shutter in front of the lens solutions

[Darryl Baird]

After diving into the LF + old barrel (soft and hard) lens craze I ended up with several really huge chunks of glass. In order to test these I quickly constructed (stiff) cardboard lensboards and got the lenses onto a Cambo 8x10. After testing them all and then buying another (Velostigmat with diffusion), I wanted to move forward to settling on a lens or two (or three!) into shutters. I got rather depressed to see the solutions required either a) several packard shutters (one for each lens?), b) a Sinar shutter adapted to the Cambo, c) big expense of finding shutters and having SK Grimes (or others) create adapters for shutters

Yesterday, remembering something I read here (somewhere) about mounting a shutter in front of a lens. I had another Cambo body with a matching monorail to my Legend and put an Ilex #5 shutter (on a board) onto another standard with a bag bellows attached to the backside. I put this entire standard in front of the "Velo" lens using the bellows as a makeshift compendium and used different shutter speeds to run an exposure test. I was able to use 1/2, 1/5, 1/10, and 1/25 without any problems... without the bag making a lightproof "lens-box." The Ilex shutter's hole barely covered the Velo's front diameter, but it's not big enough for my big Tessar or Apo-Nikkor (lenses I want to keep).

I suppose I could just get a new Packard #6 Synchro and fill all my needs, but I might want an even faster shutter speed. Does anyone else use this kludge fix to the barrel lens problem?

btw, I'm a recent graduate of the "patented" Galli shutter system, so this was a nice upgrade

[domenico Foschi]

Darryl,
there is another solution, which I use and it is fitting a 4x5 speed graphic rear part where there is the curtain to my Kodak 2d and then fitting homemade lensboard to the front.
It is slightly time consuming to do the project, but it is worth it because you can use that shutter to all your lenses and you can use 1000th of a second if you like shallow depth of field.
The problem is that is better to have an 8x10 with a large lensboard size and I am not sure if the cambo has it.

[erie patsellis]

Darryl,
I'm doing precisely the same as Domenico, it's not terribly hard, if you know which end of a screwdriver to hold and can get a little creative.


erie

[Darryl Baird]

thanks, that 1000th of a second is tempting...
I know little about speed graphic cameras, do they all have focal plane shutters? Are there particular versions to look for?

[Frank R]

Domenico and Erie: I would like to see pictures of your set up. I was thinking about doing this but using a 2x3 or 3x4 junker Speed for the parts. Smaller, lighter, but still a big enough aperture.

[Jim Jones]

Try http://www.graflex.org/ for information on the many models. In the used market the 3.25 X 4.25 models might be the best bargain because of the limited film available.