Hole position on lens boards for Chamonix 4x5

[Bob Salomon]

Some follow up to my original post:

The three WISTA boards having three different centers.... I purchased the boards used with holes already cut in them. The sides of the holes in two of them are shiny, the third blackened (with a black Sharpie?), so I don't think that the three boards came with pre-cut OEM holes. I'd assume that the sides of the holes with OEM boards that came pre-cut would have had a professional looking black finish.

Two of my lenses I do want to be centered on axis with the back: 65mm WA Nikkor is mounted on an OEM Chamonix board, so no problem there. Other lens is a 500mm Komura. This lens is mounted on the lens board which is the most off from where it should be. This optic I did want to be on center axis when mounted on the 4x5 Chamonix. (Attached image) I determined where the lens board needed to be to be on the central axis and marked the board and standard with three red dots. For this lens, align up the three dots and the lens is on center to the back. The 500mm Komura is top (front) heavy and should really have another support under the from of the lens, but with care the Chamonix front standard holds it steady and besides any movements I use with this lens are made with the back standard. The 500mm Komura almost covers a 5x7 but sharply only covers 4x5.

Hugo... does the center of a Chamonix OEM board align up with the center of an OEM Linhof board? Don't have one to compare to.

Greg, what do you mean by line up? On a Linhof type 45 board the back of the board has a circular light trap. The normal hole position for Linhof boards is centered on this light trap on the back of the board. The last thing that you want to do with a Linhof board is to position the hole so that it cuts into that light trap. So your available hole positions are within that light trap. So the hole should always be milled or bored from the back of the board. Not the front. And the hole should never be drilled.

[Greg]

Greg, what do you mean by line up? On a Linhof type 45 board the back of the board has a circular light trap. The normal hole position for Linhof boards is centered on this light trap on the back of the board. The last thing that you want to do with a Linhof board is to position the hole so that it cuts into that light trap. So your available hole positions are within that light trap. So the hole should always be milled or bored from the back of the board. Not the front. And the hole should never be drilled.

Meant that if you placed an OEM Linhof board next to an OEM Chamonix, would the holes line up. Chamonix boards don't have that light trap. FYI some of the rip-off Linhof boards have the circular light trap larger than the ones on a Wista or a Linhof board and won't mount on a Chamonix... don't ask me how I know that...

[Bob Salomon]

Meant that if you placed an OEM Linhof board next to an OEM Chamonix, would the holes line up. Chamonix boards don't have that light trap. FYI some of the rip-off Linhof boards have the circular light trap larger than the ones on a Wista or a Linhof board and won't mount on a Chamonix... don't ask me how I know that...

We were the Linhof distributor from the late 70s till 2015 and I was the sales and product manager for Linhof from 1980 till 2015. We also were the Wista distributor from the late 80s till 2015 and I also was the Wista product and sales manager for that period as well. In all that time I never saw a Chamonix camera or lens board, so I can’t answer your question about where their holes are vs Linhof or Wista. I also never saw a board with too large a light trap. But since the trap is made to fit the hole in the front standard I guess it might be possible for some other camera to have a larger diameter hole in the front standard then Linhof or Wista. However it could also be a very poorly made copy of a Linhof or Wista board. In that case one gets what they paid for!

[xkaes]

Chamonix boards don't have that light trap. FYI some of the rip-off Linhof boards have the circular light trap larger than the ones on a Wista or a Linhof board and won't mount on a Chamonix... don't ask me how I know that...

WOW. All of this is news to me, but I'm usually in the dark (room). Thanks for this info.

[consummate_fritterer]

I have a Chamonix 045N-1 and (to my 'eyes') the center of the holes are best placed in the center of the light trap. BTW, I replaced the original GG and had it accurately spaced regards to focus.

[xkaes]

On a Linhof type 45 board the back of the board has a circular light trap. The normal hole position for Linhof boards is centered on this light trap on the back of the board.

I have several genuine Wista boards for #0 and #1 shutters, and all of them are off-set from the center of the light trap. I've got to assume that Linhof and Wista used different "centers"???????

[Bob Salomon]

I have several genuine Wista boards for #0 and #1 shutters, and all of them are off-set from the center of the light trap. I've got to assume that Linhof and Wista used different "centers"???????

You bought them all new?

[xkaes]

You bought them all new?

Some were bought new -- I don't recall from where -- and some were used, but all have the center of the hole in the same place -- lower than the center of the light trap. And they work fine on my cameras. I probably bought them at the same time I bought the lenses -- from the same place. A couple of boards had holes that were not in the same location (at least one was centered) -- I can't recall if they were genuine Wista or not -- and I sold them. In short, I always assumed Wista boards were set lower than center.

My measurements are very similar to one of Greg's -- I'll take pictures tomorrow and show them here.

[Carsten Wolff]

I have an Arca-Swiss 5x7 and got myself very quickly a Linhof/Wista adapter board for it, as 171mm-sized boards didn't do it for me. I do have Linhof/Wista-type boards with both "centered" and "off-centre" holes that I use on that camera. I simply made small white marker lines on the side of each lensboard, to correspond with the centre of the board hole. This works nicely with the Arca's rise-and-fall scale on the front standard. So, I never had a problem with lens alignment in that respect. I'm sure you can have that with basically every view camera that offers rise-and-fall, if it is a problem for you.

[xkaes]

I'm sure you can have that with basically every view camera that offers rise-and-fall, if it is a problem for you.

Rise and fall can be used to address the issue -- and centering marks on the lensboard would help -- but that doesn't solve the problem. You probably want the image projected by the lens to be centered on the ground glass because that will provide the sharpest image. You can't visually determine that from the ground glass. In addition, for lenses with small image circles, you will quickly run out of image when using any movements unless the image is dead-centered.