Large format cameras: Linhof Kardan Color

Linhof Kardan Color: a review

by George Barr for the Large Format Page.

Overview

In the beginning... Linhof made the Technika, but some people needed a camera with fore and aft movements of a monorail, so they took the front of a technika, mounted it on a large solid block of metal and rail, made a new non folding back with no front on it but still the same four rods to swing and tilt the back, and the same rotating back. This was the Linhof Color. With the development of the Linhof Super Technika V with its pump up the front rise lever on the left, they made further modifications to the monorail, added a back rise and started calling it the Kardan Color.

The obvious question is - why would someone want to buy a camera with none of the advantages of a folding camera without the extensive movements of the usual monorail?

Well, here's why I did buy it and how it has worked out.

The other way to think of a Kardan Color, is that it's a Master Technika with more movements, fore and aft focusing, better bellows, rear rise and costs one quarter as much. How does that grab you? I picked up mine on e-bay for $575 without lens and I have seen several others for sale since.

What it is

First let me describe the camera to you. Contrary to popular but uninformed opinion, the kardan Color is not heavy - it weighs roughly the same as a super technika - 3.2 kg. without the tripod mount. It has a very rigid well made rail in two sections, 10 inches and 5 inches, with a large knob on the end of the short section to attach the larger section, very solidly! On the rail are two mounts, a front mount that is very solid and holds the lens. The front standard is identical to the Tech V lens mount with the same swing and shift, tilt and rise, including the little plastic tipped lever for the rise. There is no front geared focus - you slide it along the rail and tighten it with a large knob on the left. Once tightened, this is the most rigid front monorail made - period. It does not move - at all. The back mount flares up and out to hold two vertical posts upon which the back of the camera is mounted. The back cranks up and down these posts by a large geared knob on the right of the back. There is no lock to keep the back rise fixed, relying on friction to keep the rise. The metal back is unique to the Kardan Color and bears no resemblance to the Technika. It is cut out at the top (like a Technika Master without the hinged part) to allow rises with short lenses. The rotating back is identical to those on the technikas, except it has a locking pin.

My camera didn't come with a ground glass cover or pop open hood but it has the necessary holes for one. It has the same four rods and knobs for locking to control back tilt and swing. Unlike the Technika, it has no lock to hold the tilting swinging back against the camera body. As I always found those locks an incredible nuisance, this is a bonus to me ( I don't need three hands to tilt the back). The bottom knobs for tightening the rods are under the camera back and stick out enough to easily grip it with a gloved hand.

The back mount has a focusing knob on the right, which to my mind works backwards in direction (but is a function of the gearing to the monorail on the bottom instead of the more common top position), and a locking knob on the left. In my example the focusing is very nice and solid but sliding the back on the rail is a little stiff but even in cold weather perfectly manageable. The back connects to the front by a paper/vinyl bellows but unlike the Technika, it has two very large leather pleats at the front which give it considerably more movement with short lenses. I can finally use the full coverage of my Nikor 90 mm. f8 which is 235 mm.

The camera extends to 17 inches using the four rods and full length of the two part monorail. It compacts to about 55 mm. so I believe it would be possible to mount a 58 mm. lens on a flat board on this camera. Construction of the tripod base is such that you do need to mount both front and back in front of the tripod clamp for lenses 90 mm. and shorter, but I've found this less hassle than I expected and is a very reasonable compromise to not need bag bellows or recessed lens boards (there are recessed boards so with one of those, a 47 mm. lens should be useable).

The camera stores with both front and back standards on the short 5 inch rail, making a fairly compact package that easily fit into my back pack where previously my Wisner traditional sat. The Kardan Color is a little taller and thicker but no wider and weight is about the same.

How it works

Set up is a bit slower than with the Wisner and certainly slower than with a technika, but it's not bad. The camera comes out of the case, the long rail is removed from the tripod and attached to the short. I slide the back, just pushing it down the rail - it's a bit stiff but not difficult. I then put the monorail on the tripod. I can then mount a lens (if not already on) and set the front standard to roughly where I think it will be needed based on the focal length of the lens and how close the subject is. I then focus the back of the camera. Back rotation is a little stiff but nice and solid. You hold down the locking pin till after you have started the rotation.

To focus near/far I focus the camera using the bottom of the inverted image (ie. the far), then loosen the two top rod locking knobs and adjust the top of the back till the near is in focus. I then refocus the bottom then set the camera focus to a compromise to deal with everything that isn't in the plane of focus(eg. grass sticking up). I don't have a depth of field guide like on the Sinar F but 1/2 turn (180 degrees) of the focusing knob is 1 cm. and f64 so a quarter turn is f32 etc.

A detailed evaluation

After using the camera for a while and shooting a fair amount of film with it my overall impression is very positive. I am comparing this camera to other 4X5's that I have used, including Techinkas, Toyo C, Wisner Traditional, Calumet, Crown Graphic, Kardan Super Color, Toyo 45A, an Tachihara. It's more rigid than the Wisner, more versatile than the Toyo 45A and Technika, and fits in my backpack unlike a Toyo C

Strengths

the front standard is the most rigid in the market
the technika style lens mounting is very rigid and much less likely to let a lens go accidentally than most other systems.
being a monorail it has fore and aft focusing, all be it friction on the front - very handy for close work
the geared focus is on the rear which is generally better, especially for close work
it has a rotating back, with lock pin
the bellows are universal for most people - I hate having to change bellows for the 90 and 135 lenses - it provides full coverage with my 90's 235 mm. image circle
the camera doesn't fold but it does go onto the short rail and is a relatively small package
it's lighter than almost all other monorails exc. the arca swiss but this is cheaper, has longer extension, uses common small lens boards, doesn't need bag bellows and has a rotating back

Weaknesses

when my camera arrived I thought the back looked tilted and checking with a square confirmed this, somewhere in it's history the standards had been bent forward on the back - I have since used a clamp on the disassembled camera to bend the standards back to within .5 mm. of square (less than the depth of focus of my lenses wide open the camera back is not nearly as sturdy as the rock solid front - on the other hand, its no worse than my wisner and springs back to position once you stop heaving on it - it hasn't been any problem - and it's all square which the wisner usually wasn't
it's annoying having to move the tripod mount for the 90 mm. lens, on the other hand - NO recessed lens boards needed!!! (I'm not sure if a recessed board would prevent needing to move the tripod mount to behind the back but to me it's not worth it)
lack of folding - assembling the two part monorail and moving the standards does take a bit longer than using a technika storing the long rail could be a problem but so far just leaving it on the tripod is working fine (although there is a space for it in my bag if I need it - it's not one of those 18 inch monsters that don't fit anywhere
lack of back bail - I had a bail on my wisner - which was absolutely essential due to the high friction and funny fit, but film usually sides in fine with the Kardan. I'd still like a bail and perhaps some day I'll come up with one.
I do find that with the longer lenses (300 mm) there is a slight vingnetting of the image on the film - you lose about 1 -2 mm. of image due to the corner being cut off - it's minimal and hasn't been a big issue - after all I was wanting a more magnified image anyway in choosing a long lens. This is due to the rotating back being just barely big enough for 4X5.
the back rise works nicely but there is no tightening knob to keep the back up there - in fact friction seems to do an adequate job but it is possible to accidentally push downwards while loading film and have the back drop a bit. As it's a minor problem only (most of the time it doesn't shift position) I haven't done anything about it but options include wedging something under the risen back or using a clothes peg on the rail or something similar. I haven't even looked very closely to see if there might be a way to tighten the rise so it doesn't come down again - come to think of it - a bit of tape on the knob would prevent it rotating and therefore preventing the back from dropping - that would be light, cheap and compact. I understand some people hardly ever need a lens drop in landscape work but I seem to find myself frequently at the top of a hill, looking down a little on trees and wanting to keep them upright.
In theory, the four knob, multi axial back tilt and swing should be a problem compared to a full feature monorail, but in fact, the stiffness of the back is just perfect, I can lock the two lower knobs and adjust the back tilt, let it go without fear of movement till I can lock the two upper knobs
I do wish for more back tilt occasionally - if you want to really stretch things out in a near far composition, tilting the back 30 degrees does have it's place, but for depth of field, the back tilt is enough and besides, if you raise the back, tilt the lens forward and tilt the back back, you get the equivalent of a more extreme back tilt (the lens is still aimed at the back because of the combined lens tilt and back rise.
front tilt is limited as on the technika V and I would have preferred the more generous tilt of the Master Technika, but what's there has been adequate for almost everything I have shot with the poss. exception of one photograph of my model railway layout with the bottom near of the picture being six inches away from the lens and the top back >10 feet. That's an extreme situation and even then I was able to get enough tilt to get the photo.
It would be nice if the left front knob that releases the lens tilt could be deactivated temporarily - the board has a tendency to drop into the locked position as you manipulate the board for a small amount of tilt

An extremely important issue for me is how the camera actually handles - do things fall naturally to hand, is it awkward to use or unnatural. Now that I have used it a bit I am very comfortable with it. I've just purchased a 480 mm. lens and plan to mount it on a juice can (as per Joe Englander). It will allow me to focus down to about 30 feet I hope. This way I'll have a camera that with one set of bellows could on flat boards take lenses from 58 to 355 mm. and with a recessed or extended board, go from 47XL to 480 mm. I use the camera with a BTZS focus cloth. It drapes over the camera body nicely and I keep it from sitting on the bellows with a couple of plastic clips used to hold bundles of electrical wires (available in most big hardware stores). The bottom goes around the back standard and the elastic in the cloth holds it there perfectly. It's true that if you raise the back, light leaks between the base of the standards and the raised back but that hasn't been a sig. issue. When storing the camera in the backpack, the compacted camera on the short rail is wrapped round the still attached dark cloth and stuffed in the bag.

The camera is great for landscape and close work, ok for architectural but perhaps not with the entire series of Super angulon Xl series of lenses, and is not a great choice for product shots where a full featured monorail is a better choice.

I think most of these weaknesses are pretty minor and absolutely no camera is perfect at everything - but if you want a rock solid camera for relatively little money, I'm pretty darned happy with my Kardan Color and would not swap it back for any of the previous cameras I've shot large format with. In conclusion, if I have to limit myself to one camera, and if I don't have to backpack more than a mile, this camera has some definite advantages over a Master Technika for 1/4 of the price and has compromises that I can live with. I recommend it to anyone on a budget that precludes two different cameras or $3000 for a used Master Technika.

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