IN YOUR BAG 1767 – Philippe Debeerst

The first bag of 2025, and it is a very solid effort. Philippe has shared several bags in the past, but this one might be his biggest. Check it out.

Let me present you the camera which became my favorite, the SILVESTRI SLV 6×9 camera.

I bought it in Italy, used, a few years ago, and it has changed my way of seeing and working rather thoroughly.
This camera was designed in the early 1980’s, by Vincenzo Silvestri, a Firenze based photographer, who was in need of a genuine dedicated camera for architecture and landscape.
It is of a simple yet thoroughly thought out design, very well and sturdy built. Rather smallish and light, allowing a non distracting and intuitive way of working.
The most important item is the 25mm upward vertical shift movement, done by a double opposed turning screw-thread, driven by a simple knob.

Silvestri is still in business, although now their cameras are meant for digital photography, the model I have, the SLV, is more an analogue device.
Lenses, mainly wide-angles from Schneider, are mounted on the camera with a large bayonet, and are fit in their appropriate helicoidal ring for focussing.

In the photo showing ‘what’s in my bag’ you can see the leather bellows in which a magnifier is fit for focussing on the ground glass, its made of the finest Italian leather, what were you thinking… BTW, it is a thin Ground Glass sandwiched with a fine Fresnel lens, resulting in a clear viewing image.

On the camera is mounted a Schneider Super-Angulon 47mm F1/5.6, I only have one lens for the time being as they are rather hard to find and costly…

There is a reliable Gossen lightmeter too. And ofcourse a chronometer, needed for long exposures, which are very common as with the Center-Filter 1 ½ stop is lost, and for absolute image illumination evenness and widening the image circle (=123mm diameter), shooting at F1/22 is usual if not mandatory, which I always do, hence the tripod. Not to mention the contrast-filters I like to use for landscapes.

That carbon tripod is equipped with a simple and light levelling head as the back of the camera can easily be rotated from landscape into portrait, the camera stays put.

I use the Hasselblad’s quick mounting system, so I fit two Hasselblad’s ’soles’, one on the top too, with a brass spacer allowing some clearance for the film holder.

Accessories

The second row shows the film holders, 2 6x9cm from WISTA and one 6x7cm from Mamiya RB, for roll film. But the first one is a Grafmatic23 sheet film holder format 2”x3”, holding 6 sheets and allowing a kind of ‘automatic’ switching.
I have DIY modified that Grafmatic into a 2,5:1 ratio panoramic back (see separate photo). To me, shooting ‘real’ Panoramic is fun, and isn’t the same as, after shooting, reframing a standard format into pano, by far…
I marked the maximum shift limits on the backs as these change with the format.

The third row sows the filters I use, the first one is the famous and so important Center-Filter needed to compensate for the typical light-loss on the borders of the Super-Angulon’s image circle, particularly when shift is applied. A Super-Angulon is a symmetrical buit wide-angle (104°).
Then the usual contrast-filters for B&W photography: Yellow, Yellow-Green, Orange and Red. I hardly shoot any colour…
And then there is a Zone VI viewing monocle just in case.

I use an old and tiny agenda as a notebook for recording the subject’s info, and some tech notes.
This all fits in a simple Thule back pack, and then I’m on my way…

Philippe