Idiot question: What's a flange, why is it important?

[sully75]

Is it the thing that you screw the lens into so it sits on the lensboard?

Thanks
Paul

[Dan Fromm]

http://www.skgrimes.com/adapter/index.htm

[Sirius Glass]

Yes, Paul and without it, it is hard to mount a lens on a lens board in a reliable and yet removable manner without damaging the lens.

Steve

[Louis Pacilla]

Hi Paul

It can drive the asking price way down if missing. Particularly on Large lenses. The bigger the lens the harder to mount without a flange. To have a large flange made can run $200-$400 & that's if you can find a small local machine shop that can cut & thread a large flange. So always try & get a flange with big lenses.

Peace
Louis

[Sirius Glass]

Adding to what Louis said, some flanges are easy to find, but the flanges that were not popular can become downright impossible to find. I have two enlarger lenses that have a popular "standard" thread and if I need to I would have not problem finding a flange to work. The third lens although fairly new, is really hard to find a flange that works. I was lucky that it had the flange, which did not have much contact area and was in fair shape, but it was still attached. So I did not have a problem.

If you found a lens that you wanted to use on one of your LF cameras, do you think another photographer would sell the only flange he had from one of his lenses?

Steve

[Jim Galli]

It's not important, and I've got half a dozen lenses to sell you.

[RichardRitter]

There are ways of mounting a lens with out a flange. I have seem then all.
1. Epoxy two types the liquid that will glue the aperture ring fast. Or the paste type your can get the lens to stick to the board and work. Will make removing a bit hard.

2. If the board is metal just get the soldering gun and soldered the shutter to the board.

3. duck tape.

4. Electric tape not as good.

5. Just put the shutter through the hole in the board and warp wire around it.

6. Chewing gun.

[Nathan Smith]

One more that I like: hot glue - you can remove it without harming the lens or threads later

But I think it's probably best if the lens is already pretty secure - like threaded into the wood of a tight board.

There are ways of mounting a lens with out a flange. I have seem then all.
1. Epoxy two types the liquid that will glue the aperture ring fast. Or the paste type your can get the lens to stick to the board and work. Will make removing a bit hard.

2. If the board is metal just get the soldering gun and soldered the shutter to the board.

3. duck tape.

4. Electric tape not as good.

5. Just put the shutter through the hole in the board and warp wire around it.

6. Chewing gun.

[Kevin Crisp]

On thicker metal lens boards like Canham's you can thread the hole in the board, avoiding a retaining ring or flange.

[rjmeyer314]

I have managed to mount several lenses to homemade wooden lensboards without a flange. The trick is in adjusting a "fly cutter", an adjustable hole drill, to cut just the right size hole so that the threads on the lens will grab the wood. It's a good idea to have a lot of scrap wood because it's usually necessary to try several times before you get it just right.