Two Arca Customizations for 8x10 & 4x5. (S.K. Grimes.)

**neil poulsen** · 25-May-2021, 15:51

I just received back from S.K. Grimes two customizations, one for an Arca Oschwald era 8x10, and a second for an Oschwald era Arca Swiss 4x5. I thought that both, and especially the 8x10 customization, would be of interest.

For a couple of years, I’ve had an Arca Swiss, Oschwald era, 8x10 camera. (See 1st photo.) These are the older model Arca Swiss cameras that are characterized by their silver metal parts. It’s a nice camera, but mine had a problem. While the front standard has axis tilt, the rear standard has no tilt. This is because the 8x10 format frame on my camera is one single piece with it’s function carrier. (See 4th photo.) In one sense, this design feature is a strong positive. While Arca function carriers currently sold are up to the task of supporting 4x5, and 5x7 format frames, I'm unconvinced that they’re up to the task of sufficiently supporting 8x10 format frames. Obviously, this is not the case for my camera.

As to the problem, these 8x10 cameras usually have front standards that were originally designed for 4x5. By the time one raises the format frame high enough to be on axis with the rear 8x10 format frame, there’s little room remaining for actual rise. (About one inch for my camera.) And, since the rear of my camera doesn’t have tilt, simulating additional rise using front and back tilt is not an option.

It occurred to me, I could have S.K. Grimes build an extension that would raise my front standard high enough to initially be on axis the the rear, 8x10 format frame. This would give an actual rise of about 3”. But, Adam Dau (S.K. Grimes) improved on that idea. He proposed fabricating complete new risers that would be suitable for 8x10. The “risers” are two, slim vertical silver (usually) parts connected at the bottom to the horizontal, dove-tailed base. Extending up from the base, these risers support the cameras front format frame. By making them longer, it would be possible to substantially increase my 8x10 camera’s rise.

I gave thumbs up to this proposal, and as per my requested specifications, he fabricated risers long enough to offer 1" of fall, and a whopping 4" of rise above the axis height. But, he did better than this. Adam was concerned that the longer risers might not be sufficiently strong to adequately support this extended length. So, he fabricated them to be 50% thicker for strength. What astonished me, he was able to effect this added width, and yet still use the original Arca Swiss screws to hold it all together. I thought for sure that thicker risers would require longer screws. But, not so. As described, the original risers are silver. As if to add a touch of art to the above, he had them anodized to be black. Very cool!

The result is shown in the 2nd photo, and the 3rd photo shows the front standard at full rise. The 4th photo shows the front and rear function carriers. Obviously, I'm impressed. I think that Adam did a fabulous job with this project. And of course, what's been done once can be done again. If you have an Oschwald era Arca 8x10, you might consider this customization.

**neil poulsen** · 25-May-2021, 15:53

Some time ago, I purchased an all black, Oschwald era, Type A (Axis Tilt) 4x5 from KEH for a quite reasonable price. What caught my eye on this camera was the color. I had never seen one that was all black, and I figure that it must have been an intermediate model, as Arca transitioned from the older style to the Classic F cameras.

Since then, I’ve come to the conclusion that there’s a lot to like about these Type A cameras. I’ve always preferred axis tilt to base tilts. I believe that Orbix is intended to simulate axis tilt; but, why not have the real thing? I like the fact that this camera’s function carriers are capable only of swing (not tilt), which ensures that the four risers on the camera will always be parallel. And, having swing on both front and rear standards is optimum. (There are good reasons to have both.) I prefer the knobs for that loosen for swing, versus the press-down, spring loaded clamps on the newer cameras. It wouldn't surprise me if these less complicated Type A functions carriers (having only swing) are less expensive to service than those that support both swing and tilt. These older cameras can be used with the older style, four-blade compendium lenshoods, which are the best of any that I’ve seen. And, all of this came at a price that was less than $300.

The one feature I miss on the older style camera is geared rise/fall. So, I decided to customize this camera by swapping the Type A rear format frame for my Metric, rear geared rise 4x5 format frame. You may be aware that the older and newer style format frames accept different bellows frames, so the “customization” was a matter of swapping the two types of frames on one end of a leather, pleated bag bellows that I purchased from Ari a while ago. When rise is needed, I can use two hands to raise the front to a level that’s somewhat greater than needed, and while composing the image, I can fine tune the rise with a single knob on the Metric rear. Sweet!

It got better. Not long ago, I purchased an Oschwald era accordion extension bellows for very little ($60?) that serendipitously fits both the Metric rear format frame and the Type A front format frame. (See 3rd photo.) So, camera complete.

Joel Dau (Adam’s brother) at S.K. Grimes did the work on the pleated bag bellows. It required more than removing one frame and gluing on another, so S.K. Grimes expertise was indeed needed. For the bellows to fit the Metric rear frame properly, a special intermediate, spacing frame had to be fabricated. I was also delighted that Joel took the time to replace the seals on one end of the bellows. I'm very pleased with the results of this customization.

**Bertha DeCool** · 25-May-2021, 19:54

Nothing so complex but they recently made me a slip-on 100mm filter holder for a 36cm Nicola Persheid (10-stop ND, YES!), and have done a couple of other jobs as well.
They do outstanding work and have been very helpful helping me work out solutions to my needs, ie they're very patient.
It's great to have such a resource available, luckily for me less than an hour away. Real craftsmen are a pleasure to work with.