Polaroid 405 Instant holder quandary....

[Daniel Stone]

hey guys,

having just received a polaroid 405 back the other day, I went to try it out last night with a small still life setup. I thought I could "rough" it and use the 6x7 outline on my 4x5 g/g(which is centered for my 6x7 rollfilm back, alignment is perfect). However, after pulling the 1st shot from the back and looking at it, much to my chagrin, it was about 3/4" of an inch off to one side length-wise. I've now drawn a 2nd box to correspond to the limits of the packfilm, but its a real PITA, IMO to have to shoot a test, then move the lens to re-align it for shooting onto the 6x7 rollfilm back.

Any ideas? Does the PA-145 from Fuji work the same way, or has this little "problem" been rectified with it? My PA-45(Polaroid 550 equivalent) back works great, but I bought this 405 back to save some money on shooting instant prints, or just for proofing lighting setups before shooting to film.

thoughts or suggestions would be greatly appreciated :).

-Dan

[Greg Lockrey]

On my 4x5 camera the "bottom" of 6x7 cm and the "bottom of the 405 are pretty much lined up within about an 1/8" or so. The "top of the 405 lines up with the "top" of a 4x5. The 6x7cm is in fact centered in the 4x5. "Top" meaning the film goes in vertical, but then I have this cheap wooden Jap camera called an Ebony... lol

[speedfreak]

My 405 holder is the same, i.e. Offset towards where you insert a film holder. Kind of an annoyance, but now that I know where the frame lines lie, I can work with it. I wish the 4x5 instant film wasn't so much more expensive.

[Ari]

There should be a grid overlay that you can download, or do a search on the forum for it.
In a pinch, just forget the bottom 3/4 of an inch, the top 1/8 of an inch, and about 1/4 inch off the sides.

[unixrevolution]

If I were using such for proofing my shots, I"d just live with the misalignment, and know my shot was cropped in a different place than the final film shot will be...unless something really critical to the composition, whose lighting is different than most of the rest of the scene, is out on the cut-off edge that you won't be getting.

Then again, I'm new to LF so my advice is suspect ;)