Kalart rangefinder adjustment to 4ft

[liubrian]

I recently bought a Pacemaker Speed Graphic with a dead side-mounted Kalart rangefinder. Not knowing how to fix it, I used it with just the ground glass for a while before eventually giving in and finding a repairman to fix the rangefinder.

I just got the camera back today and the rangefinder appears to be in fine working condition. However, it doesn't focus very close - the rangefinder seems to stop working at about 8ft. I tested a shot with a Polaroid and that's really not close enough for me, since I want to be using the rangefinder for portraiture.

I dug around and found this thread: http://www.largeformatphotography.in...p/t-92355.html

It seems that the problem is the infinity setting of the front standard. I took a look at my camera and noted that the repairman had set infinity on the RF to match infinity on the ground glass, as well as to match the infinity marking on the scale. However, this setting has the front rail already shifted forward a little. The attached pictures show the camera as calibrated for infinity, and the camera with the front rail shifted all the way in. It seems that I should adjust the infinity stops so that the front standard is positioned for infinity (at the pencil marks in the latter picture) when the rail is all the way in; that way, I would be able to adjust the RF for infinity again and get closer focus (perhaps 4ft as promised by the Kalart specifications).

However, I then found out that every time I open the camera after closing it, the front rail is already slightly extended - such that the focus scale as currently adjusted is correct. Is this normal? Do people have to rack the front rail back in after each time they open the camera?

I would be really grateful for any thoughts.

[Kevin Crisp]

First caution -- if you adjust it yourself using the manual on the Graflex.org website, be very careful with the little screw which marked as being backwards. Despite the obvious warning, it is so easy to break that.

Now onto your question....

The way I've done it (based on conversations with actual aged press users of the camera) is to set up infinity so that you can unfold the camera, pull out the front standard to the stops, and be in focus at infinity. If you do it this way the 'spur of the moment' efficiency is obvious. And you will have plenty of room for have it work down to 4', which it will do, and do accurately. If you're local to So. Cal. I'd be happy to walk you through the adjustments. If you have a good split image (beamsplitter mirror is still good) it is just a matter of patiently working your way through the instructions and not skipping the parallax instructions. Often two times through the procedure are needed.

[EdSawyer]

I have adjusted it to get down to 4ft on mine before. Sometimes a little shorter than that even. 2 times through the procedure is optimistic I think - I find it usually takes several adjustments to get it perfect, at least it did for me when adjusting aero ektars and xenotars to be sharp wide open at min. focus distance.

Once in a while, depending on focal length, you might need to compromise infinity a bit. I usually find if need be, I will adjust things so that the 4ft to 50ft focus is perfect, and infinity might be slightly off. But since when shooting at or near infinity you are usually stopped down a bit, this covers any focus errors and in my case I rarely shot these cameras near infinity anyway. So, having the portrait distance RF adjustment right on was great and giving up perfect infinity setting was a non-issue to me.

-Ed

[blueribbontea]

Not all my Crown and Speed Graphics were set up to focus at infinity with the rack all the way back. In fact most required racking out about an 1/8th of an inch or more. And this did not seem to interfere with close rangefinder focusing. You paid someone to fix this and close focusing with the rangefinder should have been part of the deal.

[liubrian]

Thanks for the replies everyone.

Kevin: Currently, I get infinity by unfolding the camera and pulling the standard out to the stops. The thing is that the rails are already racked out a bit after unfolding, even if I stow them completely before folding. Thanks for the offer by the way, but after buying this camera in California I dragged it home to Hong Kong - so I'm now quite a distance away!

Ed: How would I go about sacrificing alignment at infinity?

Bill: I could go back and complain, yes. But it seems that there's no way to have rangefinder focusing to 4ft without some kind of tradeoff - at the moment, the problem is that the cam is too far forward to contact the rangefinder arm, and I figure the only thing a repairman could do is change the infinity stops (and then the infinity rf alignment) as I've been considering.

[EdSawyer]

Do you have the Kalart manual? I would start there by going through, and following all directions. Start by readjusting the infinity stops. Then go through and do the 25ft, 8ft, 4ft adjustments. It looks like you have a 135mm lens, it should be possible to get that down to 4ft no problem. I have a crown graphic with 135 xenotar that is sharply focused via RF down to minimum focus distance, so it is definitely doable.

Getting the right settings on the Kalart that work for all distances is the trick. There are at least 4 or 5 variables involved which makes the order of things important. Start with infinity at infinity, and if need be, bring it in slightly if needed to get 4ft and other distances to work. Once through all that, infinity may no longer line up exactly at wide open, but usually by f/5.6 or 8 infinity is in focus at the new compromised distance.

-Ed