Adding extra rise to a Chamonix 45N-1

[David R Munson]

http://photo-otaku.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/photo-otaku.com-chamonix-1.jpg

With the help of Hugo at Chamonix, I have modified my 45N-1 with a taller front standard, this in the interest of not running out of rise as often. It adds 17mm rise to make for 62mm available rise instead of the stock 45mm. A nice, easy modification at a reasonable cost that fixes my problem, and another instance of Hugo being super-helpful.

A little more about it and more pictures on my blog (http://photo-otaku.com/chamonix-45n-1-modification/).

http://photo-otaku.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/photo-otaku.com-chamonix.gif

[Kirk Gittings]

sweet!

[Lachlan 717]

Nice!

Any chance of seeing a photo of it folded?

[David R Munson]

That's the photo I forgot to take, actually. I'll be doing it shortly and will follow up here once I have.

[vinny]

Flip that lens board over for even more.

[David R Munson]

Unfortunately it won't go on that way. Big-ish rear element and a circular ridge on the back of the board make it not work out properly. I'm not sure if it really needs to be drilled as off-center as it is, but that's how it was mounted when I bought it, so c'est la vie.

Here's the photo of the camera folded. Not much of the standard sticks out (not enough to be a problem).

http://photo-otaku.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/photo-otaku.com-chamonix-2-2-500x500.jpg

[dave_whatever]

An alternative worth considering for anyone running out of rise would be making a wooden block to sit between the front standard frame and the moving focus bed. It would need a screw with a flush top (say a hex bolt) to bolt into the focus bed, then a socket somewhere on top to mount the original standard into.

I wish I could find a photo of it but some time in the last few months I saw a chamonix for sale on the german ebay site where the owner had done exactly this, only in his case it looked like he'd made it with grooves to basically lock-out the front swing to guarantee parallelism with wideangle lenses, but a knock on effect was it would have given him extra rise. I've probably not explained that very well.

[David R Munson]

Dave:

I've also thought of that solution, but haven't yet implemented it. Sketches done, but I haven't bought the hardware yet. If you ever do come across the photos you were thinking of, I'd love to see them.

[Corran]

Seems rather superfluous. You could have tilted the camera up and used the front and rear tilt to correct the verticals, or used a proper center-drilled lensboard ($15 on eBay), neither of which would require all this effort. But whatever makes you happy.

[David R Munson]

I'd say that adding a taller standard is a lot easier over the long run than having to fiddle with tilting the camera, tilting the back and lens, etc every time I need a bit more rise than the stock front standard offers. Swapping out the part took all of two minutes and makes the camera better suited to what I need. I'd rather have that than have to fudge it.

[dave_whatever]

Plus if you point the camera up then re-level using front and rear tilt then whenever you focus in or out (or rack the extension in or out to change lenses) you're going to be altering the rise too.