Are there standard lensboard sizes for old wood half-plate cameras?

iseolake · Jun 5, 2020

I have a Japanese wooden half-plate field view. The wooden lens board measures about 95mm (3.72-inch) wide and 103.2mm (4.06-inch) tall. (Illustration attached. Warning: not an analog image)

Is this any kind of a standard? Or did camera makers make up their own lens board dimensions?

More detail:
1. The camera is old, but it has a (probably) original spring back for "modern" film holders. The film holder would be a native half-plate size, because my 5x7 holder is too big to fit.
2. The lens board has a rebate towards the film.

Thanks!

John Koehrer · Jun 5, 2020

Standard sizes?
You sir, are an optimist. That's not a bad thing but if you can find a craftsman/hobbyist
that would be easier.

With that, I've made lens boards from plywood bought from hobby stores & cut to size. Measure what you have
both inside and outside thickness cut each to size and use wood glue hold them together.

Pioneer · Jun 5, 2020

Many, many different sizes, even among the same camera manufacturer sometimes.

Since you know the dimensions of the board you can check for one on EBay.

I have made my own, usually out of plywood as mentioned above, and I have bought them. However I do have some woodworking tools to help make them.

iseolake · Jun 6, 2020

John and Dan, thank you for your replies. You've answered my question. I knew there were many board types -- from looking at the SK Grimes site and others, but wondered if there were a board size common to at least some of the half-plate wooden cameras that were so popular in Japan among professional group portraitists in the early/mid 20th century, and that seem to have been copied from half-plate cameras used in England a bit earlier. Now that I know there is no standard, I won't feel so bad about irreversibly modifying the front standard of my camera to accept Linhof Technika style boards, which is what I use on my Toyo-View (via adapter). The Technika board is nearly the same size as the original half-plate camera board. The attached photo shows them together.

Ian Grant · Jun 6, 2020

That photo of a Linhof board indicates the size is very close to a Pre or Anniversary,Speed Graphic or MPP MicroTechnical MkIII to MVI lens board.

I have at least 6 half plate cameras and 3 7x5 cameras and there's no standrd lens boards, I'm not even sure the boards from my Thornton Pickard Imperoal will fit the Triple Imperial. Japanese field cameras are nearly all derived from Houghton models, the US born Viscount Astor a major shareholder was Aid de Camp to the Viceroy of India and helped set up Houghton India in 1911 making British style field cameras there for the Indian and asian market, these were copied by the Jpanese.

Ian

iseolake · Jun 6, 2020

Ian Grant said:
That photo of a Linhof board indicates the size is very close to a Pre or Anniversary,Speed Graphic or MPP MicroTechnical MkIII to MVI lens board.
I have at least 6 half plate cameras and 3 7x5 cameras and there's no standrd lens boards, I'm not even sure the boards from my Thornton Pickard Imperoal will fit the Triple Imperial. Japanese field cameras are nearly all derived from Houghton models, the US born Viscount Astor a major shareholder was Aid de Camp to the Viceroy of India and helped set up Houghton India in 1911 making British style field cameras there for the Indian and asian market, these were copied by the Jpanese.
Ian

Thanks for a very definitive response. I live in Japan and many years ago I remember seeing the photographers set up at temples, shrines and other spots to take tour group photos. By my time they were already using Fuji 6x9 rangefinders. Probably used Mamiya Press cameras before that. And, I hear that some used the wooden field cameras fitted with f4.5 tessar type lenses up until the 1960s. As a result, we can buy nice, lightweight field cameras and Fujinar lenses at a pretty good price. Fascinating to learn the route the camera design took from England. That an Astor was involved holds particular interest for me as I work for the U.S. state of Oregon, which has a city named Astoria -- a project of John Jacob Astor. Viscount Astor's great grandson and his son visited Astoria in 2011 for the bicentennial of the founding of the city. Getting way off track, but these stories make the history live for me.

John Koehrer · Jun 6, 2020

Assuming the original board is large enough, you could make a square(?) board and adapt IT for the Technica. That way you
don't affect the value of the camera itself.

iseolake · Jun 6, 2020

John,
The opening on the standard is just one or two millimeters too narrow to accept the Linhof board. I’m considering two options:
1. Gluing an adapter board to the front of a board that fits in the standard. No mod to the camera, but the minimum lens to film distance will be longer. Or...
2. Just making the lens standard opening a little wider — to the depth of the Linhof board — and making an adapter board — actually more like a spacer — that fits into the opening and uses the camera’s original sliding top tab to hold the Linhof board and spacer in place. Hard to explain. It would involve some, but minimal, modification of the camera that should let it continue to work with the original board.
Option 1 would let me hold the Linhof board higher up to compensate for the off-center (low) lens hole that Linhof boards have. I’m not sure if that’s a problem, but I’m thinking that I don’t want to lose rise.

grat · Jun 6, 2020

iseolake said:
Option 1 would let me hold the Linhof board higher up to compensate for the off-center (low) lens hole that Linhof boards have. I’m not sure if that’s a problem, but I’m thinking that I don’t want to lose rise.

Shen Hao / Chamonix / Wista Ebony (and a few others I think-- at least, that's how they're usually listed), as well as the Intrepid and Chroma cameras, all use the 96x99mm Linhof style boards, but most of them are center-drilled. Granted, they're not wood (the Chroma is Acrylic!), but at least it's a fairly common, inexpensive board.

iseolake · Jun 7, 2020

Grat,
Just took a look at the Chroma Website. A new board for 12 GBP -- quite a bit less than second-hand metal boards in Japan -- and it is center-drilled! Thank you.

John Koehrer · Jun 7, 2020

Those are pretty interesting cameras. Ala carte so to speak.
Sounds like the lens board situation is solved. That's great!

iseolake · Jun 7, 2020

Thank you all. Armed with this information, I'm clear on the direction I need to go in. I believe I can easily build a spacer that will let me use Linhof boards, with a slight modification to the standard that will not prevent the original board from being used. I won't have to worry about the lens offset, knowing I can source center-drilled Linhof boards from Chroma, 3D-print design on Thingiverse <https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:1823890>, and other places.

Are there standard lensboard sizes for old wood half-plate cameras?

iseolake

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