Thank you! Same old problem. I grab the camera to do a few quickie shots to show people when I put it on the for sale forum and then when I see the images . . . I don't want to let it go. My poor kids when I'm gone.
I just measure the width of the lens glass and the length from glass to plate and divide. This lens is always at f4 (unless I move up real close on something). So I just shoot for f4. Hence the old timey curtain shutter Graflex which can achieve good fast exposures out in the sunlight. This only needed the slowest possible setting. 1/10th sec. Thanks!
May I ask, what's the rough FL of the lens ? I'm getting a few elements together at the moment to put together a simple portrait lens (ALA Greene's primitive photography). Simple plastic meniscus arrived first so I had to throw it into a tube with a crudely cut cardboard stop to try it out by itself. The result: disappointingly free of aberration , even on 8x10. It was 333mm FL, 75mm in diameter, I stopped it down to roughly F/16. Falloff is to die for though.