For Sale 5x7 Press Graflex

[illumiquest]

Selling a beat up 5x7 Press Graflex. The exterior has quite a bit of wear, peeling leather, scuffs, nicks, bruises etc. The handle is broken on one end.

The mechanics actually seem surprisingly good, the mirror goes up nicely, both focusing screens look good, the SLR one could use a dusting. The shutter looks good and functions well, I have no way of checking speeds so that's anyones guess on accuracy.

The lens is an 8-1/2" f/4.5 Kodak, some cleaning marks, aperture moves smoothly.

$250 OBO

 

[Thomas Bertilsson]

I have wanted one of these cameras for eons... Just to be able to use a 5x7 SLR.

I'm not in a position to purchase it, but hope that somebody will snap this up. What a sweet camera.

 

[Old-N-Feeble]

Interested in any trades?

 

[removed account4]

hi illumiquest ,

any bagmags included or in the wings for this beautiful camera ?
like thomas, i have wanted one of these for as long as i knew they existed !

john

 

[illumiquest]

Hi John, unfortunately I don't have any holders for this.

Old, at the moment my only bee in bonnet is a 6x17 or 6x12 camera or back to make a camera out of.

 

[Old-N-Feeble]

I've got a 6x18cm torpedo cam that's already modified and several torpedo backs plus maybe three unmodified bodies and parts needed to make focusing screens. I don't yet know about swapping values but I'll check if there's any interest.

 

[Hugo Zhang]

What the size of lens board? Thanks.

 

[Old-N-Feeble]

Torpedo cameras don't come with lens boards but one could adapt them to use boards. Robbing the front bit from a 3x4 Graflex parts camera should do nicely. The flat part of the front is 97x113mm and the factory hole size is 89mm. These have no bellows but one could add bellows or just use a focusing helicoid which I also have for sale/trade. Taking the latter route would necessitate the use of a lens of 135mm+ unless it's a bit recessed into the body. The rigid bodies are 127mm deep from the outermost front to the film plane so if you want to shoot with lenses wider than approximately 125mm using one of these bodies then you'll need to adapt a recessed lens board. I have the perfect recessed board for this... if mounted inside the body will give you an extra 40mm of depth for a net minimum depth of about 87mm. You should be able to use a 90mm at infinity with that combination. Using a 90mm lens on this film format is similar to using a 20mm lens on a 135 format camera... speaking strictly of length of the diagonal.

These torpedo backs are a bit wider than typical 6x17cm... being 5.7x18.6cm. Any lens with 195mm or greater coverage will fill the film corner-to-corner. The recessed lens board I mentioned above is large enough that I can still see the side aperture scale of a 90mm SA but you might need a mini flashlight in some lighting conditions. It's also large enough that I can get my fat fingers in to adjust the lens. BTW, I have a nearly mint late model 90 SA for sale too.

One thing about these gov-surp torpedo cams is that they have several bits on the body that are unused for typical photographic use and those pieces aren't very pretty. It's best to have those machined off. It's a simple process so it shouldn't cost much especially if you have a friend who works at a machine shop. Once cleaned up these make very fine-looking cameras.

 

[Maxsame]

Press Graflex Sold?

I wonder if you still have the camera?

 

[Andrew K]

I have one and love it - it's a bargain at the price!

 

[BentleyR]

Is this Graflex still for sale?