simplest and lightest of the Wista technical cameras, but at six pounds, it is a handfull. The SP has an additional Micro Focus feature that allows more precise back adjustment at the cost of $100 or so and an additional pound. The RF adds a top mounted range/viewfinder. In younger days, I might have seen these as viable handheld cameras. Since my attraction to large format work is to increase my deliberation in shooting, the VX was an obvious choice.

After working with older equipment, an overriding impression from handling the VX is smoothness. The basic design is, after all, that of a Speed Graphic of the 1940s. WeeGee would have been at home with the VX in 30 seconds. In its basic capabilities, the Wista doesn't significantly improve on the Meridian, save for the G back on the newer camera. The success of the Wista design is in refining the layout and features and developing useful accessories:

• While as heavy as the Meridian and about a pound heavier than the Super Graphic, the VX is more compact, largely due to its two part focusing rack. This allows a shorter door, which improves its ability to host short lenses.
• The front standard uses supports tilts, swings, shifts and rise/fall. Front shift is generous and smooth. Tilt can be controlled by a friction adjustment knob and includes both back and forward movement. Rise uses a knob-controlled rack (much like the design of the Meridian and the Graphic View) and fall is allowed by a dropped bed. The dropped bed arrangement to get fall suffers, as all press and technical cameras do, in that the compensating front backward tilt required to bring the lens back to vertical pretty much excludes doing anything with front tilt adjustments. All of these movements are sufficient for all but the most challenging view camera assignments.
• Rear axis swings are not universal in technical cameras; Wista has designed a mechanism that allows the case to swing. A locking lever is released and the body is rotated on its vertical axis with finger pressure. On the VX, rear swing has no micro adjustment. The rear swing adjustment on the Wistas is mechanically similar to the front swing adjustment, which is a very different design than that used on Technikas or the Horseman FA which combine rear swing and rear tilt movements.
• Rear forward tilt is in effect a movement that partially closes the case and locks its position with the mechanisms that secure the bed in any of several positions. Rear back tilt has two detent positions.
• The VX will focus lenses as short as 65mm on flat boards. Part of its friendliness to short lenses results from the overlapping two part rack which allowed Wista designers to shorten the bed. My VX came from Japan; the manual is in Japanese and an uneasy English. I believe it says that vignetting is a possibility with 65mm lenses, but that this can be overcome by using slight rise.
• The 4 x 5 groundglass protector/viewing hood on the Wistas is attached to a side bracket and can be swung away or removed for direct groundglass access.

• For rollfilm use, you can use the 6 x 7cm or 6 x 9cm rollholders made by Wista and others for the 4 x 5 format. The bale arrangement on the Wistas will accept most rollholders and this is convenient when alternating between 120 rollfilm and 4 x 5 sheetfilm. This is particularly convenient when using the 4 x 5 reflex viewer or the hands-free loupe accessories described below. When you are doing a shoot primarily with roll film, you may find the sliding accessory back more convenient. It replaces the 4x5 sheetfilm back on the rotating structure of the camera. This back accessory has two swappable ports--one with 6 x 9 groundglass, the other for a 6 x 7 or 6 x 9 rollholder--which are accessed by a sliding mechanism. Wista also makes an optical focusing hood that can be attached to the groundglass section. It has a 2x optic that works much like the popup optic on TLR and SLR medium format cameras. The hood can swing away on a pivot on the right side to expose the GG for loupe focusing.

• Wista also produces an interesting hands-free loupe holder that travels over the groundglass on a special framework. This allows using both hands for focus and movement operations while visually checking focus while those operations proceed.

• While Wista makes extension racks and extension bellows, these are expensive and seem time-consuming to install. Another option is to buy an after market extension tube kit. I recently got one of these from a Chinese manufacturer. With an extra extension section, it allows me to focus my 450mm Nikon to about 20 feet. While the lens + tube is a significant accessory to pack, it can be attached to the front standard like any other lens board. This configuration is solid, though using this much extension, with either extended racks/bellows or tubes means that you have significant weight leveraged on the tripod mount so having a sturdy plate and tripod is important.

• However, my two most favorite Wista accessories are the 4 x 5 reflex finder and the recessed lens attachment 

The VX is quick to set up, though users of older American press cameras have to readjust to the idea that the bed doesn't just drop down and lock into place at the 90° default location. Two large locking knobs at the bottom of the case lock the angle of the bed and this can vary from completely closed through various degrees for rear forward tilt to 105°--about 15° of backward tilt. Wista uses the same lensboard as Linhof for the Technika and this comes as close to any as the standard LF board. Boards drop into the front standard and lock effortlessly. Short lenses with shallow designs and small front element can be stored when the camera is closed, but these tend to be older designs. Of the lenses I might mount on this camera, only the 80mm and 100mm Wide Field Ektars and the 127mm and 203mm Ektars can stay mounted with the case closed. The 65mm and 75mm Super Angulons' front and rear elements don't clear, and both #2 shutters for the 135mm Wide Field Ektar and the 270mm Raptar are too large. The front element of the 135mm Fuji is too wide to clear the folded rack. Horseman made converters that allowed Horseman 80mm lensboards to be mounted on Wistas and Wista boards to be mounted on Horseman technicals. Chinese manufacturers currently offer copies of the Horseman 80mm => Wista converters.

Film flexibility is very good. Besides 4 x 5 cutfilm holders and readyloads, 4 x 5 mount 120 rollholders from Wista and others are plentiful. I especially like the 6 x 12 rollholder for panoramic work. Wista, Graphic and Horseman rollholders all fit in the gape of the VX. The sliding back for standard 6 x 7 and 6 x 9 rollholders is convenient for quick swapping between groundglass and the film holder. There are two disappointments to the 6 x ? accessory viewing hood for this back: it is better at magnifying the center of the frame than viewing the whole frame and it weighs about a pound. I much prefer the Horseman Rotary back with the Horseman Reflex Viewer and have the 4 x 5 mount version of this back. It mounts to the G back, but in doing so increases extension by about 40mm.

The Wista technicals come with a reasonably good groundglass/fresnel. With either the folding hood or the folding reflex finder, the image is reasonably bright, even with slower lenses like the 203mm Ektar f/7.7 or the 270mm f/10 Raptar.

A lot of efficient camera management is in the details. The VX design that can gracefully accept my Super Angulons, a 55mm APO Grandagon and 80mm Wide Field Ektar has eliminated a problem not easily resolved with the Super Graphic. The handy reflex viewer and the rollback attachment provide some compositional advantages. I am finding that these features offset the additional weight of the VX, so that the total weight of the kit is similar to that of the lighter Super Graphic.

Since doing this review, I have added a Horseman VH to my collection. For an updated view of my ideas about these cameras: