What Lens hood for my old, wood Kodak 5x7

[sully75]

Hi there,

After debating buying something fancier, I'm thinking I'm going to try to stick with my Kodak No.33 5x7 for a while. I've had really good results with it, and mostly, I like how people react to it for portraits. I don't know if I need to blow $2k on a Chamonix to see if they react the same way.

I would like to start using a compendium hood of some sort. My lenses, while not cool antique, are just old and I think I've had a bit more flare in the past than I needed. Any suggestions on what to use for a hood? I guess I could use some kind of rubber jobby on the filter threads, although that seems a lot less than ideal.

Also...I've always had the slightest concern that the ground glass on this camera is not dead on with film holders. Pictures have been reasonably sharp, but its my biggest concern about the camera. Has anyone had S.K. Grimes calibrate a back for them? Notice any difference afterwards? How long did they have it for?

This is the camera:

http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4030/4554900437_8a13399c78.jpg (http://www.flickr.com/photos/paulmcevoy/4554900437/)
Eastman View Camera No.33 (http://www.flickr.com/photos/paulmcevoy/4554900437/) by Paul McEvoy (http://www.flickr.com/people/paulmcevoy/), on Flickr

[Ari]

You can cobble a compendium hood from an old set of smaller bellows, or for slightly more money, you can buy a compendium and re-work the mounting hardware to fit onto your lensboard or front standard.
Also, an old Hasselblad or Mamiya compendium will fit directly onto the lens.

[Jim Jones]

You can also fabricate a large and very efficient folding lens hool from black mat board. It can hook over the horizontal bar atop the front standard.

[sully75]

Ari, do the those hoods attach to the filter rings? Do you think that would work well?

Jim, do you have any pictures of something like that?

[John Koehrer]

You can cobble a compendium hood from an old set of smaller bellows, or for slightly more money, you can buy a compendium and re-work the mounting hardware to fit onto your lensboard or front standard.
Also, an old Hasselblad or Mamiya compendium will fit directly onto the lens.

I've got the RB compendium(latest, "G") and just use step-down rings for different lenses. It needs an adapter which is 77 and everything I have is that or smaller.

The G bellows has no rails but uses "X" shaped units on the sides for tension.

About the GG, you can check for parallel of the GG with a straight edge and toothpick across the GG frame.
Attach the toothpick to the straight edge so it can move up & down easily with rubber bands, adjust the tip so it barely touches the GG and as the straight edge is moved to various locations across the glass, the point should remain in contact if everything is straight.

[Ari]

The Hasselblad compendium screwed directly onto the lenses; of course, adapters are available to make it fit onto any lens, as long as the lens diameter doesn't surpass that of the compendium.
John's Mamiya hood is quite similar, although opens/closes in a slightly different manner.

[cdholden]

You could easily get a Sinar compendium, or front bellows with the clip, but drilling a hole for the holding rod would be needed, and that is a big decision if youu like to keep your camera "stock".
As for the plane measurement/modification, you may get a quicker turnaround from Richard Ritter, who is more experienced and probably better equipped for the task.

[E. von Hoegh]

You might want to go over your filmholders, too. The old wood ones (which I use for 8x10) have all been around the block many times, sometimes the sheet metal insert gets distorted. Good idea anyway, if you're going for critical sharpness - I found a few bad 4x5 Riteways, as well.
A compendium is the best solution for the lens hood problem; it looks like a single coated Symmar you have on your rig; these can pick up flare and show lower contrast sometimes. Check for haze in the cells, too, old Symmars often have this.
Nice looking classic rig you have there.:)