focusing a 617 without ground glass

[mort]

just bought a fuji g617 with a 105mm f8, it has everything except a ground glass. can i use a 35mm slr to work out focus by matching the distance on both lenses? will i have to adjust for different aperture settings, or lenses?

[Brian Vuillemenot]

To focus the G617, just use the focus scale on the barrel. For example, at f22, you can get everything from about 4 meters away to infinity in focus. It's not a camera suitable for closeup or macro work.

[GPS]

For this purpose it's easy to make your own gg from a piece of Plexiglass and a Scotch frosted tape on one side of it. You can't break it, it's light and renewable many times over.

[Joanna Carter]

For this purpose it's easy to make your own gg from a piece of Plexiglass and a Scotch frosted tape on one side of it. You can't break it, it's light and renewable many times over.

Have you ever seen a G617? There is nowhere to put such a screen, unless you open the back and remove the film and hope that holding a screen against the film guide gets you somewhere near the film plane.

I take it, from this and your other recent posts on GG screens for a Chamonix, you are not really all that familiar with the concept of what GG screens are used for; either that or you have been drinking too much of the falling down water.

[GPS]

Have you ever seen a G617? There is nowhere to put such a screen, unless you open the back and remove the film and hope that holding a screen against the film guide gets you somewhere near the film plane.

I take it, from this and your other recent posts on GG screens for a Chamonix, you are not really all that familiar with the concept of what GG screens are used for; either that or you have been drinking too much of the falling down water.

G617 has its own gg as an accessory. It is not possible to use it in the middroll though. A fact of life. You yourself have a better idea to help the OP? Keep dreaming, inventive lady...

[Joanna Carter]

G617 has its own gg as an accessory. It is not possible to use it in the middroll though. A fact of life. You yourself have a better idea to help the OP? Keep dreaming, inventive lady...

Having owned a G617, I can tell you that there is no GG screen for that camera. The next model, the GX617, had one as an optional accessory.

As for helping the OP, Brian summed it up just fine.

[GPS]

Really inventive people were using gg as an accessory on the older Fuji G617 and writing about their experiencies with the setup on the net. There were those who taped their gg on the body while viewing (imagine, incredible as it sounds to you!) and yes, incredible as it seems to you, the gg can be pushed against the same surface on which the film will then lie. Go, wonder, inventive lady...

[Bob Salomon]

If all else fails just tape a piece of wax paper against the film rails.

[Joanna Carter]

If all else fails just tape a piece of wax paper against the film rails.

Bob, of course there are ways of circumventing the lack of an official GG screen but, without removing the film, in a darkbag, because there is no darkslide on the back, there is no easy way to use a GG screen. It means, at least, that you would have to commit to setting up the focus before putting film in the camera, then shooting a whole roll of 120 at the one location.

As Brian says, there is a DOF scale on the lens barrel which is plenty good enough.

P.S. Is it me, or is GPS a touch lacking in the social graces?

[Bob Salomon]

Bob, of course there are ways of circumventing the lack of an official GG screen but, without removing the film, in a darkbag, because there is no darkslide on the back, there is no easy way to use a GG screen. It means, at least, that you would have to commit to setting up the focus before putting film in the camera, then shooting a whole roll of 120 at the one location.

As Brian says, there is a DOF scale on the lens barrel which is plenty good enough.

P.S. Is it me, or is GPS a touch lacking in the social graces?

The Linhof 617 (until the latest version the 61`7S III) also did not have a groundglass - except for the original Technorama 617 which had one that attache to one of the accessory shoes.

The need for gg focusing has and does exist on 617 but the major excuse was that it could only be done without film since there were only 4 shots to a 120 roll this would not be a big problem. But Linhof's optical finder shows over 90% of the field and the Fuji's showed much less. So there was a small need on the old Linhofs but a very large need on the Fuji's (Linhof 617 S III cameras do not accept a groundglass as the 72, 90 and 110mm lenses for this camera can be mounted in a shift attachment and the optical finder will not show the effect of the shifts-only the gg back will. So the 617 S III now also has a dark slide so lenses can be changed mid roll and the gg can be checked at any time.

So many users of non-gg models can easily check the composition of thge entire frame with something as simple as a piece of waxed paper or just a 5x7 ground glass cut to size. As noted earlier gg focusing is not really needed for fousing with the 90mm lens. But is needed for the Linhof 250 or the Fuji 300mm on the models that accept them.