NAGAOKA 4x5 Field Camera Parts

[camerafriend1]

Help - bought a nagaoka 4x5 field camera that needs parts, and I cannot find them. Any suggestions?

[Roger Thoms]

Yeah make them or contact Richard T. Ritter rrlg4mat@sover.net and have him make them. He did a great job on my 5x7 Charten which is a prewar Japanese field camera that was missing several knobs, had bad bellows, and had to have the rack and pinion gears on the bed replaced because of broken teeth.

Roger

[analoguey]

I remember reading on this Forum or APUG not that far back about someone buying new cameras of the same Make? So the maker should've parts?

[Steve Goldstein]

Nagaoka-san is still alive and making the occasional camera. He speaks no English and as far as I know works only through a Japanese shop whose web page also has no English, so unless you have connections in Japan it might be difficult.

What parts do you need? A little more specificity might get you better advice...

[fishbulb]

Steve, do you know what Japanese shop it is? All I know about him is from this interview last year: http://oikohken.or.jp/photo/?p=883

Here is the text from Google Translate, gives you a rough idea anyway.

Nagaoka Keiichiro's (July 28, 1938, 76-year-old, limited company Nagaoka Mfg Representative Director)

There are craftsman has been making still a "wooden camera" in this Gojisei of digital camera prime. Domestic and foreign photographers, it's Nagaoka Keiichiro, who is recognized as guru from lovers. Was born in the house of mining engineer, after graduating from high school, he was apprenticed to a wooden camera Works of Ueno through the camera parts factory. Piecing the after the master at the young 24-year-old founded the "Nagaoka Works". We've been spun off in half a century and the "wooden camera" or later.

Depiction is precisely because the wooden camera using large-format film, was a big success in the advertising photos and set photos that need to stretch greatly. Architecture photos from the fact that it is possible to further correct the distortion caused by perspective, also was outdoors in a well also be used, such as lightweight because mountain photos. But the wave of digitization is surging in the industry, situation will be changed completely. The quality of the digital camera is dramatically improved, he professional photographer has become without using wooden camera.

Production company of wooden camera is destroyed, including the home and overseas. Nagaoka Works also orders reduced, was out of business all related subcontract factory. Son of precious heir also was forced out to the company working. It means that the history of the "wooden camera" has become virtually cut off.

Was supporting us such a painful time was a photo studio around the country, which has been a favorite for many years the "wooden camera" of Nagaoka's. The adjustment and repair of replacement and body of carefully-used parts until rubbing reduced, was able to continue without folded the company because they did ask.

To Tara not photographers and lovers tired of this place digital camera, wooden camera has been reviewed that were also beginning to enter an order from abroad. "Nagaoka Works", "folding camera", which is also the main products of the particular "it's me and love in women also popular of the elderly to the hiking," because it is lightweight Toka. It's a perfect for outdoor photography because there is no fear of battery exhaustion is a wooden camera.

Nagaoka's began assembling the "folding camera". Important is the wood and metal fittings of accuracy to be a skeleton. '10 drying the timber so that the deviation does not occur! Use material Jurisakura that live in Hokkaido north. Bark is beautiful dense, it is also used for furniture and musical instruments. Politely paint scraping exactly wood. Carefully open the hole in the cone, the machined brass fittings can be fastened with screws, finally completed. Referred to as "part number 58, we need considerable training in order for all moves in exactly the same combine smoothly". You must be self-made from parts factory also lost a screw. Craftsmen play a whole process alone even went around looking for the world, it will much longer Nagaoka's. The workmanship's enough to provide technical guidance and been invited from the United States manufacturer of the highest peak. In the United States production technology of wooden camera it has already ceased.

Wooden camera takes a very troublesome to make, and very troublesome even to use it takes. That's why the joy of when mastering at will is all the more.
It is omitted this time, that things digital to pursue the correct answer only, was generally took the joy of life of "love" from a human. Would not precisely than there is intrinsic meaning in effort to master through trial and error and there this and that.

Nagaoka's was leftover in the photo History Museum of Fuji film "4 × 5-size single-lens reflex" is a permanent exhibition as if the Lord. Its wooden camera let at a glance feel the "time is taking" full of the "operation to joy", and it is a gem seized to urge the "I want mastering".

Nagaoka's craftsman-winning '57 has decided to "as long as there are people who know and love the wooden camera, continue to make." The technology inherited from our ancestors is in there, Tayashi strong feelings as a craftsman not to have been put.

it is not sincerely hope mountain that day the son to return will come.

Interview shooting: Koyama Kazuyoshi structure and sentence: Shirota Koichi

[Oren Grad]

The design of the Nagaoka camera has evolved over the years, and with it the details of the parts used. Also, most Japanese camera shops, like Nagaoka-san himself, are reluctant to communicate or conduct business directly with foreign customers.

Given the communication and transaction barriers, it's going to be far easier for the OP to deal with someone in the US like Richard Ritter. Send him a picture of what's missing or broken, and he should be able to tell you what it would take to replace or fix it.

[Steve Goldstein]

Adam, it's Ohban. Here's the top link to the Nagaoka section of their web site;

http://www.ohban4x5.com/nagaoka.html

[camerafriend1]

The camera is missing several of the knurled knobs (or knurled nuts). In particular, the knurled nuts used for focusing, which would need to have a square-broached hole, it appears. To further complicate things, I cannot get either metric or standard nuts to thread properly throughout. Some seem to be metric, others standard. Also, the sizes are quite small, as this camera is quite small, leaving few options (J.W. Winco, Grainger, Essentra Components, etc.), all near misses.

Additionally, the camera is sans bellows and bellows mounting frames.

I bought this camera for short money without a great deal of research, thinking the missing components would be less challenging to locate. At this point, I'm considering buying another Nagaoka (in working condition) and using this camera for parts, since they're so difficult to find. Trouble is, I'm not crazy about the camera. But, that's neither here nor there.

On the subject of camera replacement parts, could you suggest a 4x5 camera for which finding parts is easy? Or easier?

Many thanks,

Jon