Mounting mirrorless camera as digital back

[Rider]

It seems that it should be possible to mount a small digital camera to use as a back of 4x5. Has anyone ever done this? I don't want to damage the digital camera in the process!

[Kirk Gittings]

there are many adapter backs available for mounting a digital camera on the back of a 4x5. But you understand that the sensor is tiny compared to a 4x5 sheet of film and therefore the digital camera would have to move about so that a stitch can be made of the digital captures.

I can tell you from experience that you could actually do better by just doing stitches directly from the digital camera.

[Michael Rosenberg]

Go to the Instructables web site and do a search on NEX7 and large format. It has step by step instructions.

[Rider]

Thanks! The Instructables website shows me the How. As to the Why (Kirk's question), it's because I like taking portraits that way, and I want to experiment with lenses that I wouldn't otherwise be able to use. And take lot of pictures with them, which I couldn't afford to do with polaroid film. I probably won't do any stitching.

As to Instructables: he does this for a Speedgraphic. I'd rather do it for a Wisner (I have more lens boards for it)--do you think it will be adaptable?

[Kirk Gittings]

So since you are not stitching you are going to mount like say a 65mm lens (or shorter) on a 4x5 with your little crop sensor camera on the back to shoot portraits? Since I don't know the size of your sensor I can't be specific on the VC lens length but you realize even a 150 lens (a normal lens on 4x5) will be a long telephoto on a tiny crop sensor. Anything in "portrait" range for your digital camera will be very short focal length for a VC like maybe a 50mm lens or even shorter? Wisners are not that great for very short FL lenses.

[Rider]

Widest lest I have is 90mm Fujinon f8. I was planning on experimenting mostly with a Verito. I think it's 180mm. I never got a chance to really use it before because it had no shutter (I used a film holder instead). The sensor is APS-C (1.5x crop factor compared to 35mm).

[Kirk Gittings]

So the 90 will be like a 135 telephoto (compared to a full frame 35mm sensor) on your aps-c sensor and the 180 will be like a 270 on it-another long telephoto. Neither will give you anywhere near the quality of a top lens designed for that format. So the 90 will be rather long for portraits and the verito will be extremely long.