What 4x5 Camera Did Ansel Adams Use

Ansel Adams | Commodity

Adams' Photo Gear

Ansel Adams © Ansel Adams Publishing Rights Trust

Ansel Adams took his kickoff long trip into the wilderness in 1920, when he was just eighteen. His burro, Mistletoe, carried almost a hundred pounds of gear and food; he himself carried a 30-pound pack total of photographic equipment. Adams was heir to a long tradition of American wilderness photographers who lugged cameras, tripods, and even portable darkrooms with them into the back country in order to capture its breathtaking dazzler.

Whatwas all that equipment they carried? Read some descriptions below.

John Huszar interviewed Adams for his 1981 film,Ansel Adams: Photographer. Adams recalled:

"Well, people have asked me what kind of cameras I used. It's hard to recall all of them. Oh I had a box Brownie #one in 1915, xvi. I had the Pocket Kodak, and a 4 ten 5 view, all batted down. I had a Zeiss Milliflex. A great number of dissimilar cameras. I want to endeavor to get back to 35 millimeter, which I did a lot of in the 1930s. Using i of the Zeiss compacts. In the 20s and into the 30s, I would carry a 6-1/2 x viii-1/two drinking glass plate camera -- that was a footling heavy. And I had a 4 ten five camera, and then of form we went to film, to moving-picture show pack, things became a little simpler.

"Merely William Henry Jackson and [Carleton] Watkins were all over this country with much bigger cameras. Wet plate cameras. And I believe it was Jackson's serial of pictures on the meridian of Mt. Hoffman, with wet plates, that is, having to take the darkroom, cook the plates on the spot, betrayal and process them immediately. For the wet plate process yous have to complete the development of the image earlier the emulsion dries. And when the dry plate came in it was a slap-up godsend. I guess we all did the all-time as we could. If nosotros had very heavy cameras we simply didn't go so far or take so many pictures. Knowing what I know at present, whatever lensman worth his salt could brand some beautiful things with pinhole cameras."

Historian Robert Taft listed nineteenth-century landscape photographer William Henry Jackson's typical photograph gear for a summer's travels in his 1938 book,Photography and the American Scene. One essential, h2o, was located along the fashion. Jackson carried:

2 or 3 cameras for different size lenses

lenses and plate holders for each photographic camera

2 tripods

night tent or darkbox

10 pounds collodion

2 pints alcohol

1 pint ether

1/4 pound each ammonium iodide and ammonium bromide

ane/four pound each cadmium iodide and cadmium bromide

three pounds argent nitrate

x pounds ferrous sulfate

one-one/2 pounds potassium cyanide

6 ounces nitric acid

1 quart varnish

packet of filter papers

canton flannel and rottenstone

iii negative boxes

processing trays

various bottles for chemicals

scales and weights

400 pieces of drinking glass

Beaumont Newhall narrated Larry Dawson's 1957 film,Ansel Adams, Photographer, and described Adams'south photographic gear:

"...A fine craftsman employs different tools for different purposes. Item: ane 8 ten 10 view camera, 20 holders, 4 lenses -- i Cooke Convertible, 1 ten-inch Wide Field Ektar, 1 9-inch Dagor, one 6-3/4-inch Wollensak wide bending. Item: one vii x 17 special panorama photographic camera with a Protar 13-1/2-inch lens and five holders. Detail: 1 iv x five view camera, 6 lenses -- 12-inch Collinear, eight-i/two Apo[chromatic] Lentar, nine-ane/4 Apo[chromatic] Tessar, iv-inch Wide Field Ektar, Dallmeyer [...] telephoto.

"Item: One Hasselblad camera outfit with 38, 60, eighty, 135, & 200 millimeter lenses. Item: I Koniflex 35 millimeter photographic camera. Item: 2 Polaroid cameras. Detail: 3 exposure meters. Ane SEI, and 2 Westons -- in instance he drops one.

"Item: Filters for each camera. K1, K2, minus bluish, G, X1, A, C5 &B, F, 85B, 85C, low-cal balancing, serial 81 and 82. Two tripods: ane calorie-free, one heavy. Lens brush, stopwatch, level, thermometer, focusing magnifier, focusing cloth, hyperlight strobe portrait outfit, 200 feet of cable, special storage box for film.

[Ansel's motorcar (a Cadillac) with platform pulls abroad from camera.]

"Item: One aboriginal, eight-passenger limousine with 5 x 9-foot camera platform on top."

Source: https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/ansel-photo-gear/

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