It is new camera day, which is the best kind of day. This is the Stenopeika Caronte 4x5, the newest field camera from Samuele Piccoli at Stenopeika, and the camera that is going to be my main 4x5 going forward.
For the past few years I have been using the Stenopeika Air Force 4x5, which is the affordable entry in their range and a camera I have loved. The Caronte sits a tier above that, with a more premium specification, nicer materials, and a price to match. Air Force is still in production at around €600. The Caronte comes in at around €1,000.
I took the Caronte to a studio in downtown Toronto for its first proper outing, shooting Velvia with a model called Cristiana Bodnariuc. Some of the frames worked. Some did not. This is the first impressions piece, honest about both.
What sets the Caronte apart
The headline difference between the Caronte and the Air Force is the materials.
The wood is Tuscan Cypress. Most field cameras in this category are plywood, including the Air Force. There is nothing wrong with plywood. It is light, stable, and works perfectly. But the cypress on the Caronte is genuinely beautiful. The grain, the colour, the finish. You do not get a good sense of it from video. In hand it feels like a camera you want to use.
The base is all metal. On the Air Force the base is partly plywood. On the Caronte it is metal throughout. The whole chassis feels more solid, more refined, more “premium tool” than “affordable field camera.”
A combined knob for rise/fall and tilt. Several manufacturers have moved to this design. Where the Air Force has two separate knobs, the Caronte has one. Personal preference whether this is an upgrade. I like it.
New hinges on the film back. There is a sprung hinge on the bottom of the film back now, in addition to the usual pull-away mechanism on the top. I am not yet completely sure what this is for. My best guess is that it makes retrieval easier when using non-standard inserts (like the Stenopeika Minutero 2.0 developing holder), where the standard removal mechanism might not quite line up. Need to check with Samuele to confirm.
The weight is roughly the same as the Air Force. Around 1.4 kilos. Properly carryable for fieldwork. Folds down nicely too.
![PLACEHOLDER: the Caronte 4x5 open on a tripod, showing the cypress wood and the all-metal base]
Lens compatibility, including the short end
The Caronte takes lenses from longer focal lengths down to genuinely short ones. The Stenopeika website specifies 60mm with a bag bellows. In this shoot I used a 65mm wide angle without a bag bellows and still had some movement available, so my guess is that you can probably mount a 60mm without a bag bellows and lose only the movements, and possibly even a 55mm with no movements at all. Worth experimenting if you have those lenses.
For reference, the lenses I used in this shoot:
- Schneider 210mm f5.6 as the standard portrait length
- Emil Busch Aplanat (no shutter, around f6.3) for some experimental backlit work
- 65mm wide angle for the closing series of frames
The shoot, in order, with honest reporting
The studio was a clean white space in downtown Toronto. Cristiana arrived in some properly colourful clothing, which is the right choice for a Velvia shoot since Velvia loves saturation. I started with simple lighting and got progressively more complicated.
Set 1: simple light, single source. Direct, clean, the Schneider 210mm. Three sheets at this position. Good results.
Set 2: added yellow background light. Lit the white wall behind Cristiana with a yellow gel, trying to keep the yellow off her. One sheet. Pleased with it.
Set 3: position change, mirror in frame. Moved Cristiana to a chair near a mirror, framed to get her plus her reflection in the mirror. Half-second exposure. Worked.
Set 4: standing pose. Reframed with her standing, sharper focus, single sheet. Razor sharp on the ground glass and razor sharp on the developed sheet too.
Set 5: the Emil Busch experiment. This is the first one that did not go to plan. I switched to the Emil Busch Aplanat (which has no shutter, so I controlled exposure with my hand over the lens) and introduced a backlight at the same time. Both new variables on the same frame. The results came back hazy, mostly from lens flare on the older lens hitting backlight. Lesson: do not introduce two new variables at the same time. Either the old lens or the backlight, not both at once.
Set 6: outfit change, 65mm wide. Cristiana changed into casual clothes (jeans, strappy top) and I switched to the 65mm wide-angle lens. Pulled in a big armchair as a prop. Framed everything landscape. Focused carefully on the ground glass.
The shots came back out of focus. I genuinely do not know what I did wrong. My best theory is that the ground glass was not seated properly after I switched orientations (I had just gone from portrait to landscape), and the focus reading on the glass did not match the actual focal plane at the film. Frustrating because the framing was nice.
Set 7: the last two sheets. I switched to a standing pose, kept the 65mm wide, and started messing with the front standard tilt to manipulate the plane of focus. There was a little bit of movement available with the wide lens, and using it gave me a frame with a slight tilt-induced focus plane that worked nicely. There is also some visible vignetting at the top of the frame where the 65mm is at the edge of its coverage on 4x5. I do not mind that. It suits the image.
These last two frames are my favourites from the day.
![PLACEHOLDER: one of the final two frames from the shoot, showing the tilt effect on the focus plane and the slight vignetting at the top]
What the failures taught me
Two real lessons from this first shoot:
Do not introduce two new variables at the same time. The Emil Busch with backlight was a mistake. Either lens, on its own, would have been fine to test. Either backlight on a known lens, on its own, would have been fine to test. Combining them on the same sheet gave me results I could not easily diagnose. Standard scientific method, applied badly.
Check the ground glass is fully seated after every orientation change. I had not realised this was something to watch for. On older cameras with a single fixed orientation it is not an issue. On the Caronte with a swappable orientation, you need to make sure the glass is properly home before you focus. Lesson learned the hard way.
These are both me, not the camera. The camera did everything I asked it to do.
What I love about it
The build quality is the headline. The Caronte feels like a camera you want to keep. The cypress wood is properly beautiful in hand. The metal base gives everything a solidity the Air Force did not quite have. The movements are smooth and precise, with the usual Stenopeika zero-stops to help you find vertical and centred positions on the front standard.
The new combined knob for rise/fall and tilt is a small improvement that I appreciate. The new hinges on the film back work cleanly. The fold-down for transport is tidy. Stenopeika thinks carefully about field-camera ergonomics and the Caronte shows that thinking applied.
I also used one of Stenopeika’s new 4x5 sheet film holders during this shoot, which I should mention. Solidly built, no light leaks, worked perfectly. Worth a look if you are buying into the system.
How it compares to the Air Force
The Air Force 4x5 at €600 remains an excellent affordable 4x5 field camera. If you are getting into large format and want a high-quality entry point that does not break the bank, the Air Force is still my recommendation.
The Caronte at €1,000 is the upgrade you make when you want a more refined version of essentially the same camera. The functionality is similar. The materials and the build are nicer. The “in-hand” experience is better. Whether that is worth the price difference is genuinely a personal call.
For me, having used the Air Force heavily, the upgrade is justified because this camera is going to do years of work and the extra €400 amortises over a long shooting life. For someone who shoots 4x5 occasionally, the Air Force will do everything you need and the money saved goes toward film.
What is next
The Caronte is my 4x5 going forward. You will see it in every 4x5 video from this point on, including the entire ongoing black and white paper reversal project, where reliable mechanics matter because the process leaves no margin for camera-induced error.
Big thanks to Samuele at Stenopeika for the camera. Big thanks to Cristiana for modelling so patiently while I worked through new kit. Her details are on Model Mayhem if you are looking for a model in the Toronto area, and I would recommend her highly.
You can find the Caronte 4x5 on the Stenopeika site, alongside the Air Force, the Minutero, and all the other excellent kit Samuele makes.