What is this 8x10

[alavergh]

What can you tell me about this camera? I'm considering purchasing it, but I want to see what I should look for when I'm there in person.mit doesn't seem to have any branding and the website doesn't have a brand either. I do know that it has a 4x5 reducing back.

https://farm8.staticflickr.com/7504/16217374486_9aff4e7308_z.jpg (https://www.flickr.com/photos/alavergh/16217374486/)

https://farm8.staticflickr.com/7489/15620847364_d15e730b03_z.jpg (https://www.flickr.com/photos/alavergh/15620847364/)

[Oren Grad]

Looks home-brew to me.

[alavergh]

That's what I was thinking, from the inside edges of the front standard and no brand.

Where would the metal pieces come from? A donor, or is it common to actually make this stuff?

Oh! And from this, can anybody take a guess at what kind of lens boards it might use?

[angusparker]

That's what I was thinking, from the inside edges of the front standard and no brand.

Where would the metal pieces come from? A donor, or is it common to actually make this stuff?

Oh! And from this, can anybody take a guess at what kind of lens boards it might use?

Sinar for lensboard is my guess, much less likely Toyo, seems to be too small for Linhof.

[mdarnton]

Looks like a B&J Grover view to me, maybe a later one than this:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/camerawiki/6127839554/sizes/o/

[Oren Grad]

Looks like a B&J Grover view to me, maybe a later one than this:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/camerawiki/6127839554/sizes/o/

Good catch, looks like you're right. A Google image search turns up more Grover variants that show an even closer match to various of the components.

[koh303]

It is a grover 8X10, that has been painted black, and the wood stripped and stained.
The reducer board is for 4X4 boards.
The original size board is a standard 6X6 shared by many camera makes.

[William Whitaker]

Definitely Burke & James. For a minute I thought that was the ugliest camera I'd ever seen. Then I remembered an 8x10 Burke & James I had once where someone had painted the bellows with gold spray paint (maybe they had gold on hand because they were huffing. Whatever...) I called it the "Liberace" 'cause it was definitely the bling king. Now that was the ugliest camera I've ever seen!

[djdister]

Perhaps it has been cannibalized from a B&J 8x10 Grover, but I don't think it is one in its entirety. Too many aspects deviate from the B&J build, like these show...
127833 127834

[Jim Galli]

It's a silk purse.

[John Kasaian]

Beauty is as beauty does. Do all those knobs lock down good and tight? What about the tripod plate?

[koh303]

Perhaps it has been cannibalized from a B&J 8x10 Grover, but I don't think it is one in its entirety. Too many aspects deviate from the B&J build, like these show...
127833 127834

The only difference is the rear standard has been shaved off to half the width, or was ripped from an 8X10 rembrandt.
Either way as posted above it is missing the tripod block, without which it is mostly useless, unless you want to build one, or get a beater smaller format grover for its tripod base.

[alavergh]

The camera does have it's own clamp and tripod mount, though I have been to see it and it is a bit different than most more modern cameras. You can indeed see from the first link about a similar camera that it has a rounder mounting....thing. The place that would normally connect to a tripod head, or the tripod itself. The tripod that the original link is picture with is also round and seems to be made for the camera. Either way, I was curious if it could be mounted to a surveyors tripod, since I've heard those are popular and slightly cheaper.

On the surveyor tripod topic, I've seen a couple briefly on ebay and noticed that they are, of course, designed a little differently at the top than camera-specific tripods. Any quick tips for mounting a camera to a surveyors tripod? I'll check more on this, but if anybody remembers threads about this, links or keywords for important pieces in mounting cameras to the tripods would be appreciated.

Thanks!

Also, I did indeed check some more, and the tripod mount/rail clamp does indeed say B&J 1253. It comes with it's own huge case, 2 8x10 holders, a 5x7 holder, and a reducing back for both 4x5 and 5x7. Seems like it's worth it at the cost even without the camera...maybe. I do have a way to mount it though, without something extra, just not as sturdy as I'd like.

[djdister]

On the surveyor tripod topic, I've seen a couple briefly on ebay and noticed that they are, of course, designed a little differently at the top than camera-specific tripods. Any quick tips for mounting a camera to a surveyors tripod? I'll check more on this, but if anybody remembers threads about this, links or keywords for important pieces in mounting cameras to the tripods would be appreciated.


The reducing lens board looks to be cobbled from a Speed Graphic, just going by the design of the locking sliders. You'll need to measure it and compare it against standard lens board sizes.

One discussion about using surveyor's tripods can be found here: http://www.largeformatphotography.info/forum/showthread.php?41790-Surveyor-s-Tripod

Basically, if you have a surveyor tripod with a flat top and a hole, you can just use a threaded knob (and maybe some washers) of the right size, either to screw into a tripod head or right into the tripod block of the camera.

Like this: 127931

[alavergh]

127953

Hopefully you can tell from the photo, but These are some of the other things the CAME with the camera. Yep, I went in and asked about it, checked it out, and decided to take it home since he said I could return it for a couple weeks if necessary. There is one board that will actually fit on the camera as-is. That is the one that's on there, and it looks like something has been screwed to that "lensboard." Nothing that I have in my possession has similar holes. Then there's the lens board reducer that was on it in the original photo. There's also a metal toyo lensboard, and, oddly enough, a wooden lensboard that is identical to the ones that I use on my 4x5 Wisner, but uncut. That doesn't matter for the 8x10 though, because it wouldn't fit this setup.

The Toyo board NEARLY fits the lensboard reducer, but I'm wondering if I could find a way to barely "sand" down one side of the toyo board to fit in the reducer...but I haven't measured it and don't know shutter sizes well enough to fit the lens that I intend to use.

I've checked my lenses I use for 4x5 and it looks like my 210mm Fujinon 5.6 has sufficient coverage for 8x10.

As for the way this mounts to the tripod, I'm leaning towards a survey tripod and mounting the cast iron rail clamp to the tripod with no traditional head. I'm using it on a cheaper head right now and inside it's decent, but I'm not sure how it'd be outside. The nice thing about the rail clamp is that it will tilt forward and back as long as I get the camera pointed in the right direction.


By the way, just needed to add, my room now has the most amazing musty old smell. I'm used to it though. During high school I often managed to get a hold of some musty smelling saxophones too, and they worked just fine.