Canham wood 5x7 bag bellows

[Steve Gilbert]

I read that the bag bellows for the Canham wood 5x7 is all cloth...but I just bought a used one online, and it's leather...with an inch or so of accordion bellows at the rear. Is this a new version? I'm not terribly impressed with the quality :-/

[Ted Harris]

Sounds like an aftermarket bellows fitted on Canham standards. Doesn't sound like anything from Keith.

[Steve Gilbert]

Thanks....as I suspected. Time to send it back and order a real one, I guess.

[Ted Harris]

Absolutely .... however, if the frame is a solid metal frame you might check with Richard Ritter as to the cost of a replacement bellows (www.lg4mat.net). IIRC a new bag bellows from one of Keith's dealers will set you back $350 or $375 and if you only have a couple of bucks in what you have you might save some money by having Richard do it.

[Jeff Keller]

By any chance did you get this from ebay seller yanliz? I also seem to have been sold a poorly made replica. It is made with a naugahyde bag and a very stiff accordian bellows. In my case it is supposed to be for the metal 5x7 camera. Talking with Canham, apparently very early on, he made a few bellows with naugahyde as the result of some specific requests, but they did not have the accordian bellows at the front.

[Steve Gilbert]

I did not buy it from eBay. I bought the used one from Midwest Photo. I've since returned it and ordered a brand new one from them. It arrived today...and it's the exact same thing (but new). It's a stiff leather (or faux leather, I'm not sure how to tell) bellows with a short stiff accordion part in the rear.

So it's looking to me like Canham must have a new wide angle bellows for their 5x7 wood camera, and I'm not very happy with it at all...especially at this price It's a real pain to install it...I have to push and cram so hard that I'm worried I'm going to break my camera. Plus, the leather is big and stiff, and it seems almost impossible to use my 58mm lens (with the 4x5 back, of course)...the bottom of the bag gets wadded up in the bottom and prevents movements. I bought my Canham because I wanted to start doing some 5x7...but the little bag bellows on my old Shen-Hao was much, much nicer than this thing.

I'm not sure what I should do at this point. I'm going to look into what Richard Ritter has to offer, I guess. I might also try to call Canham tomorrow and confirm that this is what they are making now. I had always heard that their bag bellows was made from some sort of cloth, but I've never actually seen one in person.

[Keith Pitman]

I have a short Canham 5x7 bellows that fits my wood camera. I bought it on ebay a couple of years ago, and it appear to be authentic as the metal fittings look identical to the long normal bellows. It is cloth --similar, but not identical to the cloth on the long bellows. It is accordian all the way, not really a "bag" format. It's pretty stiff, but I imagine the shorter form helps with short lenses. I haven't used it much, if at all as I use the Canham primarily in 4x10 format. This probably doesn't help too much other than confirm that Canham once had another form of bag bellows. I would call him; he may be able to supply a different type.