Quote Originally Posted by dave_whatever View Post
Bit of clarity on this alleged "lack of zero detents" on the 045F1:

Front tilt - no 'detent' but has a lock which can only be engaged at the zero position. I.e. best of both worlds, you can put only a tiny amount of tilt on without fighting a detend, but if you're not using tilt you can lock it at zero.
Front rise/fall - zero mark on that front standard (calibrated for centre-drilled boards, add your own dot 5mm lower for normal offset boards)
Front shift - zero marks, lock if shared with front swing
Front Swing - markings only.
Rear base tilt - has a lock/bar which stops it at 90deg if you remove it it is free.
Real asymmetric tilt - has a zero detent, can only be moved if the lock/bar is disengaged.
Rear swing - no detent but if you keep the sliding rear tilt knobs/axles either fully back or fully forward in their tracks (depending on how long a lens you're using) you effectively get a reliable zero point.

Basically the only one which does not have a zero detent OR any kind of practical mechanical zeroing ability which can impact on shooting is the front swing. You're setting it by eye only, but even with extreme care using the dots on the standard is not that prescise with superwide lenses this could lead to a lack of parallelism, especially if you're trying to use front shift without moving your swing, which is virtually impossible. I drew a sharp pencil line on my front track where the hole I normally use for wides is. This is really the only thing that bothers me about the Chamonix, but is part and parcel of the flexible and lightweight design, and is shared by other Chamonix models, the Shen-Hao knockoffs, and the Phillips. For most uses with lenses say 90mm or longer zeroing by eye is fine, but I have some shots on 6x12 with a 65mm lens that I think have some unintended swing and sharpness across the frame suffers. It would not be my camera of choice for regularly shooting things like the 47mm XL.

I once saw a chamonix on the german eBay site where the seller had made a wooden block that screwed into the front track holes with a wingnut, and the top of this block contained a groove to hold the front standard exactly parallel, which you then screwed the front standard into, effectively locking the front standard swing out. The block caused about 20mm of rise, which presumably you just re-zero your rise 20mm lower. I wish I'd saved the photo of it. This seemed like a good solution but I have not got round to making one myself yet
Dave,

Thank you for your detailed response! Your website was the first place I came across when researching the Chamonix. Thanks for all of this info!

I do plan on working my way down to wider lenses eventually. What would you say the widest lens you would use with the F1 would be?