Cambo Wide Angle Bellows: Original Leather or New Style preferences?

[David Wolf]

Hi All,

Would be interested to hear people's first-hand experience with both the original leather model, and the newer version. I haven't used or seen either (other than the pictures below) ~ I'm deciding which type to purchase, so comments about the relative pro's and con's of each, how they handle, as well as any other consideration you think would be useful would be much appreciated!

Thanks in advance for your kind help.

[Dan Fromm]

Perhaps not relevant. Old-style bag bellows for 2x3 Cambos are pleated like the one you show, are made of quite thin leather. New-style bag bellows for 2x3 Cambos look like new-style 4x5ers, are made of heavier material than old-style. The 2x3 Cambo kit I was given included old-style bag bellows. I've since bought a new-style one.

I find the old-style obnoxious because it sometimes collapses into the optical path. New is much better behaved.

[uphereinmytree]

I've had many cambo bag bellows and my favorite is the nylon petite newer style. There are 2 sizes of newer ones and 2 types of material. the larger baggier new ones are heavier and extend further while getting in the way with really wide lenses. They are pleather. the petite newer ones are a nylon type material and just right unless you need them to extend for longer lenses. I think they extend 10" tight while the bigger ones extend 14" roughly?

The old pleated ones are leather and will likely need re-glued. they seemed nice and held themselves up when new. more extension with less bag all over the place. leather can get thin and let in light without showing pinholes

[David Wolf]

I've had many cambo bag bellows and my favorite is the nylon petite newer style. There are 2 sizes of newer ones and 2 types of material. the larger baggier new ones are heavier and extend further while getting in the way with really wide lenses. They are pleather. the petite newer ones are a nylon type material and just right unless you need them to extend for longer lenses. I think they extend 10" tight while the bigger ones extend 14" roughly?

Thanks, Tree, very helpful. I'm guessing the larger pleather type is the bag pictured on the right ~ not your favorite, nylon-type?

I'll likely use the bag bellows for a 90mm and 125mm lens. Do you think the pleather bag would get in the way, or be a good choice because my intended lenses aren't so wide?

Also, would you have a picture of your favorite, newer nylon-type bag that you could share?

Thank you!

[neil poulsen]

I have the same two corresponding bellows for my Arca Swiss . . .

The leather bellows has what appears to be five pleats. The newer bellows has one pleat; so, the camera can compact more tightly with the newer, versus the leather bellows. In other words, one can use smaller focal length lenses with the newer style.

That said, the leather bellows on my camera works just fine for landscape. Vanity being all important, the leather bellows looks REALLY COOL, whereas the newer bellows look more like elephant ears. (Not cool at all.)

Also, I've found that there's so much material in the newer style bellows, it can get in the way of bringing the front and rear standards to their minimum extension. I had an "elephant ears" (newer) style Sinar bellows, which had this problem. So through a process that I documented in the DIY forum, I shortened the bellows enough in the elephant ears (newer) bellows so that this would no longer be a problem.

If you did this with your newer style bellows, you could use the leather bellows for most applications, and then use the modified (shortened) newer style bellows for extreme wide-angle lenses. For me, while I might end up carrying three sets of bellows, this would be the optimum solution.