Mounting a Pentax 6x7 on a 4x5 Camera

[Chris Engholm]

Has anyone tried to mount a Pentax 6x7 on a 4x5 camera body in order to achieve shifts and tilt? If so, could you please describe how you did it, what was invo lved, what lenses worked or did not work, etc. Thanks in advance,

Chris

[Ellis Vener]

You'd probably need an adapter made by why would you want to? You'll be limited to short normal (for a 4x5) and long focal length lenses as you'll have to take into consideration the depth of the mirror box on the camera. The deep mirror box will also impinge on how much shift and probably swing and tilt you'll be able to use before you get cutoff. If you want view camera movements on roll film you will be far better off using a roll film back on a 4x5 camera like those made by Horseman, Sinar, Calumet, Linhof or Toyo

[Jim Galli]

Me again. Take a look at the Mamiya Universal lenses. Already in Seikosha 0 shutters and ready to do what you've described. J

[Nigel Turner]

Ellis, you forgot to mention Arca Swiss!

[Doug Paramore]

There used to me, and maybe still are, adapter plates for such purposes. I have seen pictures of Hassys and Nikons mounted on adapter plates. Never owned one, and don't want one. I would think it wouldn't be too difficult to construct such an adapter.Don't know what you would call the combination...perhaps Pentadorf or Lintax?

[Ellis Vener]

Did I? That is because of my poor grammar. I was referring to the roll film backs not the cameras.

[Ellis Vener]

I guess if you mounted the Pentax on a Sinar you'd get a SinTax. And of course any bad photos could be attributed to a Sintax error.

[Jim Bancroft]

Hi Chris -

You can have someone like Steve Grimes mount an extension ring for your Pentax onto a flat plate which will mount the graphloc back for your camera. The extension ring has the bayonet mount for the Pentax. The shoter the ring the better and you will need some provision to handle the wieght of your camera "dangling" off the rear of your camera. All in all you're probably better off using a roll film adapter.

jim

[Paul Schilliger]

Have a look at this:

http://www.zoerk.com/pages/p_pshift.htm

[Rob Tucher]

Years ago I mounted a Pentax 6x7 body to my 4x5 in order to achieve through-the-lens/bellows metering in extreme close-ups. I drilled out a Sinar lens board to a size just smaller than the diameter of the shortest extension tube, drilled three pilot holes through the board into the forward edge of the tube, attached the tube to the board with machine screws, made it light-tight with black silicon goop, and mounted the camera to the combination (effectively ruining the tube for any other purpose). This was put on the back of my Sinar. It doesn't work with short lenses because of the non-compressible film plane to lens mount distance of the Pentax body. So you can't get an architectural camera out of it. I did it purely as an occasional ultra-closeup camera with built-in bellows extension compensation. All in all its better just to use a roll back and figure bellows extension, as mentioned above. Someone else mentioned Zoerk, or is it Zork with an umlaut over the o. They make wacky adapters. I had a shift adapter for awhile so I could use my Pentax 6x7 lenses on my Nikon, and it had shift in any direction. They make lots of "adapt this to that" sorts of things.