Cambo Aptus DB: Any Landscape Photographer?

[subrata1965]

Here we go with Clyde Butcher, Cambo Actus but with SONY A7r.

 

[jlm]

bump for graham

 

[Paul2660]

Live View on the Credo/IQ150 works quite well on the Cambo Actus DB. Very precise and smooth. I was using it with the Schneider 120 ASPH yesterday. We found out the hard way that the standard rial would not focus a 120mm ASPH lens, so we had to get the AC330 Long Rail and AC DB-254 bellows. That worked well and gave us plenty of room on the rail to focus at infinity and close up.

I have to say that is a very sweet setup.

I found the Live View focusing with the rm3dibwas not the piece of cake I thought it would be. Instead I found it very difficult to tell when an image was focused 100% correctly due to the extremely fine focus adjustment of the Arca. Using a rail system like the Aptus or Univeralis the image will pop more into focus as the focus increments are much greater.

Paul

 

[jlm]

not sure why you could not get the 120 to focus with standard rail and bellows...at full extension of rail and bellows you should be able to close focus at about 10' or so. not macro, but in the standard range of a 120 with a helical focus. this with a DB, not the sony, which moves the sensor further away yet

 

[gmfotografie]

does anyboday have experience in cambo actus with a ccd sensor - especially iq60 or 80.
is a good liveview essential ?

 

[GrahamWelland]

TBH I only considered the Actus DB once I'd got CMOS live view. Whilst I'm sure that you can use ccd live view I personally found it very disappointing even on my Alpa with my IQ260/160. I think that you'd have more success using the cambo ground glass adapter and then swapping over to the ccd back.

Unlike with a tech camera with helicoid there is no way to view the focus distance on the Actus db other than potentially setting the infinity limit stop and calibrating to that.

 

[ErikKaffehr]

Hi,

One small reflection is that the Cambo can be used with Canon lenses, too. All of the 12-24/4L, 16-35/4L, 17/4L and 24/3.5LII give pretty generous image circles and they should be perfectly usable with 1.3X crop backs.

All these lenses are retrofocus designs, so they play well with the CMOS based backs.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TDCCoXop0oY&ab_channel=ChieJoongkeun

The Canon 17/4 and the 24/3.5 TSE LII have been said to cover full frame 645.

For personal experience I only have the 16-35/4L and the 24/3.5 TSE LII, but I have only used them on the A7rII. The 16-35/4 only allows something like 3 mm shift at 16 mm but 20mm up it is pretty generous.

http://www.getdpi.com/forum/sony/54571-hcam-master-ts-11-24mm.html


Regarding 11-24/4L on Iq 250, P45+, Iq 380:
http://www.getdpi.com/forum/medium-...11-24mm-new-wideangle-records.html?highlight=

That said, Rodies are probably better corrected, especially in the corners, but if you don't have important subjects at the corners those Canons may be an interesting option.


Best regards
Erik

As Jim said, the 32mm on a 35mm is 32mm. No gain or loss. and you are right, a very expensive way to get movements unless you are lucky enough to already own a 32mm Rodie.

I don't know of the Actus will allow the SK35 to be used in a normal lens 0 board or not. But it's wider than the 32mm and will not give you hardly any movement, about 7mm or less due to the color cast issues from the A7r and A7.

The Rodie 28 would not get to infinity with the Acra DSLR2, again not sure what it would do on the Cambo solution. And if the 28mm won't work, I doubt a 23mm Rodie will either.

Where this solution will really work well is with medium range, 60mm SK or 70mm Rodie and the telephotos. 90mm, to 180mm. The Sony Live View with focus peaking is hard to beat from my experience with the DSLR2. But on the wide side, you are looking at either a very expensive 32mm Rodie, which is not that wide, or the 40mm Rodie which is even less.

Paul

 

[torger]

I never used ground glass, as I'm relatively very new in tech cam camp. However, I'm under the impression that it is hard to use GG with wide angle lenses. That's what I was told.

Subrata

Yes it's hard, but it's possible. I do it with the symmetrical Digitar wides, which should be a magnitude harder than the retrofocus Digarons. Haven't tried any of those though.

The Actus is not great with ground glass though as there's no sliding back. I would not like to use ground glass without a sliding back, however that was how you did it back in the film days, so I guess you could live with that too

 

[torger]

How rigid is the Actus? How good is the parallelism? That would be my main worries with that camera as it doesn't really look that rigid, even for a view camera.

However, if you don't shoot with larger aperture than f/11 and don't shift the wides too much, the depth of focus will probably mask any parallelism issues.

 

[torger]

does anyboday have experience in cambo actus with a ccd sensor - especially iq60 or 80.
is a good liveview essential ?

There is no sliding back in the system as the camera is too weak to hold one, so using a ground glass will be extra cumbersome (detach back, reattach ground glass). You'd probably not want a sliding back anyway as the big thing with the Actus is that it's small and light, and if you add a sliding back to it, you could just put an Arca-Swiss Universalis in the bag instead (which has a sliding back in the system), or even better a Linhof Techno (more compact and easier to pack, better ground glass, but unfortunately much more expensive).

Those CCD backs you mention actually have a primitive live view which works in narrow lighting conditions. I know some actually use it. When it's too bright conditions you can use ND filters, but when it's a bit dark I guess you can't use it, and then it's either on/off with ground glass or trial-error focusing (shoot, 100% view, adjust shoot, 100% view, adjust etc).

I don't think there is any specific about the Actus, you can ask anyone using a CCD with a view camera. Oh the specific with the Actus is that there is no sliding back, which is the most common option when CCD is used on a view camera.

There is a ground glass though, so if you can accept detach/reattach ground glass when shooting you can do without live view.

I don't know about the quality of the Cambo ground glass though which does matter quite a bit especially when working with wide angles. I know it has a fresnel, which is good, but the efficiency of the fresnel and the ground glass grain size varies a lot between brands. There's tradeoffs to make in design, larger grain usually makes the ground glass brighter, but harder to pinpoint focus with a strong loupe (that's why I don't like Maxwell Optics ground glass), and the fresnel is designed for a specific focal length, I prefer it to be designed for really short ones as brightness is not a problem with longer lenses anyway. I've tested a few ground glasses and Linhof's new bright ground glass is the best I've tried, but unfortunately I haven't tried Cambo's so I don't know how it compares.

So you need to know 1) is the CCD live view on these backs effective enough for your use cases, 2) if you intend to use ground glass instead or as a complement, how good is the Cambo ground glass.

Ground glass has very poor reputation, that's a key reason why so many went for the pancake cameras as you don't need to use it then. It's not impossible though, and I've used one since 2012. The key to success is a good ground glass, a strong loupe (more than 10x, I use 20x), decent eyesight, proper shading, good technique and training.

Here's my review of Linhof's new bright ground glass which gives some insight into how it is to use a ground glass:
bright ground glass review

 

[Digitalcameraman]

I have several customers using the Cambo Actus DB with CCD backs, both IQ140 and IQ180. These guys are shooting products in the studio and when you have the set illuminated with modeling lamps, there is plenty of controlled light to use Live View to rough in the composition and focus. Is it as good as CMOS 50/100 MP? Not even close. But useable.

I also found that when shooting indoors like at Silo City in rooms that are using mostly window light, it was adequate for rough composition and focus. Once the shot is captured, in a sec I can zoom into back or computer to check focus on captured image.

The problem with the CCD backs and Live Focus is when you have very bright scenes, like outside in full sun, you need to put ND filters on the lens to allow the CCD to create an exposure that one can see.

So it works and we have folks using it, but the CMOS 500/100 combination with Cambo Actus is much more productive and precise for landscape, studio, or art repo.

does anyboday have experience in cambo actus with a ccd sensor - especially iq60 or 80.
is a good liveview essential ?

 

[gmfotografie]

thanky you for your help. another question according the lens.

the newer ccd or cmos backs with the actus in combination with old lenses like the apo sironar s 150mm or fujinon 125mm - does anybody now how these lenses will work on such high resolution backs?

i have a lot of such old "good" lenses (planar, sonar, fujinon , schneider) and i' m trying to find a solition also using those lenses. knowing that the quality is not perfect.

 

[GrahamWelland]

I use the APO-Sironar digital 135mm with my Actus DB+ and IQ150. Not sure why but it's a little trickier to focus with live new vs my 32 & 70HR lenses (I find it easier to use if I open it up and then stop down to shoot) but results have been great. Acuity seems a little less than my SK150 that I had but to be honest I'm only comparing dozens of images taken with the 135mm vs hundreds taken over many years with the SK150 which was on my Alpa.

Update: Rodenstock designed the APO-Sironar-digtal for use with sensors down to 9um pixels vs 4-5um sensors for the Digaron-S and HR/HRW/HRSW. That said, I have no real complaints with my 135mm images, especially in print. They are a bargain IMHO. If I were shooting with a IQ3100 maybe I'd notice it I suppose.

There's a Rodenstock document out there that explains Sironar -> Digaron etc branding and which lenses were essentially reformulated and which were just rebranded. I'll see if I can find the link as I think I still have it (http://www.rodenstock-photo.com/Archiv/Objektive digitale Fotografie e.pdf).

 

[DougDolde]

Clyde Butcher

https://www.facebook.com/clydebutcher/posts/10152235044632007

Looks like a real monster with the RB lens on it

 

[ErikKaffehr]

Hi,

Great!

I am considering the Actus. Meanwhile, I am using the HCam Master TSII: http://www.getdpi.com/forum/sony/58710-some-examples-tilt-shift-sony-a7rii-hcam-master-tsii.html

So I may end up buying the Actus or something similar. The Actus has a lens plate that can set the aperture on Canon lenses, I would love that. The Actus has geared movements, I would love that, too.

On the other hand, I have the HCam master in my bag and I can put it in my pocket… That is also an advantage!

My take, if you do a lot of movements, the Actus may be a natural choice. If movements are needed now and then, the HCam Master II may be the ideal partner for the job.

That said, the Actus may be on my shopping list, at this stage I simply don't know…

Best regards
Erik

Clyde Butcher

https://www.facebook.com/clydebutcher/posts/10152235044632007

 

[GrahamWelland]

I have the Actus DB+ and I did also have an Actus with Sony mount. Both work the same and to answer Torger's question about rigidity - it is, albeit I'd prefer to be able to lock the front swing control.

The big difference though is with use of wide angle lenses. The DB/DB+ and MFDB can use any wide tech lens as there is no mount restriction on how close the rear element can get to the full sensor. With the Actus and Sony, even if using the special wide adapter version, the rear element can protrude into the camera body, limiting movements etc.

Be aware also that there are differences also in the lens support between them as the DB version relies on a sync trigger for the back and a shutter in the lens. The Actus with mirrorless or dslr just needs the aperture to be stopped down as there is a focal plane shutter in the body. Hence no sync required either. This allows for support of practically any lens that fits.

 

[vjbelle]

To add to what Graham has said the DB/DB+ and a MFDB can accommodate any wide angle lens as long as the lens is in a '0' copal lens mount. My 35mm XL in Alpa mount was not able to reach infinity due to the extra spacing of the helical. I removed it from the Alpa mount and mounted it in a '0' copal lensplate and all is well. I would also be very leery of using any of the Alpa/Arca lenses in their native mounts with the Cambo adapters due to the weight distribution being placed way forward on the front standard. For me, that's just asking for trouble as this places an extra strain on the front tilt mechanism. It is much better to just remove those lenses from their native mounts and mount them in a Cambo '0' copal lensplate. The weight is now equalized front to back and it will be much easier to reach infinity with the very wide lenses. This, of course, assumes that the Actus would be used as the main camera. My STC is sitting on a shelf as I much prefer to use my Actus and I get yaw free tilt/swing and combination tilt/swing with my 35XL and other lenses mounted in Cambo lensplate.

Victor

 

[jimban]

To add to what Graham has said the DB/DB+ and a MFDB ....
...My STC is sitting on a shelf as I much prefer to use my Actus and I get yaw free tilt/swing and combination tilt/swing with my 35XL and other lenses mounted in Cambo lensplate.

Victor

Hi Victor

What MFDB are you using with the Actus DB? And what manner of focusing?

jim

 

[vjbelle]

I have used three different backs with my Actus..... An IQ180, Leafe/Credo 50 and now an IQ3-100. All were/are focused with live view. Very easy with CMOS. The IQ180 is much more difficult to focus with but it can be accomplished. I would make a rough focus with live view and then take a quick image and check at 100% on the back to see where my focus point was. At that point it was very easy to make small adjustments and perhaps a couple more practice images to nail focus.

Victor

 

[gmfotografie]

will the actus work with the hasselblad 1xd?

best m