Sunday, October 23, 2011

Jackson Hole WY Week Two (Hand holding the Cambo WRS)

Old farm house, Squirrel ID
Cambo WRS1000 P65+ Schneider 72mm Handheld

We're at the end of our second week of shooting in the Jackson Hole WY area.  This post is the 4th part of recent posts showing sample images taken with the Leica M9, Canon 1DsIII and a Cambo WRS 1000 technical camera coupled with a Phase One P65+ medium format digital back.

Old farm house, Squirrel ID
Cambo WRS1000 P65+ Schneider 35mm Handheld

I won't bore you with how much I like shooting landscape with the Cambo as I've already done that in other posts.  I'll add as a bit of reference/history that I chose to shoot landscape with the Cambo WRS1000 3-years ago as a means of getting better images with a combination of cleaner-larger files.  I was fortunate to try the WRS shortly after its release and have been pleased.

Snake River
Cambo WRS1000 P65+ Schneider 72mm Handheld

Cambo designed the WRS1000 for the digital shooter; the body is slightly smaller while positioning the movement controls on the rear of the body.  The one small downside for me was the handles - they just seemed a little to too small.  I shoot a lot in various types of weather and conditions.  I've shot in some areas where while it was warm I still required some sort of gloves to get from place to place.  Likewise I shot in the dead of winter with very cold temps and snow and need to wear heavier gloves just to feel my fingers.  I found the original grips to be worrisome in providing a firm grip while handling the body and often times removed my gloves to set the camera on the tripod.  Handholding to me was just not an option as I just didn't feel I had a firm grip with or without gloves.

100% crop of below

The Cambo offered wooden grips and everything changed.  I wrote about replacing the grips earlier this year so I won't go into that here.  What I will say is that the wooden grips not only makes the WRS1000 great looking they are also extremely functional.  We've had some cool enough temps here that required wearing gloves and I've found the handling of the WRS vastly improved from taking it from the pelican case to placing it on the tripod. 

Along the Snake River, WY
Cambo WRS1000 P65+ Schneider 72mm Handheld
 
Then there's the ability to use the WRS as a handheld camera.  I've talked to Ken Doo about the general feel of handholding the camera and the best I can describe it is it's like holding and shooting an old press camera.  It is easy to do.  I've tried it using all 3-lens and in general find no real difference between shooting a 35mm to a 72mm or the 120mm.  I do use the viewfinder which helps and also use the 35mm mask with the 35mm and 72mm mask with both the 72mm and 120mm lens.

Test shot for location setup
Cambo WRS1000 P65+ Schneider 120mm Handheld

In short, while the majority of my landscape images are shot on tripod I have found myself much more open to using it off tripod.  

This was cropped for more of a panorama look

This is the last post from our second week in the Jackson Hole area; stay tuned for more as we begin our 3rd week.

Field of Buffalo, Moran WY
Cambo WRS1000 P65+ Schneider 72mm Handheld

100% crop

100% crop

Thanks for visiting and remember, your thoughts, suggestions and comments are always welcome.
 
Don

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