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

[Oren Grad]

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!).

For sure, an offset board is the simplest way to buy yourself a bit more front rise. Just make sure that your rear cells aren't bumping into anything internally - I imagine a Toyo field should leave you a decent amount of maneuvering room - and that alone should take you a long way. Good luck!

[JW Dewdney]

For sure, an offset board is the simplest way to buy yourself a bit more front rise. Just make sure that your rear cells aren't bumping into anything internally - I imagine a Toyo field should leave you a decent amount of maneuvering room - and that alone should take you a long way. Good luck!

of COURSE... the hole would be positioned so that the rear cell is only pressing against the bellows with moderate pressure at 2cm of rise... that way by default I'll have a useable range of at least 1.5cm up to 3.5 at worst probably. I can always drop the front standard (negative rise) if I want something 'straight on' but I doubt I would ever need a wide angle for that purpose... or i'll just change boards...

[Struan Gray]

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 is why I found myself sticking with my Norma, even for landscapes in the field. With my most-used lenses there was very little the Toyo field couldn't do, but the monorail was so much more transparent, and quicker. The penalty is bulk, and a slightly longer setup and strip down for infinity shots with no movements.

[Doremus Scudder]

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..

Sounds to me like the Toyo is just not the tool you need for the job unless you can find a workaround. There must be a way to modify the front standard to get more rise, but that might affect folding...

I don't really see how an offset board will get you great amounts of additional rise. On cameras designed to take an offset board, the offset is usually lower than center in "zero" position. Mounting the board upside down then gets you double the offset as extra rise. For a camera designed to have the lens centered in the board, you will only get the offset distance as extra rise. How much can you practically achieve by using an offset board? Is that enough for your purposes?

FWIW, I use a viewing frame or Zone VI viewing filter to compose my shots before I even unpack the camera so I don't have to spend a lot of time moving things around and looking at the ground-glass image "test compositions" to decide if I like a composition.

Maybe you can sell the Toyo and find another folder that has significantly more rise yet is still more portable and lighter than a monorail.

Any suggestions out there?

Best,

Doremus

[JW Dewdney]

Hi Doremus - thanks for the support:

I'm probably just being lazy but seems like the Toyo is close enough for what I want to do that it might be worth a try... I'm just tired of dragging around the big (heavy as hell) sinars and having to drive - it would be nice to get out on a bike for this kind of subject matter... but I'm just trying to have my cake and eat it too. I was hoping there might be some people piping up with some more radical solutions but I'm probably alone in this battle... - as for your points:

1. As far as drilling out of the standard to get more rise - it would probably work for me - it WOULD affect folding but that's why you'd have to replace the screws in the 'standard' position before folding... those are my thoughts on that so far...

2. it really looks like i could get 1.5 to 2 cm additional rise (which is all I probably need) with the eccentrically drilled lensboard... though it precludes the use of anything significantly shorter than a 90 it would seem...

3. I like to do things on the ground glass... it's just the way I work... there's enough to do beforehand figuring out what your composition's going to be 'off camera' first anyway... but I think there are little subtleties that crop up from time to time that can really only be resolved by actually looking at the different possibilities on the GG... thirty years of large format has taught me to defer in all cases to the ground glass...!

but no matter - even if it ends up being too much of a compromise for architecture it will be great for other applications where you'd never or rarely use movements (landscape stuff etc)...

[JW Dewdney]

ps - the fuji 6x17 is working out nicely for this application too... something i've been playing with lately... you get one heck of a rise out of it by using it vertically and leveling it out. Though I'm not so in love with the crazy aspect ratio yet...

[Doremus Scudder]

JW,

I checked around a bit, and there is a Technika-to-Toyo field adapter board available (i.e., Technika 96x98mm to Toyo 110x110mm). It may displace the lens forward a few mm.

At any rate, if you had one of those, you could mount the lenses you use most in offset Technika boards and possibly use them with the offeset on the top. You'd have to check this out, though, and make sure that you could either mount the Technika boards upside-down in the adapter or mount the adapter upside-down on your Toyo.

Or, you can cobble up a couple of offset boards and see how they work. FWIW, reversing the board solves my limited rise problems about 80% of the time. For the remaining 20%, I use the "point-and-tilt" technique (which is maybe 5-8% of my architecturals with the field camera). Maybe such a low incidence of having to use that technique will persuade you to try it out a time or two and see if it works for you. It's really not all that complicated and, if you only use it for one shot in ten, may be an acceptable trade-off for the savings in weight (it sure is for me!).

And, even if you compose on the ground glass, you usually only need to "point-and-tilt" once to get the camera roughly pointing in the right direction. If you point-and-tilt with the rise in zero position, you then have even more rise to compose with. Or, you can do like I do; since I usually have the rise maxed out before I point-and-tilt, I deliberately overshoot my intended composition and then use the fall. Whatever works for you.

Best,

Doremus

[JW Dewdney]

Thanks so much for your generous input Doremus -

I DID actually look at the Technika adapter - however the junction between the upper-edge of the board where it mates with the 'master' board is pretty much where I would want to put the hole. It just seems to create an obstruction. So I decided that it wasn't a good option for me (unless I find some weird way around this - I would have to really mess with the master board too - at which point it makes more sense to go back to the 'regular' board - more clearance).

Reversing doesn't make much sense because the Toyo is pretty much a centered lens axis situation on the board. So even though the boards do not seem to be reversible (due to the machining pattern mating surfaces of the boards) - reversing one would give you no benefit. And making an offset board (even if reversible) wouldn't be an advantage because it's only once in a ten year period I would probably ever need a lens 'drop'... that being said - I will probably go ahead and muck around with some offset boards (the only BIG pain with this is that they ALL seem to come pre-drilled so I would need to either fill in the existing hole with fiberglas or else have some kind of light-block (a metal disk?) fabricated...

ergonomically - what I don't like about the 'hunt and peck' solution to composition is that I might miss a fantastic opportunity that I may not have seen using the 'shift/rise' method - I guess it's a luxury in some peoples' eyes... but a pretty strong part of my process since I standardized on sinars back in 97 or so. I knew those cameras would spoil me! I will see what happens with the boards in 'plan b' and report back... thanks again

[Oren Grad]

...the only BIG pain with this is that they ALL seem to come pre-drilled so I would need to either fill in the existing hole with fiberglas or else have some kind of light-block (a metal disk?) fabricated...

Bromwell Marketing offers a blank Toyo Field board, item number 1459:

http://www.bromwellmarketing.com/boards.htm

[luis a de santos]

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!"


I am with Miller 100%

Best