Here is a tip. When you remove the lens cap to make an exposure without a shutter, if you remove the lens cap in a downward direction, replace it from above. That is more like a focal plane shutter’s motion so that the film receives a more even exposure.
I tried this once with a Toyo 4x5 years ago. I took two Copal shutters with Yashinon 80mm lenses from two junk Yashica TLR's and mounted them on a homemade plywood lens board. I was experimenting with stereo. It never worked out. My only observation was you usually use a light machine oil to lubricate the tap when cutting threads. An interesting DIY video. Thanks
Mat, thanks for this video! I had a bought a lens (on ebay) that was mounted on an Speed Graphlic lens board for my new Intrepid 4x5 camera. No problem I thought, just move it to the Intrepid lens board. When I tried to do this the retaining ring would not budge! I froze it, I heated it, I used correct tools and a vise, I tapped it with a hammer. Did not budge! After 3 days I was afraid I was going to ruin my new lens before I even got to use it. Decided a DIY solutions was best. So I mounted a lens permanently attached to the wrong lens board to an Intrepid lens board. Can share this if anyone else who has had a similar problem.
Thanks for sharing your DIY solution Eric, glad it worked out and you were able to get it onto a lens board that worked! I'd like to see it if possible.
@@MatMarrash Thanks! Here's a couple of photos, front and back. I sandwiched quality plywood, painted black of course, between the two lens boards. share.icloud.com/photos/0EjdN2bMeWOxs66HYyVSQGsqQ
😝 few Engineering tips from an Engineer - Don't use a tap as a centre punch if will probably snap! A little oil on tap will help it cut cleanly, Cone hole slightly with screw size drill with finger tips before tapping. Otherwise 👏 good effort and LENS!
Stuart I'm sure there was plenty in the video that left you cringing and I appreciate the helpful tips! I did forget to mention the use of cutting oil on the tap and the hole saw.
Thanks for the comment, when I was doing research for the DIY the lathe and chuck were mentioned quite a lot and it was making me lose hope. Then buried in some old forum comments I found one poster that had reported good luck with some simple materials and thought I'd give it a shot. Maybe one of these days I'll find an excuse to buy some more tools I probably won't use often. ;)
Consider sometime trying a modern lens, with the front element group removed. When you haven't got a wonderful old lens like you use here, the uncorrected aberrations can give a beautiful soft glowy look.
Even if your Sinar seems strong enough, I wouldn't recommend taxing either your or my Sinar to hold up that size lens. That monster lens was probably meant to be used on something like an 11x14 Deardorf studio portrait camera that looks sort like a smallish process camera. Though the lens' center of balance may be lined up with the lens board, you still might wear out the softer parts like the hard rubber/plastic parts that grip the rail or the finer focusing rack on the front standard, especially if you tilt the camera. Additionally, the rail extension itself shoulders some of the weight/stress. Might as well hang a twenty pound sand bag from the front standard while you're at it. :) Sinars are great cameras, but they're not indestructible.
I would love to fit my Cooke portrait lens onto my 8x10 deardorff, however the lens board for the deardorff is a 6x6 and the barrel diameter of the lens is almost 7". Even if it was possible I think the 10lbs lens would probably tip the deardorff onto the ground :)
Thanks for the comment Teng, I've seen some crazy adapters out there but I'm always nervous about using them on something like a folding field camera. Even a rigid one like a Deardorff would get shaky with such an imbalanced load.
Matt, if you go to the camera eccentric web page, there is a whole 24 page booklet on the graf and how to use it. It is not as easy to focus as you might think, good luck
Has to be one of the best LF series/ videos out there.That lens makes the photos look right out of a 50s magazine or something, Im digging the DIY type stuff like this. Also, how satisfying is it to slide in that giant 8x10 film holder?
Many thanks Nick! The Sinar gives a very satisfying "snap" once the film holder is in place, and second only to an Arca-Swiss for that smooth operation. ;)
Thank you so much for this tutorial! It helped out so much and saved me a lot of time and money. It worked like a charm!!! Super excited to try my new/very old lens out!!!
An interesting one this episode, for some reason I hadn't viewed it until now. Got the same problem with a 24" lens but the diameter of the lens is bigger than the lens board so will have to rethink this one. Got myself a few bits and pieces together from parts of LF cameras and will have a go at putting some kind of Frankenstein camera together.
Thanks for the comment Jonathan! I've seen a few adapters out there for lenses larger than the board size, but not much larger or else you'll need a separate lens support. If you're using a monorail like a Sinar, another option would be to add an "intermediate" standard to act a s a lens support that could frame up a larger lens.
Just mounted a Konica Hexagon GRII 300 mm F9 on a spare Toyo45c lensboard. Now I have to figure out what I'm going to do with this shutterless behemoth. It has such a large image circle since it seems to be a process camera lens, I have to figure out what the f-stop is when on a 4x5. This should be fun.
Hey Mark, you're working with a very sharp 300mm process lens there! Unless mounting the lens has cutoff some of the lens opening, it should still be an f/9 lens when focused to infinity on 4x5. Depending on how close you plan on focusing that lens, you may need a lot of bellows for a 4x5 camera (monorails should be fine).
@@MatMarrash thanks Mat I used a similar lens on a copy camera in the cartography lab in college. Back in the dark ages when mastodons roamed the earth and the crust was still warm!
Cool video Mat. The expression Monster Lens should have made it to the title to bait some newbies into LF 🙂 Looks like you might have about $100 of tools to get that board drilled and it seemed a vertical drill would have made your life easier.
Thanks Nico! Funny enough I've got a vertical drill and due to the large amount of board being cut off and lack of variable speeds, the hand drill worked fine. Plus, I wouldn't be doing any of this if I was trying to make life easier. ;)
Maybe you could try an in camera cyanotype with this lens because it's fast it will take the whole day tho but then you will have some spooky uv images
Hi and thanks for the comment. This is an old lens from an American manufacturer, hence the lack of metric measurement. To convert to mm, multiply the inches by 25.4.
It's all based on the angle of view and bellows draw. Sag is intensified with longer bellows extensions, but easily corrected with a small amount of support. Droopy bellows can sometimes be hard to see on the ground glass because it's out of focus, and will appear at the bottom of the upside-down frame.
Mat, Do you have any advice on focusing soft focus portrait lenses? I have a pair of Veritos (14.5 in. & 18 in.) that drive me crazy trying to find focus. I end up stopping them down to f/11 or so to get some sharpness and then opening them back up for the shot.
Hey Joby, thanks for the question! Even on the "soft" mode, I've found the Graf to be easier to focus than something like a Verito. My best recommendation is to have something on hand with a sharp edge and a specular highlight like a metal ruler to gauge what's in "sharp" focus. That way you can rack in and out of focus to see what it looks like when wide open.
Thanks for the comment! When I did the color RA-4 shots near the end of the video I had front-mounted the Sinar shutter since it could hold my filter pack and achieve faster shutter speeds. It modifies the wide open apertures to f/5.6 @ 16" and f/6.3 @ 18", still not too bad for portrait work!
Thanks for the question! While you certainly could mount a Hasselblad lens, one reason it may not be desirable is the lens image circle. Hasselblad lenses will not cast a ride enough image circle to illuminate an entire 4x5" frame. One might be okay for something slightly larger than 6x6, but not by much.
I think you have to adjust your I think you have to adjust your Mississippi seconds.... really no 2 seconds just nearly 4 seconds ....seconds.... really no 2 seconds rather nearly 4 seconds .... I wondered myself how counting seconds depended on my daily form and I could no longer understand the results. So now I have a manual stopwatch.
this is amazing. I have a 914mm f8 glock and howell aero lens, which is also quite huge. I sadly cant add pictures, but my lens doesnt have any screwmounts. So a friend of my father just did a little thing for me. It is now sitting happily in my Ulf photo and video camera. If you want to see the the mount you can dot that on my instagram @schafer.leon
Mat Marrash Thank you alot, it is so amazing that you interact with people, i really appreciate that. I hope you as a human also get a bit time off here. Please never feel the need to answer my comments. Just be kind to yourself and keep on doing stuff you like
