35mm view camera

darinwc

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RE: the 35mm "view camera".. there was also the spiraton bellow master. It was also marketed under the name samigon.
These are not easy to find but they do come up fairly regularly on ebay.
Here's a link.

I have also made a 35mm back for my 4x5 Zone VI view camera. It was easy to glue an extention ring to a wood board that would replace the back. You could probably make one for a graflock back as well. I use it strictly for testing lenses.

If you just want to adapt various lenses, a close-up bellows is probably the way to go. Some, like the nikons did have a few movements.

Really though, they are not very practical. There is too much bulk in the view camera design to scale down to 35mm sizes. Even 2x3 can be tough to work with.

If you want precise movements in a focal length shorter than 100mm, it is impractical without a dedicated tilt/shift lens.
If you dont mind imprecise movements then a lensbaby is the way to go. I've seen some excellent work done with a DIY lensbaby type equipment. Check out this guys work: JohnnyOptic. (All digital though)
 

David A. Goldfarb

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Along the same lines, there are EOS and Nikon mount adapters for Graflok type backs. Realistically, it's hard to go wider than around 90mm with these things, so they're mainly for tabletop use, and movements are limited by mechanical vignetting from the adapter tube, though they are adequate for many purposes.
 

Dan Fromm

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Darin, that bellows is made by HAMA, they turn up from time to time on eBay.de. Charlie Barringer had one and I got to play with it. Like the Ilford KI Monobar, not very useful with short lenses. This because of long minimum flange-to-film distance and non-existence of usefully short (for 24x36) lenses that cover more than 43 mm.

Catman, Jim Galvin's view cameras are somewhat more rustic (put more nicely, artisanal) than equivalent cameras from, e.g., Cambo, Linhof, and Plaubel. Much less expensive new than the Europeans, also not as nice. Years ago when I contemplated moving up to 2x3 I thought hard about a Galvin. Its best feature is a really super bail back that accepts, e.g., Graflex roll holders. Not to denigrate Jim, but the Monobar is much better made, also much more expensive. Yes, I've touched one, didn't see why I should covet it. But a lovely artifact.
 

Mainecoonmaniac

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So true

benjiboy said:
Lensbaby , eat you're heart out.
Click to expand...

I bought a LensBaby thinking it would be like a view camera but it was a total disappointment I'm putting it on eBay.
 

2F/2F

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If you could put a 6x4.5 medium format lens (with an M-A switch set to M) on a deeply recessed board, and put a Kodak Recomar 35mm back on the rear standard, it might work. The recessed boards would give you infinity focus and some movements.

One great thing about a Recomar back is that it has a properly sized (i.e. humorously *tiny*) and positioned ground glass built in to the back, so you do not have to perform any fabrication and calibration in that area. No marking the correctly-sized-and-positioned 35mm frame edges on the 4x5 G.G., no calibrating your film plane to the G.G., and no swapping the G.G. for your film back before shooting. All you have to do is to mount the Recomar back plate onto a fabricated adapter board that you attach to the rear standard in place of the 4x5 G.G. This is easy as pie on a SINAR and some other cameras, since the front and rear standards share the same openings and hardware for attaching bellows, backs, lens boards, etc. You could just use a lens board for your adapter plate on these cameras.

Recomar backs came in at least two varieties: Bantam (828 format) and Kodachrome (135 format). I have one of each, but have not got around to adapting them to my SINAR yet. The Bantam back I got by accident (hence I learned what Bantam was ). I have considered cannibalizing it for some parts, since it is practically useless, but in better condition than the 135 one I ended up getting.
 
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Dan Fromm

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2f, which 645 system are you thinking of? I ask because as I understand the backs you're talking about they have no shutter. This rules out lenses for 645 systems that have focal plane shutters. And adapting a lens meant to be cocked and fired from the body, as in 645 systems with between-the-lens leaf shutters isn't easy.

Not 645, but I've done the second with a lens for the Koni Omega, had to put the cells in a new shutter. This was the only way to use the lens on a 2x3 Graphic. Its native shutter is made to be released from the body and doesn't have a cable release socket or a T setting so focusing through the lens is painful.

One of the problems with adapting lenses for MF cameras to a press or view camera is that the lenses' mounts are made to give infinity focus on the body the lens is intended for. With them the view camera's minimum flange-to-film distance can be, um, limiting, especially when the film holder is deep.

Another, if one wants to cobble up a 35 mm view camera, is that there are very few rectilinear wide angle lenses for MF cameras that are interestingly short. 35 mm, which is as short as most of them go, isn't much shorter than 43 mm, which is normal for 24x36.
 

2F/2F

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Hi, Dan.

You could hand shutter or use a SINAR DB shutter mounted on the rear standard. 645 lenses were just an example, though. You could put a medium format lens with a leaf shutter on there and be better off; you are correct. Mamiya has some LS lenses as does Pentax. Of course, Hassy lenses would work, but they are more spendy. There is work to be done to get LS lenses able to be cocked and fired, but it couldn't be too hard. People here have done it with RB lenses, for example. The recessed board would give you some more wiggle room with movements.
 
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Mainecoonmaniac

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How about coverage?

darinwc said:
RE: the 35mm "view camera".. there was also the spiraton bellow master. It was also marketed under the name samigon.
These are not easy to find but they do come up fairly regularly on ebay.
Here's a link.
Click to expand...

This is a cool piece of gear. I'm wondering of most 35mm lenses is going to give enough coverage when you start a tilting and swinging :confused:
 

Dan Fromm

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Oy! Have you done it? If you haven't, study the problem a little, and I don't think you'll be so airy about doing it.

I have done it. The only way is to reshutter the cells. The seemingly obvious exceptions, folders with lenses in shutter that are actually mounted on lens boards, all have lenses much longer than normal for 35 mm. I use some of them on my little Graphics and Cambo too.

Don't be so dismissive of minimum flange-to-film issues and the dearth of MF lenses that are short enough to be interestingly wide on 35 mm. My two shortest (35 Apo Grandagon, 38 Biogon) are not very wide for 35 mm.
 

fstop

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35mm

I saw one in one of the model railroad mags back in the 90s, had drawings of the parts they made to build it.
 

fstop

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Well I found my copy of the magazine. There is a fair amount of machining involved, if you don't have a lathe and a mill you won't be able to build it.
 

aoresteen

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I tried to track down a Kennedy Monobar in the 90's. Gave up. Around 2004 I got the bug again for a small view camera and eneded up with a Cambo 23SF 6x9 view. Much more usefull!

What I would like is a 35mm back that would yield 24x65mm negs that I could use with my Cambo 23SF.
 

Dan Fromm

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Dan Fromm

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Tony, just sacrifice a lens board and an extension tube in your preferred 35 mm SLR's mount and you'll be able to attach the 35 mm SLR of your choice to y'r 2x3 SF. Nothing wrong with the idea except an inability to use short lenses and possible vignetting with movements.

I have most of the bits needed to use my 2x3 SC with lenses up to 900 mm (that's the longest I have) and with a 2x3 Graflex SLR module at the rear, have wondered about hanging a Nikon on the back instead of the Graflex. Basically a dumb idea, but with no movements and a good long lens will economize on film ...
 

darinwc

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You also have to consider the.difficulty in focussing on AA postage stamp sized ground glass. How are you going to get the corners sharp ?
Or if you are using a slr as a body , you will be limited in your front movements. This is because film is located in the back.of the camera.
 

fstop

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Only 3500? I'll take 2.

Saw a couple Fujifilm GX680 III over there.
 
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