Two questions about operating a Shen Hao HZX45-IIA

[Al D]

I have to say that this camera comes with some of the most inscrutable and poorly written instructions I have ever seen*. I can certainly look past poorly written English but clearly no effort was made because controls that relate to the same type of movements for the front vs. the back of the camera are named inconsistently.

Rant over...

I have two questions:

For those of you who have the instructions handy...

1) What is a "back cross slide pitching handle" (#39 in the diagram)?

2) I have heard this camera is outfitted with a rotating back. But how does one rotate it?

Thank you!



* The instructions that came with my Wista 6x9 Type N roll film back are no better.

[Mark McCarvill]

Can't help you with #1 (I don’t think I received instructions), but rotating the back is easy. Just slide out the two clips that hold on the ground glass, remove and rotate the GG 90 degrees, put it back in place and lock it back down with the clips. Takes 2 secs. It’s a great camera. Good luck with it.

[Marko]

Try the following link. It's in Italian, but illustrations are pretty good and self-explanatory.

http://www.nadir.it/ob-fot_grande/shenhao-istruzioni/default.htm

Rotating vs. revolving back - The term could be misleading in the beginnig. It certainly was for me. Revolving back revolves in place, i.e. turns around as one would normally expect. Rotating back you actually need to detach, turn and then reatach.

Regards,

[Brian Vuillemenot]

Hi Al,

The Shen-Hao is the only camera I own that came with instructions, and I own four other LF cameras. Are poorly written instructions better than no instructions at all? Most LF camera makers assume that the purchasers either know how to use them, will pick up a book on the subject, or will get help from an experienced user.



1) I have no idea as to what a "back cross slide pitching handle" is, but my ignorance in this area has had absoultely no effect on my use of the camera. I suggest that you don't worry about it.



2) What Mark said- just slide out the clasps, remove the back, rotate 90 degrees, and put it back in. Easy as cake!



Have fun with your Shen- perhaps the best value in LF photography today!

[Saulius]

You may find more answers to these and any future questions at the Shen Hao yahoo forum.
groups.yahoo.com/group/shenhao/ (http://groups.yahoo.com/group/shenhao/)

[Dan Jolicoeur]

I didn't get any instructions with mine either. If you go to the website that Marko has given; I am assuming that the "Slide pitch handle" in question is in picture 12 & again in 21 with arrows pointing to it.

As far as rotating the back picture 41 shows the two little slider clamps that hold on to the ground glass to rotate 90 degrees.

It is in Italian, but like Marko said it is self explanatory & very nice website!
Regards,

[Alan Davenport]

For the linguistically challenged (myself, among others) there is help: go to http://babelfish.altavista.com, and paste Marko's link -- http://www.nadir.it/ob-fot_grande/shenhao-istruzioni/default.htm -- into the box for "Translate a Web page." It seems inevitable that machine-translated pages have some grammatical issues, but it gives us something to work with besides the photos.

[Marko]

It seems inevitable that machine-translated pages have some grammatical issues, but it gives us something to work with besides the photos.

It sounds like that's how they translated the original manual into English.

:)

This is off topic, but I just can't resist - if you want to have a good laugh, open any book and pick a sentence. Using the automated translator, translate that sentence into another language. Say language A to language B.

Then translate the translation into yet another language, B to C.

Repeat few more times, following the same pattern, each time into a different language:

C to D
D to E
...
X to Z

and finally translate the result into the starting language and compare with the original: Z to A

Here's my take on Alan's sentence I quoted above, five passes, european languages only:

"It seems inevitabile that the sides translated of the calculators have some exits grammaticali, but it rather gives them to work, without counting only the photographs"

Regards,

[Alan Davenport]

"It seems inevitabile that the sides translated of the calculators have some exits grammaticali, but it rather gives them to work, without counting only the photographs"

I had no idea I was so concise.