C41
Kodak Portra 160
Kodak Portra 160 is a professional C-41 color negative film with fine grain, soft contrast, and natural color.
View profile →
view-large-format
The Anniversary Speed Graphic is a 4x5-inch folding press camera produced by Graflex Inc. of Rochester, New York, introduced in 1940 to commemorate the company's twenty-fifth anniversary. It represents the immediate predecessor to the more widely known Pacemaker Speed Graphic (1947) and shares the defining characteristic of the Speed Graphic line: a built-in focal-plane shutter mounted in the camera body, which enables use of bare barrel lenses at speeds up to approximately 1/1000s independently of any lens shutter.
Reference
Recommended film stocks for the 4x5 format your camera takes.
C41
Kodak Portra 160 is a professional C-41 color negative film with fine grain, soft contrast, and natural color.
View profile →BW
Ilford HP5 Plus is a flexible ISO 400 black-and-white film with classic grain and strong push-processing tolerance.
View profile →C41
Kodak Portra 400 is a professional C-41 color negative film known for flexible exposure latitude, natural skin tones, and fine grain.
Develop 4x5 film
Labs in our directory that process 4x5 film.
Before you buy used
About this camera
The 4x5 press camera Graflex built to mark its 25th anniversary in 1940, bridging the pre-war design era and the refined Pacemaker that followed World War II.
| Field | Value |
|---|
| Format | 4x5 in (standard 4x5 film holders, Grafmatic) |
| Mount | Graphic lensboard (~4x4 in) |
| Years | 1940-1947 |
| Bellows | ~300mm maximum extension (approximate) |
| Focal-plane shutter | ~1/30s to 1/1000s (slit width adjustable) |
| Lens shutter | Via mounted lens in Graphex or Supermatic shutter |
| Movements | Front: rise, tilt. No rear movements |
| Viewfinder | Wire frame sports finder + optical finder; ground glass on tripod |
| Build | Aluminum alloy body, mahogany inner frame, leather covering |
| Battery | None |
Graflex marked its 25th anniversary in 1940 with the Anniversary Speed Graphic, a refined version of the preceding Speed Graphic design. The timing placed the camera's production years squarely across the Second World War, during which the United States armed forces adopted the Speed Graphic for military photography. The US Army Signal Corps and Navy photographers used Speed Graphics extensively for documentation, press distribution, and reconnaissance support, with the Anniversary being the variant in production during the early war years before the Pacemaker replaced it in 1947.
The Anniversary was not a radical departure from the pre-anniversary Speed Graphic, but rather an incremental refinement that consolidated the design. The focal-plane shutter, the hinged front standard, the wire sports finder, and the Graphic lensboard system were all inherited from the previous generation. What changed were details of the front standard stampings, the body casting geometry, and refinements to the bellows mounting. Production of the Anniversary ran until the Pacemaker replaced it in 1947 with a more substantially revised front standard and simplified body casting.
The Anniversary Speed Graphic is less common than the Pacemaker on the used market due to its shorter production period and the attrition of wartime use.
The Anniversary Speed Graphic is the version of the Speed Graphic most associated with American photojournalism and military photography in the early 1940s. Photographs of pre-war events, the attack on Pearl Harbor, and early Pacific and European theater coverage were made with cameras of this generation. The visual language of the large American press camera with flash bracket and focal-plane shutter became established in public consciousness during precisely the years the Anniversary was being manufactured and used.
The anniversary designation acknowledged Graflex's position as the dominant American large-format press camera manufacturer of its era. The Speed Graphic line had achieved near-total penetration of American newspaper and wire-service photography by 1940, and the Anniversary release was as much a commercial and symbolic statement as a technical update.
The Anniversary Speed Graphic uses the same Graphic lensboard system as all Speed Graphic variants:
BW
Kodak Tri-X 400 is a classic black-and-white film known for strong tonality, visible grain, and documentary character.
View profile →