Oh good, you have a good plan. Just file the front of the slots until you can lock down the lens board closer to infinity. I'd stay with strong bolts and/or use some Loctite to set it once you have it adjusted right. I wouldn't really want wing nuts.
I would agree with Bill, keep the nyloc type of nuts that Dean used, although to be technically correct, they are a one use item as far as I know.
I wouldn't think of using wing nuts myself, I don't think you can get a strong enough lock down on the bolt thread.
I presume you haven't used your Razzle that much, one thing I can tell you is, with regard to racking the bellows right out. When I rack things right out for a closer type of shot, usually a portrait, I find with the 150 lens I get a slight vignetting, something the original shorter lens would not have done. The vignetting isn't that bad, but if one wishes to do a contact or full negative print, then it doesn't look the best. Closest good focus for no vignetting, is sort of about 3.5 metres. That measurement is a bit flexible though.
If you are back far enough to take a full length portrait in the vertical, just that is, you are close to vignetting, or at least mine is with my 150 Fujinon. I pretty much work on a vertical portrait in the frame distance, then keep myself around that distance, whether I do a portrait or landscape format. With a Grafmatic back, this set-up is pretty good for 4x5 portraiture or as a walk around 4x5 camera, allowing 6 sheets of film before re-loading is required.
Mick.
Last edited by Mick Fagan; 2-Apr-2015 at 23:06. Reason: Past tense added
Hi gentlemen,
Well, feeling pretty pleased with myself. Happened to have a round file of exactly the right diameter and filed a small amount out of the ends of those channels. Seems I took the exact right amount out as the focus on my chosen pole is now spot on. Shot & processed a sheet an it looks good. I measured that distance on Google Earth and it is 91m. I could file out a touch more to drop it back even further but I'll see how it goes for a while.
Following this I once again tried to calibrate the rangefinder but couldn't. Seems there's something fundamentally awry with my rangefinder. At some stage though it was fine, as one of my favourite portraits is of my daughter, shot on the Razzle a few years ago. It's confusing, I can't think what might have changed.
Anyway, thanks for your input Bill & Mick, with the new GG I think it will be a nice little landscape camera.
Jon
Jon, have you adjusted the cam mechanism?
I had to do a bit of thinking with this, but on my Razzle there is a small black rubber plug on the right of the rear of the camera head, the viewfinder is in the left rear of the camera head. The centre of the rubber plug is 20mm from the right side.
Behind this plug is an adjusting screw. Now I haven’t needed to do this to my camera, but Dean explained this to me when I picked up my camera. I cannot at this stage, unless I start pulling things off my camera, tell you exactly what is behind that rubber plug.
But from memory, you need to use the GG to focus correctly on something, say, around 5 metres away, then adjust the screw until the yellow focusing images fuse. That is, adjust the cam screw if the yellow images aren’t fused, until they are fused.
Then check infinity, my betting is that your focus will be correct when the yellow images fuse.
The rangefinder cam on various rangefinders can move if the camera is bumped, or as happened to me with my Canon in the sixties, when I dropped it from my pushbike rack, where it was balanced as I removed stuff from a bag.
Mick.
Oh, I just re-read your last post, seems you have been adjusting your viewfinder mechanism.
Sigh.
Mick.
Hi Mick,
Yeah, it's easy enough to remove the top and get access to both horizontal & vertical rangefinder adjustment screws. Only the horizontal one is reachable through the rubber cap. These control the angle of the right hand mirror and therefore one of the images in the yellow patch. I think the issue with mine is that either;
a) the cam has been ground incorrectly - unlikely since I had no issues with it when I first got it.
b) the position of the cam has changed.
There is a line running vertically on the cam which I took to be the infinity mark, since it was near there when my camera was (supposed to be) at infinity. There's also a small hex driven grub screw which may have the job of holding the cam in the correct position. I might have another look at it tomorrow. I briefly toyed with the idea of removing the whole rangefinder assembly, to reduce size & weight and turn it into a real frankencamera
Will post some phone pics of the RF set-up tomorrow.
Jon
OK,
I've just had the top off the camera again and confirmed that the rangefinder is unable to be calibrated. if I adjust it for infinity it is increasingly out at closer distances and vice versa.
Some pics of the set up. The hex-head grub screw appears damaged and I can't loosen it. Perhaps its my hex key, hard to tell at such small sizes and difficult angular access.
Left upper: Horizontal adjustment screw. Right lower: Vertical adjustment screw.
The hex-head grub screw from the rear.
The cam (with infinity line on top?)
Top view of the cam
I think I'll stick with my idea of only using it via the GG and giving up on the rangefinder.
Jon
Hmmm, interesting.
Having never pulled mine apart, and I'm not in a hurry to do so, I just wonder, if, as you say, your cam has moved slightly? If the Allen Keyed bolt is unable to be moved by your Allen keys, perhaps it was either too tight, or if Dean had replaced it, maybe it was metric. Dean was English and he grew up with their imperial system, but converted to metric as this was a requirement for machining, which I'm thinking was what he was doing before he became semi retired and started fiddling around converting old Polaroids. Australia went metric in about 1974, when the USA did, but we sort of did it, where as I understand it, the USA didn't, although they have decimal inches, which is something I have yet to see in the flesh.
I would be attacking that bolt with a small Pederson locking Vice Grips tool, that should do the trick. Then it should be a simple thing to replace that bolt, then again it may not be that simple. Polaroid was an American company, if the camera was manufactured in the USA, it would be non metric, I would assume, but if manufactured almost anywhere else, it could be metric.
Mick.
My thought is that you may need a custom cam.
It might not be too hard to calculate the required dimensions because you could work out the radius required to make the rangefinder coincide at any specific focus.
For example, focus using ground glass on 15 feet. Note the degrees of rotation at that point where the follower touches the cam, because you "know" that is where the mechanism needs to be when the subject distance is 15 feet. Then rotate the focus until the rangefinder coincides. Now note the radius of the cam where it meets the follower. That's what you have to grind the previous mark down to. Repeat the measurements for many different focus distances. At this point you should have dots outlining a new spiral for your custom cam specifications. Take to someone to grind, or file yourself until you meet the dots and have the cam you need for that lens.
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