lense boards

[Michele]

What is a recessed lense board and what is it used for?

[Ted Harris]

A arecessed lensboard is one in which the part where you mount the lens is 'recessed' or sunk behind the front standard thus allowing the lens to sit closer to the film plane than would otherwise be possible. they are used to mount wide angle lenses on some cameras where the bellows compression will not permit the lens to focus at infinity.

[Paul Fitzgerald]

Hi there,

It's a special optional board that fits a specific camera to mount a shorter focal length lens. It sets the lens closer to the ground glass for wide angle photos. It may need an angle adapter for the cable release. It's a good thing to have and keep with the camera it fits to.

Smile

[steve simmons]

If you are new to large format, or thinking about jumping in here is some reading that will be helpful

Books

User's Guide to the View Camera by Jim Stone

Using the View Camera that I wrote

Large Format Nature Photography by Jack Dykina

Articles

Getting Started in Large Format

along with several others in the Free Articles section of our web site

www.viewcamera.com

steve simmons

[Scott Rosenberg]

michelle, just to elaborate on what has already been said here, recessed lens boards allow one to use lenses of a shorter focal length than would be possible on a flat lens board. on a view camera, the lens is attached to the front standard and is focused by moving it away from the rear standard, which holds the film. the shorter the focal length, the closer the front standard/lens must be to the rear standard to focus an image. connecting the front standard and rear standard is a flexible bellows. there is a limit to how much the bellows will compress, therefore, there is a limit to how close you can bring the two standards, therefore, there is a limit to how short a lens you can use on the camera.

a recessed lens board allows the lens to be positioned closer to the rear standard than would normally be possible because the lens is mounted into a, well, recess, in the board. lets say to focus a given lens at infinity, i need to place the lens 65mm in front of the film, but i can only back the front standard up to a distance of 80mm, if i had a lens with a 15mm recess in it, it could place the front standard (and lens board) 80mm in front of the rear standard, but the lens, because it's mounted in the 15mm recess, would be the required 65mm out.

thus, while the front standard be 80mm away, the lens is in fact 15mm closer. by the way, the same applies for lenses that need to be positioned further out than the bellows will allow. for those, the lens is mounted on an extension tube in front of the board.

i hope this helps,
scott