Does anyone know whether the Ground Glass / Fresnel "sandwich" on the Toyo 45AX uses the same spacers shown in the attached installation instructions for the 45C,D,E... models?
I ask because back in March I bought a used 45AX (from the auction site), that someone had replaced the GG and Fresnel combo with a plain third-party GG. The original Toyo GG and Fresnel lens were also included with the camera. However, neither the spacers nor the clips shown in the attached pdf were included. But I don't know if those items are part of the 45AX installation or just the 45C,D... installation. Right after I got the camera, I emailed Toyo explaining I just purchased a used 45AX and asked about the installation order of the GG and Fresnel (I had searched enough here and elsewhere to know the order was important, but I found conflicting info on the proper order). The attached pdf for these other models is what they sent me - not one for the 45AX. Anyway, I wanted the brightest screen possible so I put the original GG/Fresnel back in the order shown in the pdf, without spacers. At the time I didn't think anymore about the spacers.
I am now concerned whether spacers are needed because I have finally shot my first images with the camera with Fuji FP100-C45 instant film, and none of them seem very sharp. I also shot some with Velvia 100, but I haven't gotten those processed yet. A recent thread over in Darkroom: Film, Processing and Printing questioned whether images shot with FP100 are inherently "soft", but the consensus seems to be that is not the case (i.e. FP100 should not be soft). I am pretty sure my focus on the GG was good (but I am a newbie at LF, so...). But if the spacers should be there and they are not, then obviously the plane of the GG is not where it is supposed to be relative to the film plane.
Thanks for any insight.
Bob
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