Graflex Anniversary Speed Graphic,
This camera was my first large format 4×5 camera, it’s amazing to me that this was used primarily as a press camera used by photo journalists given it’s size.
The Graflex Anniversary Speed Graphic was made between 1940 and 1947 as mentioned above it take 4×5 sheet film. It’s known as a press camera and falls into the Field Camera category meaning that it folds up in to a more portable box almost like a small suitcase.
The camera itself is very ‘boxy’ in that it’s all square edges made with both wood and metal. Chrome trim was also added except for when WWII was in full swing and the use of spare metals were allocated towards the war effort. It also uses bellows for focusing.
Because the Anniversary Speed Graphic was a press camera it was stripped of most of the features of a traditional field camera but it did maintain a few of those qualities and added a few others.
A handy feature was it’s drop down bed where the bed of which the lens would moved forwards and backward for focusing would drop down further than 90* of the camera body (not all field cameras have this feature). By dropping the bed this made for using very wide angle lenses that had the bed not been dropped out of the way would would show up in the bottom of the picture. Also, by dropping the bed you could use that as a form of movement of the lens called ‘Tilt’ to correct the image coming through the lens.
Another feature was the rise and fall of the lens board, this allows for instead of tilting the camera back or forward to take in the subject but to move the lens up and down and keeping the back of the camera straight up and down.
The last feature maintaining the field camera is ‘shift’ where the lens and be shifted to the left or right has the affect as rise and fall but to the sides handy if your up against a pole or wall that is exactly where you’d want to be standing to get your composition you desire.
Added features not used or common to field cameras are the focal plane shutter that the Anniversary Speed Graphic incorporated. It used a Curtain shutter where the curtain was essentially a large ribbon with 5 slits cut into it at different sizes depending on the speed to which was needed for exposure. The ribbon traveled at consistent rate depending on the spring tension and the opening of the ribbon is what made for faster or slower speeds and it traveled from top to bottom and small slit traveling past allowed for a faster speed where as a larger slit made for a slower speed.
A rangefinder was also used that was attached to the side of the camera, this rangefinder was attached to the lens board and would allow the photographer to focus through the finder rather than the ground glass back making for faster exposures.
It also had a pull up wire frame and pop up viewfinder that one could also use to compose the image first then either use the rangefinder or ground glass for focusing.
The most famous feature is the mounted flash handle you could attach to the camera, it’s most famous not as a photographic tool but was used for the Light Sabers in the original Star Wars trilogy.
As for photographers many journalists used this camera but was most known for photographer Joe Rosenthal who took the image of four US Maries planting the US flag on top of a hill on Iwo Jima after the battle was won.
The Specs:
Type of camera: Manual press camera
Film/picture format: 4×5 sheet film in landscape orientation.
Lens Mount: lens attached to 4×4” inch wood mounting plate
Lenses: Various large format lenses could be used
Shutter: Focal plane curtain shutter with 10 speeds from 1 second to 1/1000 including Time setting. Also could use lenses with internally housed diaphragm leaf mechanical shutter, shutter speeds varied depending on lens.
Exposure metering: none
Viewfinder: Rangefinder mounted on side, wire viewfinder on top or use of ground glass at back of camera.
Focussing screen: Ground glass.
Reflex mirror: none
Depth-of-field preview: Yes, with use of lever on lens only when viewing through ground glass
Frame counter: none, use of sheet film does not require a film counter
Power source: none, all mechanical
Camera Back: Graflex Back to hold 4×5 sheet film and press film bags holding 10 sheets
Body Finish: Black leatherette