A nice protractor level?

[frotog]

For architectural or landscape work the mitutoyo is an essential piece of gear for me. I'm oftentimes swinging or tilting the camera and using f-stops that don't allow much wiggle room for user error. Getting your standards aligned within a tenth of a degree makes for critical sharpness across the frame.

I recently used this tool to verify a substandard CLA on my Sinar P2. Turned out the Sinar-trained tech did not set the zero detents properly resulting in a 1.5 degree deviation from parallel - enough to throw a horizon line from a 5x7 out of focus at f16. When I confronted him about this he had a difficult time believing there was a problem and an even more difficult time believing I could measure the exact amount of deviation between the standards. So I shot a two-minute video demonstrating the deviation by using the mitutoyo digital protractor. That changed his tune pretty quick.

The Mitutoyo is about the same length and depth as a leica M and approx. 2-1/2" tall. Similar build quality as well. Also nice is the ability to manually recalibrate and set the zero point.

[Frank Petronio]

I'm not clear how the Mitutoyo works, does it only measure the vertical angle (tilt)? How would you measure the swing other than laying the camera on it's side?

I see several models costing about $350... are those what you're talking about?

[frotog]

It's comes factory calibrated for 0 degrees (horizontal) and provides readings to a tenth of a degree, 0 through 90 degrees. However, it's up to you to determine that you are using a truly level surface when it comes time to recalibrate.

To measure swing one has to determine amount of desirable swing, then turn the camera 90 degrees to get the angle off the back standard so as to set the front standard at the same angle. Yeah, I know, a bit of a pain in the neck for swing but the only other way of doing this is to remove the bellows and use an enlarger calibration laser and a small pane of glass.

$350 sounds right.

[jonreid]

Frank are you calibrating your standards to each other? I used the two mirror method and thought it a reasonable way to do it.

Jon

[Drew Wiley]

Mitutoyo gear is a stiff investment but worth it in the long run. You don't really need anything this fancy in the field. A good miniature Stabilia level for about fifty bucks, or one
of the better pundulum angle finders is adequate for LF architectural use, since an impression of verticals and horizontals visually is generally the priority. Few photographic
subjects of this nature are precisely built themselves! But for projects like calibrating your
equipment in the first place, high quality machinists tools are worth having. I do this even
to check the actual film plane, as well as for enlarger settings. And as I stated before,
you need some kind of dependable reference to check your more casual tools themselves.