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Thread: Level help please!!!

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  1. #1

    Join Date
    Feb 2009
    Posts
    13
    Hello,

    I have a toyo 45II field camera,

    I have a spirit level that I have bought from my local home depot.

    Where is the best place on the camera to level it from?

    On the top section, on the horse shoe mount, in front of the lens??

    Thanks

    Hello,

    I have a toyo 45II field camera,

    I have a spirit level that I have bought from my local home depot.

    Where is the best place on the camera to level it from?

    On the top section, on the horse shoe mount, in front of the lens??

    Thanks
    Last edited by Ralph Barker; 8-Apr-2009 at 08:00.

  2. #2

    Join Date
    Jul 2001
    Location
    Minden, Nevada
    Posts
    79

    Re: Level help please!!!

    You may want to start with the bed, either underneath or along the rails, where ever you can find a flat area to rest the level. It should be leveled side to side and front to back. You will also want to check the vertical on the rear standard and perhaps the front standard. The rear is more critical than the front, and it can be difficult, and not entirely necessary, to get the front exactly parallel with the rear. After some time, you will find out how your camera trues up and it will be easier for you to tell what you have to do.

  3. #3
    Octogenarian
    Join Date
    Sep 2003
    Location
    Frisco, Texas
    Posts
    3,532

    Re: Level help please!!!

    Level the back of the camera horizontally and vertically. The front standard has detents that help keep it parallel to the back.

    What is a "horse shoe" mount?

  4. #4

    Join Date
    Jan 2009
    Location
    Holland + Brazil
    Posts
    558

    Re: Level help please!!!

    With the Maste Techika I allways had the level in the hot-shoe mount.
    For the new Shen Hao I need to mount one, should have the parts in stock.

    Peter

  5. #5

    Join Date
    Apr 2002
    Location
    Victoria, B.C.
    Posts
    98

    Re: Level help please!!!

    I use a small mirror on an extendable rod (much like a car aerial), which I think I found quite cheap at a tool supply place. It collapses down to about 4 inches, so stows easily in the bag. Quite useful (if a bit awkward) for setting aperture and shutter speed, too, when the camera's a bit high for me to see the top of the shutter.

    As for the level, I carry one of the shoe-mount cubic ones, although I use it less now. I got a good Manfrotto tripod a while back, with levels built into the yoke and the head, so I don't need the shoe-mount one except when I have to do something odd, like extreme rise via tilting the bed up, and correcting the standards to level.

    Cheers,
    Don Wilkes

  6. #6

    Join Date
    Nov 2003
    Posts
    1,219

    Re: Level help please!!!

    You should spend some time thinking about what you might do with a level.

    Usually `leveling the camera' means making sure the back is plumb (vertical) and that the top of the frame is horizontal. To accomplish the first thing, you should place alevel against your ground glass or any surface on the back which is parallel to the ground glass. For this you need something which has a bubble which is centered when the surface is vertical. A simple torpedo level would work, but I use levels I found at B&H Photo, e.g.,
    http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/produc...irit_Level.htm
    (They sell a variety of such levels, which are designed to fit in a hot shoe, but I use them without that.) You can also use such a level to check if the top of the rear standard is level.

    I don't know what kind of level you got at Home Depot, but a simple bubble level isn't much use since you can only check to see if a horizontal surface is level. A standard level which has cells pointing in two perpendicular directions may be hard to use to check the ground glass simply because it is too big.

    When taking a picture of a building facade, you usually want the lens axis perpendicular to the facade, so that rectangles parallel to the film plane are imaged as rectangles. You can't use a level to do that, but you can usually do it well enough by using grid lines on the gg, provided the back is level from side to side.

    Finally, you can use a level to check if the standards are parallel. If the back is vertical---as above, I've found that the easiest way to check just vertical paralism is by putting a torpedo level vertically across the lens mount rim. Checking side to side parallism is harder. What I do is to point the camera downward using the tripod so the rail is plumb. I then make sure the back is level in all directions. Finally I check if the frront is also level in all directions. That checks horizontal as well as vertical parallism when the camera is back in normal position.

  7. #7
    mandoman7's Avatar
    Join Date
    Jan 2009
    Location
    Sonoma County, Calif.
    Posts
    1,037

    Re: Level help please!!!

    I was shooting on a hillside trying to deal with some fast moving clouds yesterday and was reminded of the importance of working simply for speed. Over and over the perfect composition kept slipping away while I was fiddling with one thing or another; couldn't find the compendium shade, etc.. I can't imagine having to carry a mirror in addition to all of the other stuff.
    I used to carry a hand level, but it would get separated from the camera bag at the wrong time fairly often. For those reasons, I make sure I have a level that's viewable under the dark cloth, even if it means drilling a hole in a camera. My mind is already fried with the list of things to remember in that bag.
    John Youngblood
    www.jyoungblood.com

  8. #8
    ki6mf's Avatar
    Join Date
    Nov 2007
    Location
    Austin, TX
    Posts
    593

    Re: Level help please!!!

    I get a small pocket level and do a final check on all standards once they are in place!
    Wally Brooks

    Everything is Analog!
    Any Fool Can Shoot Digital!
    Any Coward can shoot a zoom! Use primes and get closer.

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