6x7, portrait orientation, and tripods

skysh4rk

skysh4rk

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RJ
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Hi all,

Righto, as a devout user of 6x6cm, I've never really had to think too much about vertical framing and tripods. After a couple of trips to southeast Asia over the last year, however, I've seemingly acquired a Plaubel Makina 67 and Pentax 6x7 and am now left wondering what to do with portrait orientation and tripods.

With the Plaubel, I can just turn the ballhead 90°, but the size and weight of the Pentax don't really allow me to do this comfortably. I've looked into getting some sort of L bracket for the Pentax 6x7, but camera-specific brackets for this camera have long since been discontinued. This universal l bracket would almost seem to do the trick except the placement of tripod socket on the 6x7 is moved forward toward the lens compared to most cameras rather than in line with the grip.

I know that a few people on this forum own or have owned Pentax 6x7s or similar, so I was wondering what others were doing about shooting verticals on tripods? Any thoughts or advice?

Thanks in advance,

RJ
 
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It sounds to me like there would be many options in this situation, none of which, in my opinion, would be anywhere close to ideal.

1) You could sell the Pentax and purchase a Mamiya RB/RZ67 and simply rotate the film back. It's not ideal as you may well have bought the Pentex over the mamiya systems for other reasons.

2) Buy a heftier tripod - Not ideal for weight and cost reasons.

3) Buy / make a suitable L bracket. I have no recommendations for these as I've literally never used one, but as far as cost is concerned, if selling the Pentax is not an option this would likely be the cheapest solution. Of course, selling the Pentax and buying an RB might even make you some money.
 
Woodsy said:
It sounds to me like there would be many options in this situation, none of which, in my opinion, would be anywhere close to ideal.

1) You could sell the Pentax and purchase a Mamiya RB/RZ67 and simply rotate the film back. It's not ideal as you may well have bought the Pentex over the mamiya systems for other reasons.

2) Buy a heftier tripod - Not ideal for weight and cost reasons.

3) Buy / make a suitable L bracket. I have no recommendations for these as I've literally never used one, but as far as cost is concerned, if selling the Pentax is not an option this would likely be the cheapest solution. Of course, selling the Pentax and buying an RB might even make you some money.
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Yeah, certainly the rotating backs of the RZ67 and RB67 are nice, but I'm inclined to keep the Pentax if only because it was basically a souvenir from our travels. The Pentax actually handles quite nicely for handheld work, which is probably how I will mainly use it, especially with the 105mm f/2.4. I just want to have the option of throwing it on the tripod occasionally, especially with the relatively cheap wide angles available for the system.

I've never even used an L bracket before, so it's another thing I'll need to read up on, it would seem...
 
Something like the Manfrotto 410 Geared head should do the trick, it's not the quickest head to manouvre but I've used one with mine and its fine.
 
RaglanSurf said:
Something like the Manfrotto 410 Geared head should do the trick, it's not the quickest head to manouvre but I've used one with mine and its fine.
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Yep. Done that. It works ok.
 
RaglanSurf said:
Something like the Manfrotto 410 Geared head should do the trick, it's not the quickest head to manouvre but I've used one with mine and its fine.
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I chatted to a guy using a Pentax 67 at Kenilworth Castle and he had a geared head. The camera is so darn heavy I suspect the geared head is essential; a ball head would be too hard to control?
 
Thanks for the responses, everyone.

Hmmm... if I go the geared-head route it would seem that I'd need new tripod equipment from top to bottom to accommodate the Pentax. I don't think my current tripod can handle that geared head and the camera.

I was hoping with an L bracket that I might avoid this, because the centre of gravity of the camera stays directly on top of the camera no matter the orientation.
 
skysh4rk said:
Thanks for the responses, everyone.

Hmmm... if I go the geared-head route it would seem that I'd need new tripod equipment from top to bottom to accommodate the Pentax. I don't think my current tripod can handle that geared head and the camera.

I was hoping with an L bracket that I might avoid this, because the centre of gravity of the camera stays directly on top of the camera no matter the orientation.
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That sounds like a good idea. When you said:

skysh4rk said:
This universal l bracket would almost seem to do the trick except the placement of tripod socket on the 6x7 is moved forward toward the lens compared to most cameras rather than in line with the grip.
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Did you think that might rule out the bracket you pointed to? IIRC the Pentax 67 is an odd shape compared with most DSLRs, with the very long mirror box; I'm guessing the tripod socket is under that. But unless there's something for the L part to foul, it seems like it should still work. For £25, probably worth a try; if not, you could probably sell it on for only a small loss.
 
ChrisR said:
Did you think that might rule out the bracket you pointed to? IIRC the Pentax 67 is an odd shape compared with most DSLRs, with the very long mirror box; I'm guessing the tripod socket is under that. But unless there's something for the L part to foul, it seems like it should still work. For £25, probably worth a try; if not, you could probably sell it on for only a small loss.
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Yeah, because the tripod socket is beneath the mirror box, the L part doesn't wholly align with the part of the camera that your hands grip if that makes sense. This means that the L shape won't run perfectly along the width of the camera, but will be a bit in front.

I've never used an L bracket before though, so I wasn't sure if this would make any difference. I might just pick it up and see how things go. It's certainly much cheaper than many of the other options presented. I probably do need a new tripod and associated accessories, but I'll look to pick those pieces up bit by bit.

A review on another part of the forum of the L bracket in question: https://www.talkphotography.co.uk/threads/ishoot-l-bracket-mini-review.670900/
 
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skysh4rk said:
Yeah, because the tripod socket is beneath the mirror box, the L part doesn't wholly align with the part of the camera that your hands grip if that makes sense. This means that the L shape won't run perfectly along the width of the camera, but will be a bit in front.

I've never used an L bracket before though, so I wasn't sure if this would make any difference. I might just pick it up and see how things go. It's certainly much cheaper than many of the other options presented. I probably do need a new tripod and associated accessories, but I'll look to pick those pieces up bit by bit.

A review on another part of the forum of the L bracket in question: https://www.talkphotography.co.uk/threads/ishoot-l-bracket-mini-review.670900/
Click to expand...

it looks like the issue is whether you want to use the camera both on and off the tripod in the same session. If so, then it might adversely affect handling, from what you've said and the review (interpolation). If not, then as long as it doesn't foul any key parts, it doesn't really matter.

A bonus... you might be able to use it with the other 67 camera as well. I have to drop my camera into portrait on the tripod with my ball head and it's nasty (better on the monopod where I have a dedicated head that pretty much just does portrait or landscape... it's easy to compensate for the weight with a monopod).
 
ChrisR said:
it looks like the issue is whether you want to use the camera both on and off the tripod in the same session. If so, then it might adversely affect handling, from what you've said and the review (interpolation). If not, then as long as it doesn't foul any key parts, it doesn't really matter.

A bonus... you might be able to use it with the other 67 camera as well. I have to drop my camera into portrait on the tripod with my ball head and it's nasty (better on the monopod where I have a dedicated head that pretty much just does portrait or landscape... it's easy to compensate for the weight with a monopod).
Click to expand...

Well, I've ordered the L bracket, so I'll see how things go.
 
skysh4rk said:
Well, I've ordered the L bracket, so I'll see how things go.
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I don't know if folks are interested, but I thought that I would update this thread in case anyone was having similar issues or questions concerning their Pentax 6x7/67 and portrait orientation on their tripods.

I ended up buying the large universal bracket mentioned earlier in the first post of this thread to enable easier portrait orientation with the Pentax 6x7. The issue with the universal bracket is that the tripod socket on the bottom of the Pentax 6x7 does not align with the grips on each side of the camera so the bracket was out in front of the camera a bit so to speak. This actually made it so that all parts of the camera were accessible and film could easily be loaded, but it was then uncomfortable to shoot without a tripod, as the bracket was in the way of focusing the lens, especially when vertically oriented.

To get around this, I attached a Pentax 6x7 specific quick release plate to the bottom of the camera and a quick release clamp to the l bracket, so that I could centre the bracket to fit around the grip of the camera, but also easily remove the camera from the bracket to shoot handheld or easily load film.

All things considered, this non-camera-specific setup works fairly well on my battered Pentax 6x7 for easy verticals:

IMG_1117.JPG IMG_1118.JPG IMG_1119.JPG IMG_1120.JPG IMG_1121.JPG
 
That's not the end of the story though, as I quite fortunately came across a Kirk l bracket made specifically for the Pentax 6x7/67 cameras just the other day. The camera can be used as normal while this accessory stays on at all times, but is ready to go into tripod mode whenever called upon.

The only very small issue is that the battery compartment is blocked for all Pentax models except the 67ii, but these batteries last for months or longer, so it's not much of an issue (it's also not very hard to remove the bracket).

A few pics of my battered Pentax with the new-to-me Kirk arca-swiss compatible l bracket:

IMG_1134.JPG IMG_1135.JPG IMG_1136.JPG IMG_1137.JPG
 
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To make a tripod sturdier and depends on convenience and where you are..there is always the dodge of hanging a heavy weight on the cross members of the tripod e.g. up in the mountains and bit of a wind then gather some heavy stones in a bag.
 
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