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Hello,
I am wondering how large a lens you can store inside a folded closed Horseman 45FA. I have a Fujinon W 135/5.6 (in Seiko shutter) that I would want to use on this camera if I bought one. The total length of this lens is 4.5 cm.
Thanks, Dennis Mairet
Dennis, since you haven't gotten any answers yets, let me try to point you in the right direction to figure out what size lens will fold up in the Horseman FA. First, if the FA is like the Horseman VH (which I have), the 135 mm will fit as long as the filter diameter is not too long. At least for the VH, the maximum filter diameter is 40.5 mm. However, because the FA is a bit larger than the VH, it may not be as small for the FA. You can go to the Horseman USA web site (sorry I'm not at home now and don't have the web site address here, but you can either search it in Yahoo or email me and I'll look it up and send it to you). They have an email customer service address. It sometimes takes a few days to get a response, but my experience with their responsiveness has been very positive.
Oh, the limitation is on the diameter of the lens! I assumed it was length only that limited lens size.
From the spec. sheet, it looks like the FA and VH use the same rails and lens standard. My lens is 48mm diameter.
Perhaps a recessed lens board would withdraw the front of the lens so that it didn't extend into the hole in the rails? If the back of the lens is against the the ground glass, I could extend the camera back to make more room.
Do you find it useful to be able to store a lens in your field camera?
I wouldn't even begin to think about a recessed lensboard just so you can store the lens inside the camera. The recessed boards (none were made by Horseman) for the Horsemans are a total hassle because the lensboards are so small. I'm not convinced that the FA does have the same lens diameter constraints as the VH. I saw and FA and it looked a little bigger to me than the VH. I think storing a lens inside the camera would be nice for backpacking. I intend to get a 65 mm Horseman for just this purpose to replace my 58mm XL and 75 mm Grandagon when I go backpacking. If I were you, I would consider getting one lens you can store in the body for backpacking/long hikes. Other than that, I'd get the optics you really want.