Large Format Photography: Calumet Cadet

Calumet Cadet : a short review

By Jay Schlegel for the Large Format Page

5.5 lbs. The best part is the price: $399 for a fully assembled camera.

It has full movements on front standard, no rise or fall on rear standard. It's mostly metal... there are plastic knobs and other parts. The only one that concerns me is the tripod mount lever. It's probably plenty strong but it protrudes about 2" and appears vulnerable to breakage.

No interchangable bellows. You can get the standard bellows which supports roughly 16" extension or the bag bellows which supports (I believe) 9.6" extension.

5 knobs controlling movements:

front tilt (with center detent)
front swing/shift (with center detent for swing only)
front rise/fall
rear tilt (with center detent)
rear swing (with center detent)

I purchased the standard bellows model for the purpose of adapting for use with my Pentax 67 for occasions where movements are desirable (w/LF lenses). While I think it's a nice little camera for the money and well suited to my usage, I believe that someone who is serious about LF they would be better served picking up a more versatile camera on the used market.

Limitations of the Cadet are:

lack of interchangable bellows
non-standard lensboard size
there is no recessed lensboard for the cadet.
The front standard has a round ~80mm hole. If you were to fashion a recessed board it would require a tubular recess leaving little room inside for lens and access to controls.

If purchasing used is not a consideration, Calumet does have a tradeup option that allows you to move up to another Cambo later on with 100% credit on tradin of the Cadet.