Do I need to worry about really heavy lenses causing damage?

[Rayt]

Thanks for all the responses. Better be safe than sorry. The Betax shutter itself is heavy and the lens is physically long with a large front element so the front standard naturally wants to swing down and I felt it while adjusting rise/fall. Once tightened it felt solid. I had a wide angle Ektar with the Ilex and the glass didn't extend out so the weight didn't torque the standard. It isn't the kind of lens I would take to the field anyway so I'll set it aside for the future. The lens came from KEH with a 6" what I assume to be a Deardorff board.

[Willie]

Might check out a Bogen Magic Arm or similar. Can attach it to a tripod leg and fashion a small padded platform to hold the extra weight of the lens and take some pressure off the front standard.

[Two23]

Thanks for all the responses. Better be safe than sorry. The Betax shutter itself is heavy and the lens is physically long with a large front element so the front standard naturally wants to swing down and I felt it while adjusting rise/fall. Once tightened it felt solid. I had a wide angle Ektar with the Ilex and the glass didn't extend out so the weight didn't torque the standard. It isn't the kind of lens I would take to the field anyway so I'll set it aside for the future. The lens came from KEH with a 6" what I assume to be a Deardorff board.

Deardorff boards have rounded corners, Kodak and B&J are square. IIRC



Kent in SD

[Rayt]

Honestly, an 8" Pentac on a Betax shutter is not that heavy, I have used one on 5x7 Canham. Your Ebony (no swings or shifts, right?) should be easily able to carry it. If you are worried, use a piece of wood or other support between the bed and the bottom of the standard to hold it in place.

Not what you asked, but there is no way an 8" Pentac is going to cover 8x10, except at macro distances. The 8" Pentac is a 4x5 lens, and vignettes on 5x7. If you can find one (good luck!) a 12" Pentac might cover 8x10, but that lens won't even fit on your Ebony.

I tested the Pentac with the subject 20 feet away and it covered 8x10 with minimum vignetting and definitely no dark corners. The OOF was all bokeh at f/5.6 so am sure the corners wouldn't be sharp not matter what I did.

I don't know how much I can trust published coverage data from manufacturers or what they mean when they say image circle is such and such. Do they mean the lens won't cover at all like leaving an arch on the negative or image quality drops off so badly it is technically out of their "zone"? When the Cooke PS945 came out I really wanted one but don't normally shoot portrait length lenses. I am more of a wide to normal guy. I have one long lens just for the rare moments. Then a friend of mine was using the PS945 on 8x10 for portraits and I sat for him and can say from 6 feet away it will completely cover, so I took a chance it would cover 5x7 at infinity. When I searched online the results say the PS945 covers 4x5 with little movement but I shot 100 sheets of 5x7 with it mostly at f/5.6 and f/8 and can say it covers at infinity with movements contrary to manufacturer's specs. The PS945 is the best lens I have ever used as a normal 5x7 lens. f/4.5 to f/5.6 it is full of character but once at f/8 it is all sharp.

[Rayt]

Rayt,

Ebony is a wrong camera for heavy lenses. I have tried and it was designed that way. I use a lens support with Chamonix camera for my lenses up to 20 lbs. Have to use a second tripod if the lens is too heavy.

Now I am this much closer to a new Chamonix!

[Dan Fromm]

Hmm. A number of posts in this discussion have mentioned lens supports. I call these things crutches, have two, one lens-specific the other more generalized.

My lens-specific crutch is a carefully designed thingy made from scrap lucite. It sits between the barrel of a long heavy 12"/4 TTH Telephoto and the front crosspiece of a 2x3 Pacemaker Speed Graphic's bed (= front door).

My general purpose crutch is a milled out Cambo SC 4x5 standard that sits on a Cambo rail in front of the front standard that holds but does not support the lens. I use it with a 610/9 Apo-Nikkor, catalog weight 1.45 kg, and a 900/10 Apo-Saphir, measured weight 4.034 kg.

[Hugo Zhang]

My 19 inch Heliar on its 8 inch CF lens board has a weight of 13.2 lbs.

[jim_jm]

Here's my 8x10 Eastman 2D with a 15 1/2" Wollensak Velostigmat. Rear lens group is about the same size as the front and weight is around 6 lb.
The appropriate Packard shutter is too large to fit behind the lens board, so I adapted it as a front-mount.
The camera is sturdy enough to handle the weight, but I'm careful to support the lens when adjusting rise/fall. I don't walk around with the camera mounted to the tripod over my shoulder, like I can with my 4x5. Especially not with this lens mounted.

[gypsydog]

For field work I use a Toyo 810m, for the budget conscious The calumet C-1 is exceptional due largely to the construction of the front standard (fixed).

Hello

gypsydog:
What 8x10 cameras do you use when you are mounting abig, heavy lenses?
Thanks.
Drew

QUOTE=gypsydog;1557210]Bernice is correct! if the lens is something you intend on using, invest in a second camera more suited to the weight.
I use a number of very heavy lenses (I like fast glass) along with more conservative glass and keep several 8x10 cameras appropriate for the given lenses.
You will be glad you did in the long run.

[/QUOTE]

[Bernice Loui]

Toyo 810M remains one of my Fav 8x10 folder cameras for a long list of reasons. It is quite capable of supporting a BIG lens and remain stable, precise with good safety for the lens being used. There are GOOD vintage wood folders that are quite capable of supporting BIG lenses too, except none of them are light weight.

Back when these BIG portrait lenses were common, one of the cameras that did excellent with them was the Century Studio. These were BIG wood cameras that were NOT field portable, they were designed and intended to be used in a studio setting. What appears to have happened today, there is a mind-set of lightest weight camera first (possible due to the AA and similar great out doors image making wanna be) then making some choices on lenses with the print goal being near the bottom of the priority list. Then comes the curiosity of wanting to try BIG vintage lenses on the light weight camera that was never designed or intended to support any lens of that size. The experimenting with BIG vintage lenses might come from the idea of a special magical image-print will happen by deploying that mythical lens or camera... no to that.

There is definitely a FUN factor with experimenting with vintage and other optics as view cameras have the innate capability to use optics-lenses that could never be used on a brand specific camera-lens system, that alone is not going to produce excellence in expressive prints or images.

All this goes back again to what are the print and image goals, what optics or lens are required to produce them and what is the most suitable camera that will properly support the first two priorities. Add to this the entire world of film and processing and image finishing process. Once all this is considered as a system, the camera is nothing more than one facet of a much greater whole in the endeavor of expressive image creation.


Bernice

For field work I use a Toyo 810m,