I just bought this thing online; can you tell me anything about it?

[architorture]

I have seen a photo of that camera before -- I thought it was here on this forum. But it could have been on ebay, I suppose. Within the last year or two.

Vaughn

I was hoping somebody would recognize it and point me to a thread on here.

For $75 i thought why not? Seems like a deal just for the cost of materials and labor time of whoever made it. Hopefully it turns out to be more than a bookend though

From the other photos in the listing it looks like it definitely has a rack & pinion focusing system (4 in of travel according to the seller). It also looks like the lens board can be moved to different fixed locations along the length of the inner tube, so that the effective range of focus is actually up to 8in. I suppose I could put a piece of tape on the top of the inner tube and mark focus distances.

It looks to be made for standard 4x5 film holders, but there may be no provision for a graflok type ground glass. I expect the only way to get a ground glass would be to make one as a simple wood frame with glass inset into it. Has anyone ever converted a sheet-film holder into a ground-glass holder?

There is a tripod socket on the bottom, as well as two telescoping legs at the back of the camera on either side (i don't understand why these are necessary).

My rough estimate is this should be able to accommodate lenses from as short as you can find up to a 210mm. However, I expect the shortest focal length will be limited by the presence of the inner tube - at some point the angle-of-view of the lens will be so great that it begins to be blocked by the tube. A very, very rough sketch indicates that the optical center of the lens will have to be at least 50mm away from the film plane to avoid mechanical vignetting from the tube (so 47mm super-angulon might work?). I'll know more once I have it in my hands.