a
camera, generally
large format, meant for use indoors in a specially constructed
studio area.
Studio cameras are usually impossible to use without a tripod. Typically they consiste of a lensboard where the
lens is mounted and of a filmboard, where film is placed (generally in a holder) to be exposed.
Lensboard and filmboard slide on rail for focusing. The lensboard and the filmboard have actually six degrees of freedom, limited only by the connecting
bellows and the
circle of coverage of the lens.
This great freedom, unheard of in the world of rigid cameras (like 35mm or most 120), allows for:
- Perspective correction: you can make cubic things really look cubic, or exaggerate perspective. It is up to you.
- Focus plane shifting: by adroit use of the Scheimpflug rule, the plane of focus can be tilted, so that (for example) you can have a whole dinner table in focus from end to end.
Studio cameras are not terribly expensive (not more than a good 35mm kit), but they are not popular due to their beastly inconvenience. It also very easy to make stupid mistakes, like exposing film twice, burning it with light, not exposing it at all, having subtle unsharpness.
Also, flash exposure is entirely manual and requires knowledge and experimentation.
Nonetheless these beasts are very much in use in professional photography circles because of their unparallelled flexibility and because of film size: with a studio camera you start at 4"x5", and can go much bigger, up to 10"x12".