I am shooting with the Actus for a week now and I must admit: It's fantastic!
I was looking for movements for my camera for years, tried DMF (bought and cried twice), but gave it up.
tried 35mm with movements: Zörk, Mirex, Mamiya TS-bellows, self made concoction on a Linhof 679, Hartblei and so forth.
I make 95 percent of my income with a 90mm TS-e, but I am not too hot about its image quality, especially close up and the limited movements.
But now: The ActusIt was a bit of a bumpy start, had a few problems with the bellows and my 90mm digitar, but now I am trying a few enlarger lenses and it works great.
First I tried it with the Sony A7r, but the lack of live view tethering really sucks, the Ipad solution is not precise enough and not being able to shoot into a computer while using live view tethered made my decision to finally sell the sony.
I changed the mount to canon and put my trusty, 150.000 exposure 5d Mk3 on it, and that thing rocks!
Lenses I tried so far:
- Schneider 45mm Apo-Componon HM: superb lens, but too wide for the Actus/Canon with the standard bellows for anything other than very close-up.
- Schneider 60mm Apo-Componon HM: Fantastic too, great fpr closeups 2-3:1, but then very restricted movements
- Rodenstock 80mm Rodagon (non-apo): probably the sweetspot for the system, unbelievable lens, though it would so much improve out of focus highlights if it only would have more aperture blades. loads of pentagons in OOF reflections, I am going to get the apo version, or does it exist in a version for a copal shutter, so I can mount an old 12 blade one?
- Schneider 90mm Apo-Digitar: sweet too, though mine seems to have a problem, gone to Schneider
- Schneider 120mm Apo-Digitar: the bellows seems to be too short for that lens for anything closer than 1m, even with the front reversed, the magnetic mounts pop off with slight movements.
The Actus really needs a geared tripod head. Using it on a ball head, like the one specially designed for it, wastes so much precision.
Those enlarger lenses don't take flare too well, so I built a flag with a small magic arm and an Arca-style clam, which gets attached to the rail.
My only niggle is, that the friont swing zero detent doesn't work.
I am happy!What I wish for:
Pentax 645 camera mount and a longer bellows.