It has been about eighteen months since I first reviewed the Stenopeika Air Force 4x5. First-look reviews are all very well, but they tell you whether a camera works in principle on the day it arrives, not whether you still love it after living with it. The most useful reviews come after real use.
For the last eighteen months the Air Force 4x5 has been my only large format camera. Every 4x5 frame I have shot has gone through it. So I am now properly qualified to tell you what it is actually like to own, and the short version is that I love it, and I think it is one of the best first large format cameras you can buy.
This is the long-term verdict, including the day I dropped it and it crumbled.
Portability, my favourite thing about it
I took the camera down to a local nature reserve close to where I live, on a rare properly sunny British summer day. The whole kit fits in a single VSGO Black Snipe 25L backpack: the Air Force itself, film holders, filters, blower, light meter, and two lenses. Lift the dark cloth on top and everything is in there.
The camera folds down to a remarkably small package. 1.5kg without a base plate or lens. For a 4x5 field camera that is genuinely light, and it is the thing I value most about it.
The setup is quick enough that I can do it one-handed (which I demonstrated in the video while holding the video camera in my other hand). Unscrew, lift the back, lock it, fold out the front standard, settle the standards into their detents, lock everything down. The Air Force has zeroing stops all over it, so finding a solid, level, centred starting position is fast and repeatable. You are not fiddling to get back to neutral every time.
The modular system is held together largely by magnets. Removing the back and the bellows is quick, and everything locks back into place with a satisfying clunk. It is a well-thought-out system that respects the fact that you are setting this up and breaking it down in the field, often in awkward conditions.
![PLACEHOLDER: the Air Force 4x5 set up on a tripod over the stream, with the bellows extended]
The 65mm lens trick
One of my favourite practical features: the Air Force can take a 65mm lens.
That sounds like a small thing but it is not. 65mm is a very wide lens on 4x5, and most large format cameras cannot focus a lens that short because the bellows cannot compress far enough and still allow movements. The Air Force can, with a little wiggle room past infinity even. For super-wide landscape work, this is a real capability that a lot of more expensive cameras lack.
I love my 65mm lens. It is not the best for portraits (as my self-portrait attempts in this shoot demonstrated, repeatedly) but for wide landscapes it is the business, and the Air Force lets me use it. There are other lenses for portraits.
The shoot
I worked the stream across a morning, shooting two lenses: the 65mm wide and an Emil Busch Aplanat (an 8-inch lens, roughly 200mm, about 110 to 115 years old, with no shutter, so controlled with a lens cap over the front).
Dry plates first. Zebra dry plates at ISO 2, metered with the Reveni Labs spot meter. Half-second and four-second exposures of the stream and the bridge, using the remote release because I could not find a standard cable release that morning. The remote does the same job.
Fomapan 100 on the 65mm. Black and white sheets of the stream, exposed around f22 at a second. There is genuinely life in the stream when you look closely (visible movement of small creatures), even though at first glance the water looks grey and lifeless.
The Emil Busch for the bloom. Switched to the antique lens for a couple of frames, because it produces a gorgeous bloom around highlights, and the stream had lots of specular highlights to play with. This involved extending the bellows from the 65mm setting out to the 200mm length, leaning over the stream the whole time, getting a proper sweat on. Large format fieldwork is basically yoga: find the position, lean into it, hold, breathe, check focus, stand up again.
Self-portraits, which did not go well. I tried some self-portraits on a graffitied rock, switching back to the 65mm. The trouble is focusing: with no rangefinder and no way to see myself on the ground glass, I have to guess my distance from the camera or use a focus target. My first attempts (guessing the distance) were out of focus. My better attempt used the twig trick: stick a twig where my face will be, focus on the twig, remove the twig, stand in its place. That got me close, though I then had a large black rock directly above my head making me look like I was wearing a strange hat, which I could not see because I cannot see myself on the ground glass.
![PLACEHOLDER: a Fomapan 100 frame of the stream on the 65mm, showing the wide-angle coverage the Air Force allows]
The good points, summarised
After eighteen months, here is what I rate about the Air Force.
Value for a newly-built large format camera. It is not as cheap as an Intrepid, but it is a better camera than an Intrepid: better designed, better looking, more movement options, lighter, smarter, more flexible in what you can do with it. For not much more money you get a lot more camera. It is more expensive than an Intrepid and less expensive than a Chamonix, which puts it in a sensible middle of the market.
Portability. 1.5kg, folds tiny. Top marks.
The 65mm capability. Few large format cameras can squeeze short enough to use a 65mm lens. This one can.
Ease of use. Zeroing stops everywhere, quick setup, the one-handed test passed.
The modular magnet system. Quick to strip and reassemble, locks back with a clunk.
It is made new, by hand. Samuele Piccoli at Stenopeika makes each one to order. That means reliability you do not always get from secondhand or antique large format cameras. Plenty of cheaper old cameras are out there, but they may not offer the reliability of something built new for you.
It is simple to repair. I can tell you this from experience, which brings me to the one real bad point.
The bad point: I dropped it and it crumbled
Honesty time. I dropped this camera. Not from a great height, but it landed badly, corner-first, with a fairly heavy lens mounted, and it took a lot of damage. It kind of crumbled.
So hardcore it is not. A wooden field camera that takes a corner impact with a heavy lens attached is going to suffer, and mine did.
Two pieces of context, in fairness to the camera. First, I think I was unlucky with how it landed: corner impact, heavy lens, worst-case geometry. Second, I genuinely do not know whether another brand would have fared any better, because I have not dropped other brands. Most wooden large format cameras would probably struggle with that kind of impact. It is not a tank, but very few field cameras are.
The redeeming detail is that it was simple to repair. The modular construction that makes it easy to use also makes it relatively easy to fix. I got it back together and working. So while it is not crash-proof, it is at least repairable, which counts for something with a camera you are taking into rivers and up hills.
I should also note, for the record, that I drop a lot of cameras. I have dropped the ETRS too. This is a me problem more than an Air Force problem.
![PLACEHOLDER: one of the strong frames from the last 18 months with the Air Force, showing what the camera is capable of in good conditions]
Who this camera is for
The Air Force range (which also includes 5x7 and 8x10 versions) is Stenopeika’s entry-level line. That framing undersells it slightly, because it is a genuinely capable camera that I would recommend well beyond beginners.
If you are buying your first large format camera, the Air Force is an excellent choice. It is affordable by large format standards, well built, reliable because it is made new, easy to set up and use, and forgiving of the learning process. You will not outgrow it quickly.
If you are a seasoned large format shooter wanting a lightweight camera to travel with, you could do a lot worse. At 1.5kg folding tiny, it is a serious travel option, and the 65mm capability is a genuine functional advantage.
If you want something indestructible, this is not it. It is a wooden field camera and it will not survive a bad drop. But neither will most of its competitors, and this one at least repairs easily.
Current price is around €600, which is roughly £550 or similar in dollars. For a hand-built large format camera with these capabilities, that is good value.
The bond
When the Air Force first arrived I liked it. After eighteen months and only this camera for all my 4x5 work, I have a genuine bond with it, the same kind I have with my Bronica S2A. We have been through some stuff together, including the drop and the repair. It is the camera I reach for without thinking when I want to shoot 4x5, and it has produced some of the images I am proudest of over the last year and a half.
It has since been joined in my kit by the Stenopeika Caronte 4x5, the more premium camera in the range, which is what I now use for most 4x5 work. But the Air Force was the camera that took me through learning large format properly, and I will always rate it for that.
Big thanks to Samuele at Stenopeika. If you are looking at a first large format camera, or a lightweight one to travel with, the Air Force is well worth a look.