Question: 150mm lens on recess board?

[anchored]

Yesterday I purchased a ever-so-slightly used Linhoff Master Technika 4x5 which came with two lenses.... a 210mm Caltar II-N and a 150mm f5.6 Rodenstock Symnar. The 150mm is mounted on a deeply recessed Linhoff board (Copal 0).

Question is: What is the purpose of mounting a 150mm on a recessed board?

This board makes accessing or even seeing the lens settings very difficult for sure, and necessitates the use of Linhoff cable releases only due to the offset. I hope to replace this board with a flat board... but being new to LR cameras, want to be sure I'm not loosing something useful. This camera to be used explicitely for architectural, and landscapes...

Answer/Advice much appreciated!

Glenn

[Bill_1856]

You can close the front door with the lens in place.

[Jan Pedersen]

Hi Glenn and welcome to the LF world.
Not familiar with the Linhoff Technika but the reason for putting any lens on a recessed lens board is usually because the front standard can't get close enough to the rear to focus a lens at infinity. I doubt you would need a recessed board on a 150mm lens. One more reason to use a recessed board could be if you have a lens with a large rear cell and a small tapered bellows, this would limit movements a bit and moving the lens further back would help a little.
If you don't have any problems with those two issues get a flat lens board instead.

[Joerg Krusche]

Glenn,

.. whatever you have either a Schneider Symmar or a Rodenstock xxxnar .. with both on a flat lensboard you can close the 4x5 Technika, operation of levers on shutter is much easier on a flat board .. maybe the seller had just a recessed board.

Enjoy the lenses,

Joerg

[Michael Graves]

I have my 150 mounted on a recessed board. While it isn't necessary on my 4x5 Toyo, on the 5x7, I can't focus to infinity without the recessed board. And even on the 4x5 the additional bellows extension makes it a bit easier to work with front standard movements.

[Bob Salomon]

The 150 is mounted on a recessed board so the lens can remain on the camera when it is closed.

If you have the 150mm remounted onto the current recessed "Comfort" board from Linhof then all of the controls for the aperture setting and the press focus as well as the aperture scales would be on the front surface of the board. As you have an older board that is not the case.

[anchored]

A standard board has been purchased, as I have no desire to fold the camera with the lens attached.

Surely glad I've found this Forum!!! The pro shop I've been using for years has very little knowledge of things-LF, and the new camera is going to require a lot of research to get used to. Thanks to all for the information... I'm highly appreciative.

Glenn

[Bob Salomon]

A standard board has been purchased, as I have no desire to fold the camera with the lens attached.

Surely glad I've found this Forum!!! The pro shop I've been using for years has very little knowledge of things-LF, and the new camera is going to require a lot of research to get used to. Thanks to all for the information... I'm highly appreciative.

Glenn

Is the lens cammed?