4x5 Graflok to 8x10 Increasing Back?

Horseman made a 6x9 Graflok to 4x5 increasing back which I have and find very useful. Does anyone know of a 4x5 Graflok to 8x10 increasing back (made by any company)?

The field camera with the largest range of manufacturer-supplied format-change backs that I'm aware of is the Rittreck View. The native format is 5x7, but Musashino-later-Wista offered 6x9 and 4x5 reducing backs as well as WP, 6x10 and 8x10 expansion backs.

The geometry of expansion backs on field cameras always imposes limitations, sometimes severe, on the range of usable focal lengths and focus distances. Jumping from 4x5-native to 8x10 is a very big leap, and I've never seen such a back offered commercially. Not that it's necessarily physically impossible to find some combination of focal length and back design that would work, but the scope of utility is going to be pretty limited.

Of course now that I've said that, somebody will come up with an example...

Completely different story with system monorail cameras, where you change the rear standard as well as the bellows to go to a larger format.

IIRC we had a discussion about extension back geometry many, many moons ago, when you were doing some ULF tinkering...

6x9 cm is 108mm diagonal. 4x5 inch is 162mm. 8x10 inch is 325mm.

That's a huge jump. It would virtually be a second camera mounted to the back of the 4x5.

I think there were some Japanese cameras that could do whole plate (6¼ x 8¼ inch) that could be enlarged to 8x10 and reduced to 4x5, but don't quote me.

Cant see how you could effectively with out using some 8x10 bellows. Other wise you'll be getting quite a bit of vignette.
Maybe for a very wide lens you could marry the two.
Be more feasible with a 5x7 or a half plate camera.

grat said:

6x9 cm is 108mm diagonal. 4x5 inch is 162mm. 8x10 inch is 325mm.

That's a huge jump. It would virtually be a second camera mounted to the back of the 4x5.

I think there were some Japanese cameras that could do whole plate (6¼ x 8¼ inch) that could be enlarged to 8x10 and reduced to 4x5, but don't quote me.

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Wouldn't be hard to make a 8x10 film holder to fit to large plate camera. If I ever come across a cheap one I will do just that. Would love a light field 8x10.

Sorry, I left out a lot of context. I understanding the jump in size from 4x5 to 8x10 and the issues it would present. I build a lot of experimental cameras and equipment and my intention, if something very similar to the Horseman back existed, would have been to scavenge it for parts for a project. I mentioned the Horseman 6x9 to 4x5 because I have one and looking at it, if it were scaled up to 8x10, with some modification and additional fabrication it would work very well as a component of another expansion back project I’ve been working on and which I’m re-building because I wasn’t satisfied with my initial design (a 6x10 expansion for 4x5).

Oren Grad said:

IIRC we had a discussion about extension back geometry many, many moons ago, when you were doing some ULF tinkering...

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Yep, I remember that. Indeed many moons. I think I was making an 8x10 to 11x14 expansion before I had my 11x14 Deardorff. You have a good memory, Oren!

Thanks everyone for the replies. Since it doesn’t sound like this exists, I may just end up fabricating a scaled up version of the parts I need modeled after the Horseman back. Or, I may just keep something more similar to my original design. Anyway, thanks for the replies.

Fragomeni said:

Sorry, I left out a lot of context. I understanding the jump in size from 4x5 to 8x10 and the issues it would present. I build a lot of experimental cameras and equipment and my intention, if something very similar to the Horseman back existed, would have been to scavenge it for parts for a project. I mentioned the Horseman 6x9 to 4x5 because I have one and looking at it, if it were scaled up to 8x10, with some modification and additional fabrication it would work very well as a component of another expansion back project I’ve been working on and which I’m re-building because I wasn’t satisfied with my initial design (a 6x10 expansion for 4x5).




Yep, I remember that. Indeed many moons. I think I was making an 8x10 to 11x14 expansion before I had my 11x14 Deardorff. You have a good memory, Oren!

Thanks everyone for the replies. Since it doesn’t sound like this exists, I may just end up fabricating a scaled up version of the parts I need modeled after the Horseman back. Or, I may just keep something more similar to my original design. Anyway, thanks for the replies.

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Great work on the 6x10, love it when people make their own stuff.. Not quite sure how it collapses and remains light proof when assembled. Wouldn't of been just as easy to use concertinaing bellows with some support struts?
Please post up details of your expansion to 8x10. I would be very interested.

It seems more logical to start with an 8x10 camera and attach most of a 4x5 camera to its front. However, if you go that route, just use the 8x10!

In the Horseman system, remove and replace the 4x5 rear standard with the 8x10 rear standard. It would be somewhat limiting to keep the 4x5 standard on there when using the 8x10 back.

Fragomeni said:

Horseman made a 6x9 Graflok to 4x5 increasing back which I have and find very useful. Does anyone know of a 4x5 Graflok to 8x10 increasing back (made by any company)?

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toyo makes modular systems
they might have what you are looking for...

Fragomeni said:

I mentioned the Horseman 6x9 to 4x5 because I have one and looking at it, if it were scaled up to 8x10, with some modification and additional fabrication it would work very well as a component of another expansion back project I’ve been working on and which I’m re-building because I wasn’t satisfied with my initial design (a 6x10 expansion for 4x5).... Since it doesn’t sound like this exists, I may just end up fabricating a scaled up version of the parts I need modeled after the Horseman back. Or, I may just keep something more similar to my original design.

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Thinking a bit more about what you're looking for, another expander back comes to mind. Unlike the Rittreck WP, 6x10 and 8x10 expander backs, which are all rigid cones, the Toyo WP expander back for the Toyo half-plate metal field camera includes its own rails and bellows. You can see some pictures of it at the Glennview website - go to this page...

http://www.glennview.com/vcam.htm

...search for "Toyo", and then scroll down a bit further. Overall, it's a bit less than halfway down that extremely long web page.

As far as 8x10 goes, I have eyed on ePay some Japanese whole-plate (6.5" x 8.5") to 8x10 expander backs, because I love whole plate, but as I don't have the particular Japanese whole plate outfit that they work with, the high cost (~450 bucks last I looked) keeps me away.

Memory serves (and Nokton48 might be able to back me up), Plaubel had a system where you could mount your (6cm x 9cm) Makina on a Peco rail system to make exposures on 4x5 film, using the Makina shutter and larger, longer lenses that threaded to the Makina front standard.

awty said:

Great work on the 6x10, love it when people make their own stuff.. Not quite sure how it collapses and remains light proof when assembled. Wouldn't of been just as easy to use concertinaing bellows with some support struts?
Please post up details of your expansion to 8x10. I would be very interested.

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Thank you! Here's a post about it over on the LF forum. Some of that conversation speaks to the design, how it collapses, and light proofing. I've since removed the two side walls (leaving the top and bottom) and will replace those with folding cloth instead of solid walls because there was a binding issue when setting it up. It didn't present any real problem but I just did't like it so revising it. Light tightness was achieved by having flaps at the edges that fell into place when in the open position. I'll probably use something similar with the revision will take more pictures when I make some progress since folks seem interested in that. And yes, initially I planned to just use a bellows and strut support but none of the extra bellows I had on hand would fit and I wanted to just see where it went with what I had on hand. Much of what I work on is impromptu. Thats part of the fun for me.

Jim Jones said:

It seems more logical to start with an 8x10 camera and attach most of a 4x5 camera to its front. However, if you go that route, just use the 8x10!

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My adventures are rarely born from logic. Plus, this camera (4x5 Special) is a fraction of the weight of an 8x10 Deardorff. I do have one and decided that this project would be specifically to expand the back of the 4x5 because the end result is much lighter and much more travel friendly. Just using the 8x10 with a cut dark slide would have gotten to 6x10 much faster but again, logic and practicality were not the goal here. I enjoy making things just to make them much of the time.

jnantz said:

toyo makes modular systems
they might have what you are looking for...

Click to expand...

Oren Grad said:

...the Toyo WP expander back for the Toyo half-plate metal field camera includes its own rails and bellows. You can see some pictures of it at the Glennview website - go to this page...
http://www.glennview.com/vcam.htm
...search for "Toyo", and then scroll down a bit further. Overall, it's a bit less than halfway down that extremely long web page.

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John and Oren nailed the solution for me here. The Toyo expander is pretty much exactly what I was hoping to find. Its essentially exactly the same as the smaller Horseman piece that I referenced. Luck would have it that I just found one so it's on its way to me now. It's in rough shape and I'll probably have to remake the bellows so it'l be a bit before I know how well it works for this specific use case. Thanks for directing me this way. Exactly what I was looking for.

As it happens one of these came up on Ebay, a Nagaoka View Glass, seller says the ground glass is 15x24.6cm, which sounds weird?

awty said:

As it happens one of these came up on Ebay, a Nagaoka View Glass, seller says the ground glass is 15x24.6cm, which sounds weird?

View attachment 280356

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Yes, I saw this one. Very weird size indeed. The design (and color) are nearly identical to the Rittreck that I found and used for parts/ scavenged the 6x10 spring back from. That one only appears to be half of the adapter though, or attaches to a larger camera (5x7?). The Rittreck was a two-part adapter — a part connecting to the back of a 4x5 and then the 6x10 spacer and spring back attaching to that. They designed it this way because there were multiple spacer/spring backs of differing sizes that could be used.

Fragomeni said:

Yes, I saw this one. Very weird size indeed. The design (and color) are nearly identical to the Rittreck that I found and used for parts/ scavenged the 6x10 spring back from. That one only appears to be half of the adapter though, or attaches to a larger camera (5x7?). The Rittreck was a two-part adapter — a part connecting to the back of a 4x5 and then the 6x10 spacer and spring back attaching to that. They designed it this way because there were multiple spacer/spring backs of differing sizes that could be used.

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I'll do a bit of butchering and get it to fit my half plate, which has a window of 160mm square, then convert to take 8x10 film holder and see if that is successful in not giving a vignette. If that doesn't work I can still use the mechanism and make something that does, like I did to take 4x5 holder.

Well it's taken me a while to get back around to this but today I completed V2 of my 6x10 expansion back project with the Toyo accessory back that Oren pointed me to. It worked out perfectly and is pretty much exactly what I wanted. I deconstructed the first version of the back that I'd made to salvage everything that would still be useful. After tearing down the Toyo back and figuring out what I'd use, I was left with the base, rails and the bottom plates that the rear standard attached to. The bellows were totally shot so I had a custom set made to fit the specs of my 6x10 back and the adapter I made to attach it to the rear standard of the Deardorff. That bellows also happens to match the replacement bellows I'd just installed on the Deardorff (same bellows supplier) so it's a nice clean seamless look. I build everything as I go by feel rather than using plans so it took a bit of trial and error but in the end it all came together. Bellow are some photos of the completed back on the camera:

Blog post with a few more photos.