Digital Camera Adapters?

[J. Cole]

Hi Everyone, I'm new to LF and still acquiring my gear but in the process I have come across some adapters that I'm sure all of you have seen. These are the adapters that allow you to connect a digital SLR to a 4x5 LF camera. One is stationary with the digital mounted in the center of the board and the other allows the digital to slide in a straight line presumably either vertically or horizontally. However, it seems to me that even with a full frame sensor, which I have, only the center of the image would be captured with the stationary adapter and only a panorama of the center of the image would be captured with the sliding adapter. Is that a correct assessment? If any of you have used these adapters please let me know your experiences. It would be fun to use my digicam but it seems counter intuitive for the LF concept and counter productive to through away most of the benefit of the large 4x5 image. Sorry for such a long question. Thanks, Jerry

[Joanna Carter]

Hi Everyone, I'm new to LF and still acquiring my gear but in the process I have come across some adapters that I'm sure all of you have seen. These are the adapters that allow you to connect a digital SLR to a 4x5 LF camera. One is stationary with the digital mounted in the center of the board and the other allows the digital to slide in a straight line presumably either vertically or horizontally. However, it seems to me that even with a full frame sensor, which I have, only the center of the image would be captured with the stationary adapter and only a panorama of the center of the image would be captured with the sliding adapter. Is that a correct assessment? If any of you have used these adapters please let me know your experiences. It would be fun to use my digicam but it seems counter intuitive for the LF concept and counter productive to through away most of the benefit of the large 4x5 image.

Personally, I can't see the benefit of such arrangements. As you rightly say, the image sensor is minute compared to the film area and the effective focal length of LF lenses is going to be around 3.6x that of a full frame sensor; so a 90 mm "wide angle" lens, becomes around 320mm!

[gevalia]

My DSLR has sat on the shelf since I bought my LF equipment. Sure I look at it and its expensive lenses but I let it rest. Attach it to the back of my LF? Why? You can put offroad tires on a Shelby Cobra but why would you? When all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail.

[Ron Marshall]

You would be better off with a gigapan, or doing the same thing manually, for digital capture, because top quality 35mm lenses have higher resolution than LF lenses. (Unless you require movements)

[Archphoto]

so a 90 mm "wide angle" lens, becomes around 320mm!

I don't agree with that: a 90mm stays a 90mm regardless of the size of the medium you are taking the picture with.

The aparent focal lengh recalcutated to a certain format changes, e.i. a 90mm is a wide angle for 4x5" , a standard for 6x7 and a medium tele for 35mm.

Putting a 35mm camera onto a TC: great for macro but otherwise nonsense.

Peter

[AF-ULF]

One manufacturer makes a view camera specifically designed to use a 35mm sized digital camera instead of film. It accepts both Canon and Nikon "backs." Sorry, I don't remember which manufacturer. I just remember seeing the adds for the camera. I think it used medium format lenses. The camera was very expensive as the small frame size requires very precise adjustment to the movements. That is the issue I see when talking about an adapter for a 4x5 camera. Does your current 4x5 allow for precise enough movements?

I guess viewing the effect of the movements is also a question. The small screen on the back of the digital camera probably isn't big enough to see the effect of the movements clearly. To use the zoom tool on the camera requires touching the camera, introducing another way to screw up the composition. Although, you could tether the camera to a computer for a bigger viewing area. That's okay for studio work, but it gets pretty unwieldy for location work.

[Brian Ellis]

Sounds like the worst of both worlds - the inconvenience of large format and the quality of digital. : - )

[Greg Lockrey]

If you want to use your DSLR you are better off acquiring a pano head like one from Really Right Stuff and stitching the work together from any of a number of programs out there. I happen to have one that has it's on bag bellows that is attached directly on the camera (either a Sinar or Horseman). Back in the day before good stitching programs this was the way to go with this sort of thing. But today's stitching programs are so good, you can practically hand hold your panos. My 2c.

[Derek Kennedy]

Ive seen on fleabay those adapters - but havent really looked into getting/using one.