Nikkor T-ED 800/1200mm specs

[jesse1996]

A five inch "top hat" is pretty substantial -- and makes the weight/lens alignment problem of the front standard much worse. I use a 2" "top hat" for my 600mm -- which is not very heavy -- but it takes some serious maneuvering to adjust things correctly.

If thats the case I might need to enlist Mr. gibellini on camera modifications or look into selling/trading my Gibellini camera for a Canham 8x10 which i saw has over 800mm of bellows extension right from the box. Not looking forward to the logistics of that however.

[jesse1996]

If it takes Sinar boards, that's a huge plus for you. You can find or make top hat boards for Sinar quite easily as they are plentiful. Telephoto 8x10 is fun but challenging but fruitful. Helps to have an assistant. Look up Reinhart Wolf, and his large coffee table books. They will juice you up on the idea. My fave is "NEW YORK" but also appreciate "VILLAS OF THE VENETO" and "CASTLES IN SPAIN". Inspirational stuff. Wolf was a perfectionist. He was also a Master of Photography and award winning Art Director at "STERN" a German version of LIFE Magazine.

In fact it does! however the deeper into this rabbit hole I go the more I'm seeing that the gibellini in its current form cant handle these lenses without serious modification. The front Standard does have a locking mechanism to prevent the lens board from tilting, however with a 250mm tophat/extended lensboard theres no practical way to support it or the torque that will inevitably happen. So it appears I either need a new camera or somehow Gibellini can add a second extension rail/custom bellows.

[Mark Sampson]

Some people use a Manfrotto support arm that runs from the front tripod leg to the end of the camera base or rail. Having occasionally used a Nikkor-T 500/11 on my 4x5, something like that sounds like a good idea.
Reinhart Wolf famously used multiple tripods and many Sinar parts to assemble his telephoto camera, not an option in your case, alas

[Corran]

An alternative option if you aren't planning on shooting extra long lenses regularly is to shoot ~400mm or 600mm lenses with a 4x5 reduction back and live with smaller negatives. Which may be sharper in practice for a variety of reasons, not least of which is having significantly less bellows draw. I know it's not nearly as cool as shooting a 1200mm lens though .

[Daniel Unkefer]

https://www.google.com/search?q=rein...client=gws-wiz

[Tin Can]

I use a tele 360mm with 4" top hat for 2X3 portraits sheet film with Technika on a Stick

[Daniel Unkefer]

Makiflex Retro 320 - 2 by Nokton48, on Flickr

9x12cm Foma Retro 320 cut film, exposed at EI 125. Plaubel Makiflex Standard camera body, Kern-Arau 360mm F11 Repro Process lens, exposure 1/15 sec at F22, Developed in straight Microdol-X developer, 30 minutes development at 18C, in a JOBO Multitank 5. Scanned on Epson 4490 scanner.

[jesse1996]

Some people use a Manfrotto support arm that runs from the front tripod leg to the end of the camera base or rail. Having occasionally used a Nikkor-T 500/11 on my 4x5, something like that sounds like a good idea.
Reinhart Wolf famously used multiple tripods and many Sinar parts to assemble his telephoto camera, not an option in your case, alas

I forgot those were a thing! sounds like a great alternative rather than a separate monopod or second tripod even. I'll give this a look.