Closing Wista SP w/Bag Bellows Installed?

[neil poulsen]

After waiting months for a Wista SP (etc.) bag bellows to appear on EBay, one showed up as a Buy It Now. I purchased it, and giving this bellows a try, I find that I can't close the camera with this bellows installed on the camera? Curious.

To my question, am I missing something? Did I install it improperly? It appears to fit just fine. Certainly, the camera closes fine with the normal bellows installed. Yet, the camera won't close with the bag bellows.

If that's the case, it's no real problem I suppose. I'm glad to have it for use with a 90mm or a 75mm lens for the additional movement that the bellows enables. It's not that difficult to remove it prior to closing the camera.

But it's ood, so I thought that I would ask.

[Doremus Scudder]

Neil,

I have a Wista SW wooden field camera that takes the same wide-angle bellows. It is basically a Wista DX with provision for exchanging bellows. My camera closes just fine with the wide-angle bellows installed. In fact, I leave it on most of the time and carry the longer bellows separately since I can use lenses up to 210mm with the wide-angle bellows. I would think that Wista would have designed the SP to close with them as well.

So, the question arises: Where is the rub? I can only imagine that the bag part of the bellows obstructs something (the pleated part should collapse into the body just fine). Is there any way you can determine exactly where the interference is and maybe simply push the bellows out of the way when closing? A picture or two would be really helpful here.

And just maybe, the SP is different enough in design that the camera won't close with the wide-angle bellows. Hopefully other SP owners will chime in.

FWIW, I really love the wide-angle bellows with my SW; I can vignette my Nikkor 90mm easily without crimping the bellows at all.

Good luck with your problem,

Doremus

[neil poulsen]

Neil,

I have a Wista SW wooden field camera that takes the same wide-angle bellows. . . .

Doremus,

Thanks for your response. I think I'm more curious than anything, so thought that I would ask if others have the same experience with an SP or VX. I would want to make a correction, if I'm improperly mounting the bellows onto the camera.

Scrutinizing, I see where the regular bellows stacks very compactly into very little depth. However, the unruly nature of a bag bellows may interfere with the bag bellows stacking as compactly.

[meditant]

Hello,

I have a wista SP too and i don't find solution for closing the camera with wide below, if somebody have solution...

[neil poulsen]

Hello,

I have a wista SP too and i don't find solution for closing the camera with wide below, if somebody have solution...

Thanks for your input. Sounds more like an idiosyncrasy versus some sort of problem.