Linhof Rangefinder Focussing Problem

[Pat Drury]

Recently discovered your forum, love it, now jumping in to ask a question, in the hopes one of you wonderful people can help me. Recently bought a Linhof Tech IV - everything was fine until I racked out the lens rail thingie to about an inch beyond the bed, then, clunk (sounded real bad) something was amiss below the rail. It seems to me on preliminary- in vestigation-not-daring-to-touch-anything that the rangefinder cam under the rail s has "come off" or something, anyway, the bed will not rack in and the camera c an't be put back unless I manually gently push this silver looking thing over. Is this normal? Seems to me I shouldn't have to do this every time I focus on infinity - the len s is a Linhof 150 btw, perhaps that has something to do with it?

I'm at a loss and wondering if anyone has any idea if I can rectify this, or if this is a 'Linhof" thing and something you learn to live with? I've used Graphics for a while now and love them, perhaps I should have stuck to that, but that Linhof looked like it couldn't live without me - hopefully you understand :-) Pat shandy@idirect.com

[tribby]

nothing is wrong Pat, your rangefinder won't help you focus very close, so as you extend your bellows like in a macro situation, you extend the rail past the cam and cam slides out of its track, which is really not a track just the inside portion of the bed rail, just be careful to help it re-seat as you return the front standard. Also be careful when dropping the bed with a short cam, if you don't pay attention to reseat the cam when it's over-extended it might flop up and pierce the bellows. I rarely use the rangefinder on my tech so I try to remember to remove the cams when i use the groundglass.