Search:

I have a 16 1/2 Red Dot Artar front mounted on a Heavy Duty Alphax shutter (the shutter was originally part of an oscilloscope camera). The light weight of the lens is a plus in a front mount.

I...

Try a mill supply or machine shop supply house(engineering works supply in Australia?) and look for "lapping compound". It usually comes in a number of grits as a paste in oil.

Have a look at the most recent edition of Newsweek in the "Special Report" section. In a large photograph showing an army of press photographers equipped with SLR's (presumably digital) covering the...

Expanding on Ralph's suggestion of a thin rubber gasket, an O-ring between the lensboard and the rear of the shutter has worked for me. These are available in a variety of thicknesses in most...

Have the seller put a negative in the carrier and use the enlarger to focus an image on the baseboard. This is what the enlarger is intended to do and if an sharp image can be produced, then a basic...

There was a brief discussion of this on the www.classic-enlargers.com website recently.

The advice of the resident expert was that heads from a D2 or D3 interchanged easily but those mae for a D5...

I'd like to use Unicolor drums to process 8x10 HP5+ in order to avoid the scratches that occur all to frequently with my tray processing. I already have several drums.

I'm in a farmhouse here with...

Although they don't seem to have any of the lenses you need at the moment, Surplus Shed

http://www.surplusshed.com/

often has copy lenses, Wollensak optics and large filters. The stock changes...

It really isn't necessary to have that circular ridge at the rear of a Tachihara lens board. A flat panel will seal light tight provided it comes reasonably close to the edges of the recess in the...

Hello Everyone.

I've just bought a second hand 4x5 Cambo NC (sucessor to the SC). I have a quest ion about the back; I'm presuming that I have the one which commonly comes with this camera.
...

I'm using a 600mm APO-Ronar as a long lens on a 4x5 Speed Graphic. The lens certainly is sharp and the price on these can be quite attractive.

The lens, like all Ronars I'm learning, is quite...

In the spirit of late night eBay and Michael's suggestion about a process lens, perhaps you might consider a process lens by a different maker.

"NuArc" lenses often sell on eBay for under $20...

With regard to Dave's comments regarding use of a 300 mm lens on the Tachihara, this may not really be much of a problem.

I've been using a 12" Artar on my Tachihara quite a bit lately for ...

Clearly the best thing to do here is have the shutters CLA'd by an expert.

It is worth mentioning though, that in a pinch, the Graphex shutters seem to respond better than most to cleaning by...

You can make a pretty decent groundglass by abrading a piece of clear window glass with machinist's silicon carbide lapping compound.

The difference between this method and samblasting is that...

Continuing Dan's discussion on front mounting lenses -

It isn't too difficult to fabricate a front mounting for a barrel lens. The adaptor which you make looks rather like a big filterholder (or...

An old timer would keep his fedora over the lens when the dark slide was withdrawn from the film holder. I'm old enough to have seem a old timer actually doing this taking available light...

If you leave the bed horizontal, it will show with any 90mm lens.

This is not really a problem though, just drop the bed. The bed depresses a sufficient amount to clear the lens viewing circle.

One "trick" to loading these reels was shown to me by a Paul Baron, a friend of mine in high school. It really works.

As you load the film onto the reel, gently push the film toward the reel and...

I have one of these myself. I fitted it to my Calumet C400 using a ca. 7" extension tube and am able to get a reasonable amount of rise and slide with this mounting. The lens certainly is sharp and...

Would a lens intended for a Xerox machine have an diaphragm?

I recently bought a 240mm f9 APO-Gerogon. It was quite a bargain at $23, apparen tly new and unused - it was still in original packaging.

I've fitted it into an Elgeet No. 3X shutter. This is a...

I do some shooting with a baby Speed Graphic - nice light(er) camera for a backp ack.

So far as I can determine, no one offers negative sleeves in this size. I prefer to use transparent sleeves...

One potential cause for "in focus on groundglass/out of focus on film" images can be the incorrect installation of a fresnal focussing screen in the camera back.

The backs intended for use with...

I can't comment on the Zone VI unit for lack of knowledge but I am familiar with the Aristo unit. The Aristo cylindrical tube housing (a can shaped part) is intended to go into the cylindrical...

A prominent feature of the Imagon lenses are the perforated discs that mount in the lens to achieve a controlled degree of soft focus.

Can one approximate the behavior of the Imagon with homemade...

In discussions of this type where the merits Pacemaker Graphics (both Crowns and Speeds)as field cameras are considered, the comment is frequently offered that the Graphics lack sufficient...

Wayne is correct that the Ronar is a heavy lens.

I've just completed a 5 1/2" extension tube for a 480 mm Ronar; the tube has its own lensboard to mate with the front standard of the camera and...

One possible way to use a long focus lens such as a 480 Ronar with this bellows might be to mount the lens in a short extension tube to gain the additional distance between the film plane and the...

I'd like to build a cold light head for my Omega D2.

I understand that the light source in the Omega "Omegalite" is an ordinary house hold circular fluorescent light tube. I presume that there is...

A thread here recently considered Schneider enlarging lenses as camera lenses. The consensus is that Componons make quite good camera lenses.

Are there other enlarging lenses which are suitable as...

I was aware that the Scheider Symmar lenses can be used at two focal lengths and read in a different thread here that a Rodenstock Sironar and also be converted by removing the rear element group.
...

I've made several lensboards for my Calumet CC-400 camera from 1/8" aluminum tooling plate.

This isn't a difficult material to work - a hacksaw and files or carbide woodworking tools are...

Sorry to hear about your bad luck on eBay, mine has been pretty good. I have also received lenses with non-functioning shutters but I just returned them to the seller for a refund. You might to...

I've been using 1/8" aluminum tooling plate for lensboards, most recently for a Calumet 4x5. Aluminum can be cut/machined easily using CARBIDE-TIPPED wodworking tools.