Toyo metal field 5x7
by Q.-Tuan Luong for
the Large Format Page
This camera
seems to be an earlier model (probably from the 50's)
which was a basic 4.75 x 6.5 camera. The camera body is a
metallic gray/silver "hammertone" finish. It simply says "Toyo Field".
It came
with a descriptive leaflet claiming that it is the first metal field camera
ever built. Various backs were available and I got one with a 5x7 back,
which is rare. The design of the camera is quite classical for a metal field,
and is inspired by the graphics. The only geared movement is the front
focussing, and there is no calibration scales.
This camera has a number of extremely good features, making it very good
for most of landscape photography:
- a quite cheap ($650) perfectly usable 5x7 camera
- lightweight (6lbs), very compact (as thin as a Tachihara 4x5) but metal construction, which makes it rugged and rigid
- very easy to open and to close (takes less than 30 seconds)
- the knobs are of a decent size and are rubberized unlike on most cameras,
therefore more pleasant to operate in cold weather
- there is a bail arm for easy opening of the ground glass
- the short bellows allow a good amount of rise even with a 120 lens
However, there is some shortcomings. The most serious is:
- limited bellows draw. The camera has about 14 inches of bellows, which
is really short for a 5x7 camera, and does not allow any long lens to be
used, even at infinity. The telephoto lenses available just cover 5x7 with
almost no movements.
Other features which I miss are:
- 4x5 back (actually, there was one, but now it's almost impossible to find)
- more movements. The camera in particular has front tilt and swing and
rise/fall, but lacks back swings (which might be a problem if a lens with
small coverage is to be used).
- wide angle bellows. Although shifts can be applied to the limit of
coverage of the 120, the bellows provoke some internal vignetting.
The camera uses Graphic lensboard, which is a plus for Graphic camera users,
and a minus if you want to share lenses with other cameras. These lensboard
are quite cheap, though.
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