I'm hardly new to photography, having actually sold some of my work and having quite a few photos printed in magazines in the past (mostly auto racing action shots, once even getting a cover shot), so I know most of the basics. Haven't really done much in the way of film photography in the last 10 years though, but still have a fairly decent setup of 35mm equipment.
While cleaning out my elderly father's house recently, though, I came across his old Speed Graphic, an Anniversary model, which came with a Kalart rangefinder, flash unit (with 6 bulbs still left), and 2 film backs-one for 4x5 sheet film, and one for 120 roll.
I cleaned the camera and found it to still be in perfect working order, so now I want to start using it for stationary photography. I have a lot of questions about things I want to try doing with this camera, so let me ask my biggest ones here:
Firstly, I'd love to try taking instant 4x5 photos with this camera, but can't quite get over having to pay $200 for one of those Fuji adapters. Can the Fuji instant film pack fit into any of the old Polaroid packs, and if so, which ones? I've seen that some of the Polaroid packs don't quite fit on the Anniversary model, but with a little custom bracketry (no problem for me, since I know a number of machinists), I've been told that you can make most (maybe all?) of them fit. Is this true?
Next, I'd also like to get a ground-glass back for fine-focusing, but can't find a cost-effective solution locally, and there is no way I'm going to spent $300+ that they cost in the fine-photo webpages. Any more cost-effective ideas?
Lastly, I have a flash unit from a 35mm camera, and was wondering how I could go about using it with my SG? I have one of those bullet-shaped shutter units on the front shutter, so I know that it did once work with the battery-flashbulb unit, but I'm not sure how to synch it together with a modern flash unit, or even how to trigger the setup.
Any ideas would be greatly appreciated.
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