Two things happened on this morning at Cradle Moon Game Reserve outside Johannesburg. First, I got a landscape photograph I am genuinely proud of, which is rare for me. The landscape photography mental block I have written about elsewhere finally cracked a fraction, and I have a frame I would actually print.
Second, on the walk back to the car, my Stenopeika Air Force 4x5 came off the tripod and hit the ground. It smashed. Front standard bent, focusing screen broken, multiple components damaged. I had to email Samuele at Stenopeika with photos and a contrite explanation. He fixed it. The camera is back together and out shooting again, but the moment of seeing it on the rocks is one I will not forget.
This article is about both. The success and the disaster, in the order they happened.
It is also the first real outing for my Emil Busch Aplanat No 2, the antique brass lens that I have since used multiple times and that I tested in more detail in the antique brass lenses comparison article. The Busch is a lovely lens and made its debut here.
The setup
Camera: Stenopeika Air Force 4x5, still my favourite large format camera before this morning, still my favourite afterwards.
Lenses: I had three with me:
- Nikkor SW 65mm for the wide work
- Schneider Symmar 210mm as my reliable medium lens
- Emil Busch Aplanat No 2 at approximately 8.5 inches focal length, my new acquisition
Film: Eight sheets in holders. Six FP4 Plus, two Kodak Portra 160. Not a lot of margin for mistakes.
Location: Cradle Moon Game Reserve, the same place I would later try (and gloriously fail) to shoot wildlife on the 4x5. On this morning the focus was landscape.
The waterfall walkway shot
A long walkway runs across a stretch of water at Cradle Moon. After heavy recent rain, the water was running fast and producing a lot of spray. I wanted to be in the middle of the walkway, looking straight down it with water spray hanging in the air on both sides.
The light meter was telling me roughly 1/5th of a second at the apertures I had to work with. Long enough to get some smoothing of the water, fast enough to not be totally smeared.
I tried two approaches:
Shot 1, from one end with the 65mm Nikkor SW. F/45, about half a second exposure. Slow enough to soften the water meaningfully. Got drenched in spray standing there, but the camera was protected enough that the front element stayed clear.
Shot 2, from the middle of the walkway with the Nikkor SW wide open. F/4.5, much faster shutter speed to try to freeze some of the spray rather than smooth it. I lost the first sheet to water getting into the holder (the spray was coming up through the gaps in the walkway and onto the camera from below), so I had to reload and shoot again. Second attempt worked.
This was difficult work. I could not hear the shutter over the water noise. I was holding the dark slide in my mouth at one point because both hands were on the camera and tripod. The spray was significant. Genuinely tricky shooting conditions for 4x5.
![PLACEHOLDER: the waterfall walkway shot from the centre, showing the spray and the long perspective down the walkway]
The sunken trees, with the Busch Aplanat
Further along the trail, I came across three trees in standing water, clearly drowned in some flood event, still standing, providing a stark composition against the brighter water behind. This was the kind of subject that gets called “good landscape material” in the photography books, and I wanted to do it justice.
I had wanted to use the 65mm Nikkor SW because it had been working well on the wider shots. But standing there, looking at the trees, the wide focal length was wrong. Too much foreground, too much context, the trees would have been small in the frame.
So I put on the Emil Busch Aplanat for the first time properly.
The Busch has a story. I picked it up at auction for £25 because the listing showed lots of dark spots on the front element. Most antique lens buyers would walk past a lens with that much apparent fungus or oxidation. I took a punt. When the lens arrived, I rubbed the front element with isopropyl alcohol and the spots came right off. Not fungus. Not oxidation. Paint. Possibly thinner spatter from a previous owner’s home decoration project. Whatever it was, it cleaned off completely and revealed clean glass underneath.
So this £25 lens is one of the best buys I have ever made on antique glass.
I mounted it on the Stenopeika, focused on the three trees, and worked out an exposure. The aperture markings on the Busch are non-standard (six up to 384, in the older notation), so I was guessing at the actual aperture. I went with what looked like roughly f/8 based on the size of the visible iris opening. Five seconds at that aperture.
The negative came back, and the frame was the one I was looking for. Three trees emerging from water, with the slight character that antique glass produces (centre-emphasis brightness, soft falloff toward the edges, that particular look that I now associate with the Busch). Sharp where I needed it sharp. The kind of image I would hang on a wall.
This is rare for me. I am generally not happy with my landscape work, and getting a frame I genuinely like was a real moment. Pretty chuffed.
![PLACEHOLDER: the three trees in water taken with the Busch Aplanat, the keeper landscape from the morning]
A small wildlife attempt that became famous later
While walking back through the reserve, I saw a zebra at moderate range. Curious, walking slowly. I had the 210mm Schneider on the camera by this point and the last sheet of Portra 160 loaded.
I tried to wait for the zebra to walk toward me. It did not. I tried to creep toward the zebra. The zebra walked away. I got nothing.
This brief failed attempt is what set up the later “screw you physics” 4x5 wildlife article. I came back from this trip having shot one zebra-shaped sheet of film that was useless, and that experience nagged at me until I came back to Cradle Moon specifically to try wildlife on the 4x5 properly. The result of that second attempt was, predictably, also mostly useless, but more comprehensively useless and therefore more instructive.
Then I broke the camera
This is the bit I have been dreading writing about.
Heading back to the car, the camera was on the tripod and the tripod was over my shoulder. Not horizontal, not pointing down, just at a slight angle as you carry a tripod normally. I was walking across uneven ground, clambering over some boulders.
The ball head gave way.
The camera detached from the tripod and fell. I watched it happen and could not catch it. It hit the rocks below me. Hard.
Damage:
- Front standard bent noticeably out of alignment
- Brackets bent at multiple points
- One mounting screw pulled straight out of the frame along with a chunk of wood
- Focusing screen glass broken at the back
- Various other dents and impacts that I would not catalogue here because the broader picture was bad enough
I picked up the pieces. Looked at them. Wanted to cry.
This is the most expensive single moment of stupidity in my photography career to date. The Stenopeika Air Force 4x5 is not a cheap camera. It is also a camera I love, made by hand by Samuele, and I had just destroyed it through carelessness about how I had secured the ball head.
![PLACEHOLDER: the damaged camera showing the bent front standard and the broken focusing screen]
Emailing Samuele
I took photos of the damage. I composed the most apologetic email I have ever sent. I attached the photos. I sent it.
Samuele wrote back kindly, asked some clarifying questions about the extent of the damage, and said he could probably fix it. He recommended I send it to him in Italy when I got back to the UK. He would assess it properly and let me know what could be done.
This was genuinely better treatment than I deserved.
Editor’s note from later: Samuele did fix the camera. Completely. The Stenopeika came back from Italy looking nearly new, and it has been back out shooting with me on many trips since (including the 4x5 wildlife article and the antique brass lenses test). It is the same camera I am still using today. The repair was extensive but successful.
I am extremely lucky that Samuele was willing to do this. Most camera manufacturers would have written off the damage and offered to sell me a replacement. He fixed it. This is part of why I am such a vocal advocate for Stenopeika in my other articles. It is not just that the cameras are good (they are). It is that the man behind them is genuinely generous and committed to keeping his cameras alive.
If you are considering a Stenopeika and worrying that an independent maker means uncertain support: my experience is the opposite. Independent makers like Samuele care more, not less, about their cameras and their customers.
What I learned about ball heads
A practical note for anyone using tripods with valuable cameras.
Ball heads can give way silently. The mechanism that holds the camera plate to the head has a clamp that screws down. If the clamp is not tight enough, vibration and movement during walking can loosen it further until the plate releases the camera. There is often no warning before the camera falls.
After this incident I now:
- Check the ball head clamp twice before walking with any camera attached
- Carry the tripod by the head, not by the legs, so my hand is on the part that holds the camera if anything gives way
- Where possible, remove the camera from the tripod for walking rather than carry the combined assembly
- Use a second safety strap between camera and tripod for valuable cameras on longer walks
None of this would have happened if I had been doing any of these things. I now do all of them, religiously.
What was on the rest of the morning’s roll
The negatives that survived were generally good. The 65mm Nikkor SW had performed cleanly across the waterfall shots. The Busch Aplanat had delivered the three-trees frame I was proudest of. The 210mm Schneider had not had much to do.
The Portra 160 frames came out well for what little Portra I had shot. Lovely colour rendering of the South African landscape, which has a different palette to anywhere in the UK (more ochre, more dust, more open space).
The morning was, on balance, a good one. Until it wasn’t.
What I did about the rest of the trip
I was due to head back to the UK in a few days. The Stenopeika went into my luggage in pieces. I sent it to Samuele as soon as I got home. He had it fixed by the time my next South African trip came around.
In the gap, I shot some medium format work to keep busy and to give the channel something to publish that was not me crying about my smashed camera.
What I took away
A few things from the morning. In order of importance.
The Busch Aplanat is a wonderful lens. £25 at auction for one of my favourite pieces of glass. The “spots that were just paint” story is the kind of thing that makes antique lens buying genuinely rewarding for those who are willing to take small risks.
My landscape photography occasionally works. The three trees in water frame is a real photograph, not just a record of a pretty place. When the technique and the subject and the lens all align, the results can be what I want them to be, not just what I happen to capture.
Ball heads need to be locked down. This is the practical lesson I have carried forward.
Samuele at Stenopeika is the kind of person who saves your camera. Buy Stenopeika gear. The man is a star.
Cradle Moon was worth multiple trips. I went back twice more, both for wildlife work and for other things. The reserve is genuinely good for photography, and the South African light is unlike anything I get at home.
Verdict
A good morning, a hard lesson, and a saved camera.
The photograph I am proudest of from the trip is the three trees frame on the Busch Aplanat. That frame would not exist without the Stenopeika. Which is why the broken Stenopeika hit me so hard, and which is why having it back is such a relief.
This is what landscape photography can be, when the conditions, the technique, the kit, and the eye all align. It is also what landscape photography is, when you carry expensive cameras over rough ground.
Both things happened. I am OK with both, now that the camera is fixed.
Big thanks to Samuele at Stenopeika. Apologies for the broken pieces I sent you in the post.