Toyo 45AII for wide-angle use?

[Oren Grad]

With regard to "minimum achievable flange distance," don't forget that Toyo once sold a 24 mm recessed lens board for this camera in addition to the 12 mm recessed lens board, so there is potentially some wiggle room available here as regards the minimum acceptable FFD measurement.

Good point. In that scenario, I'd also have questions about what it's like to use the controls on the lens with such a deep recess of a smallish board, and how short a FL can be used without getting the camera bed in the picture.

[Audii-Dudii]

Good point. In that scenario, I'd also have questions about what it's like to use the controls on the lens with such a deep recess of a smallish board, and how short a FL can be used without getting the camera bed in the picture.

Your point about the potential difficulty of operating a lens mounted on a deeply recessed lens board is probably the reason why Toyo also sold an angle adapter that allowed the shutter cable to operate at a forward pointing angle to the lens instead of sticking straight out of the shutter.

I know I wouldn't have been able to operate several of my wide-angle lenses on the 24mm recessed lens board without it!

As to your third point, I always used Toyo's studio series of cameras (and when using really wide lenses, also medium-format roll film instead of sheet film, so I was working within a reduced size image circle and never had to worry about the camera bed intruding on my compositions), so this was never an issue regardless of how wide a lens I used. Due to my complete lack of experience using a 45A, I have no idea what the practical limits are for it, hence the reason I didn't comment on that...

[rpagliari]

When using a 75mm lens, how much would I get of raise/fall, and how many mm recessed board?

[Oren Grad]

OK, I see that we went through this back in February with 45AII in the thread title.

I'm going to merge the threads. Post #15 above has the critical information. AFAIK the 45A, 45AII and 45AX should be no different as far as usability with ultrawides; if anyone knows otherwise, by all means please post.

[schafphoto]

One thing to keep in mind (for people finding this thread in the future) is that wide angle lenses are very unforgiving from an alignment and focus standpoint; less than 1mm makes a difference. As has been discussed here, when the bellows is pushed all the way into the body and shifts or rise/fall are attempted, the bellows becomes the limiting factor because it is pinched/bunched against itself or pushed against the concave body of the camera. The concave box shape of field cameras is great for protection and travel, but in real-world use with a very wide lens (with or without a recessed lens board) the bellows stress or pressure can move the front standard out of parallel. (this is true for Wista, Linhof, Horseman, etc. field cams as well, since they all have their front standards connected to the folding bed).



For my HABS/HAER/HALS work I tried a Toyo CF for travel for a couple of jobs in Guam and Idaho that required airline travel. Since HABS/HAER requires perspective correction and parallel standards. The intended parallelism/alignment of the lens board (front standard) and GG was fine when no movements were attempted or the bellows was extended, but with a 90mm or 72mm XL, if significant movements were attempted, the front standard would "lean" away or toward the camera due to all those bellows folds being pushed or pulled out of center. This resulted in a special "re-paralelling" step with a small bubble level on the front element of the lens to keep areas from being pushed out of focus. Side to side shifts were more problematic since even 1mm of "tweek" from parallel would result in unintended focus/alignment changes with no easy way to correct or predict the misalignment with a level. If you have ever tried to focus-align a shifted 72mm XL in the field in a dark hydroelectric powerhouse, you'll know that it is an imperfect science.

One of the reasons why members on this thread have moved to tech or monorail cameras with bag bellows is that there is no resistance, more than enough movement, and you are not fighting to get the standards closer. I am using a Cambo SC with a custom fixed rear standard and bag bellows, as a bonus the Cambo also has large lens boards so the recessed boards are less of a hassle to work in. (Some Linhof field cams have a top door to release the bellows stresses on RISE, I think the Wista does have a bag bellows option that will help with this, and the Walker Titans have a bag bellows and a special recessed board to help with this issue as well.)



I have since sold the Toyo CF and now carry my disassembled Cambo 5x7/4x5 in an under-the-seat, laptop bag/purse. Here are photos of the Cambo upon return from a 5x7 HABS job in Upstate New York at Cornell last week. The laptop bag never left my side, stowed under the seat in front of me, and allowed a full sized carry-on camera bag for the lenses, accessories and digicam. (I FedXed the film)