Shen Hao

Can someone tell me what is the minimum and maximum lens that I can use on 4x5 Shen Hao. The minimum will be with the soft bellow and recessed lens borad. Mainly for landscape photography.

http://www.shen-hao.com/

72mm to 300mm.

The 72mm can be used without bag bellows and recessed lens board if you're not looking for movements. The 300 is usable only to about 6 feet closest focus distance.

Michael:

Do you have experience using a 300mm on a Shen Hao? I'm new to LF and am shopping around for a new camera myself, and I tried out a friend's Shen Hao the other day with a Fujinon 240mm. Closest focus I got with the bellows racked all the way out was about 10 feet. (Was I doing something wrong?)

JM,

Did you extend the front standard all the way? Remember you can swing the front standard way out past vertical to get that extra bellows extension. Take a look at http://www.badgergraphic.com/search_product2.asp?x=2594 which shows a photo of the front extended to get 360mm bellows extension.

But the answer to your question is, yes, I've done this quite often with a Fujinon 300 C, but would be worried with a heavier lens. I've even used a Fujinon 450 C with it that I have mounted on the end of tin can fixed to a lens board -- it isn't pretty, but it works.

I recently acquired a 300mm F8 FUJINON T, which is a telephoto design that allows my Shen Hao to focus to five or six feet, easily close enough for portrait work and certain kinds of still lifes, or close nature shots. The problem with such a lens is that using movements (front tilts and swings particularly) means extra fiddling because the optical center of the lens is forward of where it would be on a non-telephoto design. The lens does allow movement, however--it looks like it would cover 5x7. I haven't used it very much yet (the weather up here has been consistently bad all spring--the sun is shining today and I may go out with my Shen Hao later), but the few shots I've taken have been very sharp. There are also telephoto designs available from Nikon and Schneider, and they often turn up on the used market..

It is possible to get greater extension from the Shen Hao bellows by tilting the front standard forward and leveling the lens board wiithin it (the same holds for the rear standard, but in the opposite direction, of course). The problem is that the lensboard does not lock down very tightly when one does this and with a heavy lens like a 300mm, stability looked like it would be a problem. Extending the rear standard in this manner works fine. With the telephoto design I could get an adequate focusing range without resorting to this solution.