widest on an Arca F?

[Frank Petronio]

Window shopping / day dreaming. What is the widest lens you can use on a modern Arca-Swiss F with the leather bag bellows and the standard 14mm recessed lensboard? Do they make a modern, deeply recessed lensboard (that is actually in stock anywhere in the universe?)

(I once had a vintage Arca recessed board. Instead of recessing the whole interior square area, which would have allowed normal cable releases and supremely convenient lens control access, they made the board with a hollow about the size of a typical Technika recessed board - in other words, a finger pinching, funky cable release bugger - like most recessed lensboards.)

[Donald Hutton]

Frank

I have an Arca F Field and I'm pretty sure that with a recessed board, you could use the 38mmXL Schneider and still get movements. I use a 58mmXL on a flat board and have plenty of movements. I think the 38 has the same flange focal distance as the 47mmXL so I would imagine that it is very usable with a recessed board. Of course, the leather bellows do seem to get much softer with age....

[Kerry L. Thalmann]

Frank,

I assume you're referring to the 171mm ARCA-SWISS boards, not the smaller 110mm size. If so, ARCA makes a 26mm deep recessed board. I bought one a couple months ago from Badger Graphic. Not sure if they had it in stock when I called to place my order, but it arrived on my doorstep less than a week later. It was rather spendy (somewhere in the $140 range). The recessed cavity is square and as large as mechanically feasible - very easy to mount a cable release and get at all the lens controls.

With this board and the leather wide angle bellows, you should be able to handle any lens capable of covering 4x5, and 6x7/6x9 as well. I measure a minimum extension of 32mm with this combo - at which point I can get 5mm of front rise. If I go out to 40mm, I can get 20mm of front rise. In practical terms, even with a very short lens like the 38mm SA XL you'll run out of image circle way before the camera/bellows limits your movements. On 6x7, the 38mm SA XL has enough coverage (138mm image circle) to allow about 30mm of front rise. At 52mm of extension (the ftf of the 38mm SA XL), with the 26mm recessed board and the leather bag bellows I can easily get 65mm of front rise with my ARCA-SWISS F-Line Classic. The 35mm APO Grandagon has a significantly shorter ftf (43.2mm), but also an image circle that is considerably smaller (125mm) image circle. Once again, even on 6x7, you'll run out of coverage before the camera runs out of movement capability.

If you plan to go really wide (35mm or 38mm) and shoot roll film (6x7 or 6x9) with extensive movements, this combination is certainly up to the task. If you plan to stick with 4x5, or use more modest movements on roll film with a 35mm or 38mm lens the standard 13mm recessed board will be sufficient.

Kerry

[Armin Seeholzer]

Hi Frank

I did shortly quite a bit work with the 47 mm Super Angulon XL and the 13mm recessed board but with the plastic bag bellows in 4x5 only limited by the covering power of the XL.

[Frank Petronio]

Guess that only confirms the near perfection of this camera system! It really has proven to be the best yet - Thanks

[Tom Westbrook]

In case you haven't found it yet, you can grab a copy of the most recent catalog (includes this sort of info) at http://www.precisioncameraworks.com/Pages/arca_core.html#anchorcata

[Frank Petronio]

Actually I built that site and wrote a lot of the copy... Arca still doesn't have their own website (I've tried...) but they piggyback off this one for free. I am not at all happy about that situation (it stinks), but it doesn't take away from Arca making a great camera system - with truly lousy marketing. But I digress - tell me a view camera manufacturer (other than Sinar) who understands that photographers might actually want to research and find support for their cameras online, since so few dealers stock them - duh ;-)

For example, I had to ask this question here, rather than it being obviously stated in their literature or non-existent website.