Options For Field Camera Focusing Hardware?

[Jim C.]

Tim, check this out on Stock Drives site -
http://www.sdp-si.com/D805/D805_PDFS...l/8050T007.pdf

too much math for me, I use gauges to check the gear pitches, they're not cheap new
you can find some inexpensively on the Bay used or new.

[Jim C.]

Happy to share resources.

There is also WMBerg - http://www.wmberg.com/

[el french]

This thread details how to make Acme nuts out of Acetal. The method works for making half nuts as well. The best part is the nuts have zero backlash.

[Peter Gomena]

The more I think about it, the more sense this design makes!

Where is the tripod mount, btw?

The image shown is the camera with the rear extension removed. This originally was a studio camera, so I cut a piece of 3/4" x 5" maple and drilled some appropriately placed holes in it to anchor it to my low-profile Gitzo head. The maple has one hole with a 1/4-20 insert in it for the tripod nut, and two other holes for other 1/4-20 thumbscrews that attach to two tripod mounts on the original center piece. The thumbscrew I use on the front of the two tripod mounts actually fits through a hole in the front of the Gitzo head, through the board, and into the mount on the camera bottom. It's a bit fussy to set up, but it all locks down well.

[Peter Gomena]

Hmm, looking at my picture again, I'm in error in my description. There is a mount under the front extension and the brass strap in the middle has a threaded hole in it. The front standard is fixed. I put a thumbscrew through the front hole in the Gitzo, through a hole in the maple board, and into the front tripod mount. A second thumbscrew goes through the maple board and into the threaded hole in the brass strap. The Gitzo nut attaches to a threaded insert in the bottom of the maple board. So, there are two attachment points for the camera and the maple board. Not light, but effective.

[normanv]

I used toothed timing belts and pulleys for a 5x7 camera that I built. I salvaged the parts from an old photocopier but they are available new at very low prices.

[brandon allen]

That's another option I've contemplated. For the shafts did you also use reclaimed copier parts or make new ones?

[brandon allen]

BTW, I started a Flickr group intended to showcase pics of the actual camera building process as well as the finished product. Feel free to add images if you have them. I hope it will become a useful and interesting resource for people are building a camera or thinking about a build. Kind of an opportunity to show how you made it all work. https://www.flickr.com/groups/2671577@N23/

[Tin Can]

BTW, I started a Flickr group intended to showcase pics of the actual camera building process as well as the finished product. Feel free to add images if you have them. I hope it will become a useful and interesting resource for people are building a camera or thinking about a build. Kind of an opportunity to show how you made it all work. https://www.flickr.com/groups/2671577@N23/

Very cool design for the lens board shift.

I like you idea of sharing info, but I am so often very disappointed to find dead links to such off LFPF hosts. look back in time on this forum and we have many dead links.

We all mean well, but we sometimes decide to not carry the torch, meaning we close our sites. I have done it.

I vastly prefer we all post any pictures directly to this forum using the 750 pixel limitation as those images will most likely survive us.

Flickr may be fickle. Fate is unending.

[brandon allen]

Thanks!

And you make a fair point. I had started the Flickr group a long while ago (before I started posting here) and just thought I'd mention it. It seems that the threads here are more about the finished product rather than the building process. I suppose there is no law against starting a "Show Us How You Built Your Camera" thread specifically for that purpose.