In this post, I’m going to tell y’all about one of my all-time favorite vintage cameras. Maybe that’s because I actually learned photography with this camera I when I was in my early teens. It’s been with me for decades and still travels to some favorite landscape photo destinations. On top of that, it was originally my father’s – bought sometime in the 1950s in Albany, New York. That awesome camera is the Century Graphic, made by Graflex Corp. of Rochester NY in the early 1950s.
First, about the camera, then a personal story behind it. The Century Graphic is a medium format “press” camera with a bakelite plastic body. It has a metal front (called the “bed”) with bellows that folds up into a nice compact package when not in use. It’s solid, but not as heavy as similar sized field or technical cameras from other makers such as Linhof and Horseman, weighing in at about 3 pounds with a lens and film back attached. It has a Graflok back for groundglass focusing, accommodates Graflex 120 roll film holders in 6×6, 6×7, 6×8, and 6×9 formats, and has interchangeable lenses in addition to interchangeable film backs. In addition, it has limited view camera movements, but I find these unnecessary with medium format. Not bad for a lightweight, compact, and affordable medium format camera! One more important point – I use a shoe-mount rangefinder on top of the camera when focusing closer than 50 feet, and the camera uses a series of focusing scales so groundglass focusing isn’t really necessary.
Now for a personal story behind my particular Century Graphic. Back in 1978, the leaf shutter on the ‘ol Graphic’s lens stopped working. After a trip to a local camera repairman – an interesting and talkative guy named Mr. Kratz from Stuttgart, Germany – the shutter was declared unfixable. My dad told me I could take it apart and give it my own assessment. I did so, located the broken part, did a temporary fix with part of a hair clip and some super glue, and kept taking pictures. Who knew that a kid who could fix lawnmowers and snowblowers could apply the same talents to fixing cameras!
A few months later, my dad took me on a trip to Chicago after we couldn’t find a lens & shutter replacement in nearby Detroit. The second day we were in Chicago, we stumbled on what I considered camera store heaven at the time, and something I haven’t seen anything close to since, not even in Chicago. It was a place called Darkroom Aids Company – on the north side of Chicago at 3449 N. Lincoln Avenue in the Ravenswood neighborhood. An old Jewish guy named Al was very helpful to us and we walked out with an excellent Schneider Kreuznach 105mm Xenar lens in Compur shutter, and a “bonus” 65mm wide angle lens. The wide angle took some good black and white photos, but was eventually replaced with a 65mm Schneider Kreuznach Super Angulon f8 for best image quality.
I did a lot of black and white landscape photography with the camera over the next few decades, much of it in Upper Michigan and in Wisconsin where I lived. In the early 2000s, I discovered eBay and was enamored with the availability of vintage camera gear – formerly only possible if you traveled to the biggest cities in the U.S. I acquired more lenses for the Century Braphic, and managed to slowly find lensboards I could mount them on.
One day and totally by chance soon afterwards, I ended up on the phone with a lady in Florida after I bought one lensboard from her on eBay. She called and told me she had 10 more undrilled lensboards, and asked me if I wanted them for some unbelieveably great price. She indicated that she was going to have trouble selling them all, so if I took them all off her hands I would be doing her a favor. Of course, I quickly complied and soon had enough lensboards to accommodate all of the lenses I acquired over the next few years for the camera.
Since about 2006, I have been using a nice collection of lenses for the Century Graphic, some of which are Mamiya Press lenses mounted in Graphic lensboards. The 105mm Xenar lens from 1978 has always been excellent and remains in use. Other lenses I use with the camera include a few of the Graflex Tele Optars, a few f8 Super Angulons (65 and 75mm) and an uncoated 101mm Kodak Anastigmat (circa 1939) from a beat up Kodak Monitor 620 camera that I junked. The 101mm lens is great for black and white photography and exhibits pretty awesome image quality.
I would use the Century Graphic more often these days, but it’s only because I have too many cameras! Of course, I will be telling y’all about some of those in subsequent posts. It is surprising that about 10 of my favorite images created over the past 20 years or so and offered on my “prints” website at pinemountainprints.com were created with this camera. Most significant of these in my opinion is the image of Palisade Head on Lake Superior in Minnesota taken one foggy morning in August 2003. This cliff rises about 300 feet above Lake Superior, and is probably the most dangerous place I’ve ever taken landscape photos. Long story short – I found the perfect spot for the photo, and it sloped backward from the edge of the cliff. I got down on my butt and sat cross-legged on the edge for good risk management. I focused at 100 feet – easy to do with focusing scales on the camera – and took 3 handheld shots with the 105mm Xenar lens, probably with an exposure setting of 1/100 second at f9.5.
Next time I talk about the Century Graphic, I’ll focus more on some of the camera’s features and why it’s a great medium format camera for landscape and nature photography, especially if on a hike. Sounds like a good excuse to make a video!
Please read my Preautions On Buying Used Photo Equipment if you are interested in purchasing used cameras, lenses, or other used photographic equipment.
TMphotosite.com is dedicated to keeping alive the art of photography as experienced through the use of vintage equipment and processes. Digital equipment and processes significantly enhance the enjoyment and efficiency of photography, making vintage equipment more useful and fun. Tim McCauley, the creator and author of TMphotosite.com, is a longtime photographer of landscapes, nature, and architecture. His photographs can be seen at pinemountainprints.com.
