Anyone ever try to 'trick out' a Toyo Field lens board for architectural subjects?

[Oren Grad]

Sounds as though you want something like the late, maybe lamented Toho Eccentric Lens Panel.

[JW Dewdney]

yes well i bought it so i didnt' have to lug a monorail around - i'd rather use that then mess with some silly tilting business... I'll probably try to fab up a few versions of 'offset' lensboards I guess. I may try to recut and thread a new hole for the front standard screw about 1.5 cm lower too... just to get more rise out of the thing (with a recessed board in that case). With the offset hole I'd probably go with a flat board (just to get better offset) at least with the 90 and 120...

but if worse comes to worst I'll prolly just use the field for non-architectural material...

[JW Dewdney]

Sounds as though you want something like the late, maybe lamented Toho Eccentric Lens Panel.

did you maybe mean 'laminated' rather than 'lamented' ?
hmmm... i will google it...

[Doremus Scudder]

in case the lack of interest in tilting front and back seems overly 'dainty' to you - let me explain: let's say you're setting up a shot that would normally take 15 mins let's say. And now we need to use our 'tilt' method to shift. There's no seamless way of having a look at what the various positions actually look like. For each 4 or 5 mm of shift, you have to change the entire camera angle accordingly, reset the front standard parallel, and then refocus again.. so let's say you're going to do this 5 or 6 times (worst case maybe?) .... no... not a lot of fun. That's what I meant by it 'getting old'. It would probably add about an hour to each shot (again - probably worst case scenario) but if you've done this kind of work before I think you'd see what I mean...

JW,

I use both techniques, just not on a Toyo... I have a Woodman (bare bones wooden folder with limited movements) that I use a lot for architecture work here in Vienna. It takes Technika boards, most of which come with an offset hole (just thinking... is there an adapter lensboard from Technika to Toyo? That would solve your problem).

Anyway, I have modified the front standard of my Woodman to allow the Technika boards to be mounted upside-down, giving me an extra bit of front rise. This works well in many situations, but is not always enough.

In cases where I need more rise, I use the "point-and-tilt" technique. It's fairly easy and does not take too much extra time. Here's my method:

First, I assume you have some idea of where you want the borders of your image to be, at least roughly, and I assume you have the lens in its highest position (since you tried that first but it wasn't enough rise).

So, while watching the ground glass, tilt your camera up, using your tripod's pan/tilt head, till the image on the ground glass includes slightly more (say 20%) of the top of the image (i.e., bottom of the ground glass) than you want. Lock down the tripod. Tilt the back roughly level using the bubble level. Now, position the front standard roughly parallel to the back using your eyesight. You can get it fairly close this way and you'll refine it later. All this takes much less time than my description has so far.

Now, get under the dark cloth and refine your image. Rough focus, refine back tilt to make sure all is aligned with the grid on your ground glass (this isn't really extra time, since I would do it anyway). Since you pointed a bit too high, you can now use lens fall to reposition the image. If you left enough room when pointing, there will be plenty of room to do this and plenty of room for composing (you don't have to "point-and-tilt" more than once).

All that is left is to refine focus using the lens tilt to make sure the lens standard is positioned as you wish (as you would do anyway, so this isn't extra time either). My woodman has base tilts, making it a reiterative process, but with axis tilts it should be a snap.

There you are: one extra procedure and maybe five minutes spent (I'm much faster than that). Since it's architecture, the building is not likely to move in that time

I find this procedure a really good tool, for shift as well as rise, and use it often with cameras that don't have huge movements. I don't mind the extra time spent in trade-off for portability. I bicycle around the city with my camera strapped to my back. The lightweight Woodman is a godsend. I can't imagine doing this with a monorail.

Best,

Doremus

[Struan Gray]

Indirect rise on the Toyo fields isn't so bad if you practice it a bit. It helps if you make it the first movement you apply, and if you avoid maxing out the real rise first, so you have enough movement on the standard for fine tuning.

If you find keeping the standards parallel a chore, extra levels can help, or a ruler to compare the distance between standards top and bottom.


Or just take the big camera, and be glad you have one.

[Joseph Dickerson]

EAT THE HAND!! EAT THE HAND!!

That little "tilt trick" results in some totally awsome rise! I use it with a three-way pan head, and it's very fast to do it. To make it really fast, put a bubble level on the front and rear standards. Zap! Humongous rise! Put some tiny marks on the body, or use a cardboard or plastic angle, or just a length of string from A to B, and you've totally got it. No problems!

"Dear Abbey: I wanna be an architectural photographer, but I duwanna adjust the camera. What should I do? -- Toyo Man."
"Dear Toyo: MOVE IT BEFORE I COME OVER THERE AND PUT A FOOT UP YO' ASS! You callin' yoself a man and you isn't man enough to move that camera? I'll come over there and beat yo' noggin' wit' my broom, you go spoutin off with that in front of my face! Donchoo you realize that the rear element of any sufficiently wide angle lens is gonna be hittin' the bellows if you use an offset lens board on that camera? Shame on you! You git out there an' put some elbow grease into that photography, and don't you come whinnin' to me about it gettin' old!"

Brian,

Nicely put...I wasn't gonna to say anything but really! It ain't that hard.

JD

[Richard Wasserman]

Add me to the indirect rise camp. I use it often with a Horseman 45FA which I believe has even less built-in rise than a Toyo. It really is a simple procedure and doesn't add much time to the process. I see it as a very small trade-off for carrying a small lightweight camera—it's no big deal.

[Oren Grad]

did you maybe mean 'laminated' rather than 'lamented' ?
hmmm... i will google it...

To be clear, I doubt the Toho contraption, assuming you could even find one, could be easily fit to a Toyo field camera. But the concept seems to be very much to the point.

[JW Dewdney]

Add me to the indirect rise camp. I use it often with a Horseman 45FA which I believe has even less built-in rise than a Toyo. It really is a simple procedure and doesn't add much time to the process. I see it as a very small trade-off for carrying a small lightweight camera—it's no big deal.

Yes - it's FINE if you're just doing the odd shot. But if you're doing them every day for weeks I hope you can see why I would GREATLY prefer to use a monorail... which I WILL do if I can't work it out with the toyo. You probably underestimate the amount of 'test compositions' one needs to do to get a good result. To me it's a really irrational process mechanically speaking... but hey that's me....

I DO appreciate the responses and thought on the matter though... I guess I'll just have to work something out or else go back to my monorails for this work and use the toyo for 'straight' shots..

[JW Dewdney]

To be clear, I doubt the Toho contraption, assuming you could even find one, could be easily fit to a Toyo field camera. But the concept seems to be very much to the point.

Hi Oren - I had a look at it. For me I think it's trying to 'do too much' - I may go with just the offset board or the modification to the standard mentioned earlier (or both!). it seems awkwardly designed though in terms of the alternatives it provides (when if ever would you use it in side or 'down' positions? - at least for my use)...