Post Here OLD LF Camera Fails

[John Layton]

The very first camera I built was an 11x14...so many years ago that I'm sure it would now qualify as an "Old LF."

The camera consisted of several huge-to-large boxes, light-sealed with felt strips, which telescoped in and out for focus (any old boy scouts out there may remember the official boy scout collapsible drinking cup!). At any rate...the camera was so huge, heavy, and awkward that, despite my having been earlier convinced that this project had been a work of pure genius, I ended up using to make maybe five images.

But the true genius of this project lay in the camera's second life...those sliding boxes made excellent window boxes for a truly colorful display of flowers!

[abruzzi]

I've just bought a very fancy and expensive stereo camera in very nice shape. Had to rebuild the septum but that's not major. Playing with it on a tripod yesterday I'm beginning to suspect the two lenses focus at different distances even though they are the same lens (but not consecutive serial numbers.) Will check some more but this might be a major issue.


Kent in SD

Sounds like it might simulate my vision pretty well though….

[LabRat]

Being a "poor boy", most all of my cameras came to me with a secret past involving abuse, wear, or even "birth defects"... "Healing" them before we bond is a normal rite of passage...

The "patients" usually respond well to "therapy", and seem happy & ready to rock once "we" (them and me) get them straightened out... I learned to "listen" to their silent pleas and be the good doctor... ;-)

Steve K

[fotopfw]

Traded a Mamiya 645 for a Cambo 8x10". The bellows were made light tight with isolation tape. But worse, I got all kinds of weird partly unsharp images when I used tilt or swing. The thin rail (as in Cambo's) was the culprit, it was not straight, so the standards were not longer parallel. Not by a long shot. Saw that after many lost images, but then, it was my first LF camera.

[ethics_gradient]

My first time properly travelling with LF was in Vancouver (visiting a mate). He had to work during the week so I had a few days in the city with my 4x5 kit, including hiring a bicycle + child trailer to get a bit further afield. Towards the end of the trip, I left the changing bag unzipped and fogged basically every colour shot I took. How do I know for sure? Well, I paid a lab to develop it all too!

[NickL]

I started with a 4x5" Sanderson 'hand & stand'. The bellows were light tight but I kept getting part of the film obscured. It looked like the slide wasn't fully pulled, but I eventually figured that it was the bellows which were obscuring on one side. I need to remember to bunch the concertinas up towards the lens, or hook up those bits of cord (attached to each side of the bellows) onto the front standard.

I've mostly moved onto an old half-plate camera. An eBay purchase is mostly OK now after replacing the bellows & fitting a new blind to the roller shutter. The main failures are light leaks from joints in the mahogany DDS & vignetting from the shutter box, which I'm gradually chasing down. The camera must previously have been used with longer focal length lenses.

Nick

Vignetting & light leak examples (half plate (12x16cm) FOMA100):

[domaz]

I recently acquired an apparently homemade, but very well put together 6x12 camera that takes Mamiya Press lenses (has a lens mount and everything). I mounted a 50mm Mamiya lens that I had just CLA'd myself (involves a lot of disassembly because of the helicoid mount) on it and proceeded to test it out. The camera seemed to work great and be very easy to use but my focus was all off. I was struggling to understand how the focus could be so far off in a very wide angle lens for the format.. until I realized I had forgotten to put one of the lens elements back into the 50mm. The Mamiya 50mm lens in this mount has basically four separate pieces once disassembled and they are all needed apparently..

[Randy]

TC, how about a failure to fail?

My Folmer & Schwing 8X10 Commercial View, according to the S/N, was manufactured almost 100 years ago (1923-24). The bellows is a something like a rubber-coated cloth. There are no cracks, no loss of flexibility, no pinholes, now warn or abused corners. I have had the camera for probably 25 years - failure to fail.



ps - can anyone recommend a treatment - I would like the bellows to last another 100 years.