Basic "Carry" questions for LF from a newbie

New to LF, I'm wondering: Do you carry your lens(es) already mounted ON their lens boards, or OFF? Traveling light argues for OFF, but that adds more set-up time. Also, I've seen where one of my LF books suggested a separate cable release for each lens. Again... heavier (in this case) but quicker and has the virtue of spares.

Kind of simple questions given I'm packing up, it weighs a ton, and like George Eastman, I'm wondering where's my mule?

I leave lenses attached to a board at all times.

Having a spare cable release is wise since they seem to periodically disappear.

All my lenses are mounted. For road trips, they all come along with me. Short jaunt, only a select few.

All my lenses are mounted to their own lens boards.

^^what they said.
Lens boards aren't all that heavy compared to the lens itself or all the other stuff you need when shooting LF. Plus, using unmounted lenses implies that all of the lenses you would use have the same size mounting holes, which may well not be the case for your particular collection of lenses. it certainly isn't for mine.

Lenses on boards, one cable release. Carrying a short/small spare might be a good idea if you are going on a long hike, they aren't very heavy. Most of the weight savings is made in the camera itself and the lenses chosen.

JWMster said:

New to LF, I'm wondering: Do you carry your lens(es) already mounted ON their lens boards, or OFF?

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Don't remove lenses from lensboards if you can avoid it !

Retaining ring should be well tightened with a tool for a permanent mount. You can replace cells in a shutter as a temporary solution if you lack lensboards, but mounting the lens in the board or the cells is risky in the field, soon or late the glass may fall to ground or it will be scratched, also it can take dirt.

Mount the lens+board in the front standard, removing caps only when necessary.

Mounting cells is usually done in the field for Nikon T kits, as a front cell serves for 3 focals as you replace the rear cell. Also convertible lenses like old Symmars and Cooke convertible may require removing cells in the field, but this operation is done with extreme care.

To save space a solution is using a very small lensboard for the lenses and then having an adapter lensboard that takes the small board and fits in the front standard of your view camera, just emulating TOHO camera: http://www.thalmann.com/largeformat/toho.htm

JWMster said:

George Eastman, I'm wondering where's my mule?

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Me too

WH Jackson...





https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Henry_Jackson

i have all my LF lenses mounted on tiny speed graphic rounded cornered lens boards. i have a speed graphic to 110mm/110mm lensboard adapter and a speed graphic to 2"square(? graphic view II) lens board adapter too. the adapters stay on their cameras ( toyoview45 + szabad57) and the lenses get are in lens wraps and in a carry pouch that fits everything i need, ( came with a tenba45 car case ). speed graphic boards are super cheep, plentiful and the smallest lensboards around.

Always keep the lenses on their lens boards as others have said.

Think about what lenses you'll carry in a light weight kit, I usually have a 90mm f6.8 Angulon, 135mm f5.6 Symmar S and a 203mm f7.7 Ektar. With 6 or 8 DDS (film holders) a light meter. 2 cable releases and a Super Graphic everything fits in a small sports backpack. You may want a dark cloth as well.

Ian

jnantz said:

i have all my LF lenses mounted on tiny speed graphic rounded cornered lens boards. i have a speed graphic to 110mm/110mm lensboard adapter and a speed graphic to 2"square(? graphic view II) lens board adapter too. the adapters stay on their cameras ( toyoview45 + szabad57) and the lenses get are in lens wraps and in a carry pouch that fits everything i need, ( came with a tenba45 car case ). speed graphic boards are super cheep, plentiful and the smallest lensboards around.

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John, you are right, graflex boards are an excellent choice, also they are sold newly made for $15 to $20 at the auction site.

138S said:

Mount the lens+board in the front standard, removing caps only when necessary.

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And if using a range/viewfinder setup without ground glass composing, remember that the 'necessary time' to remove the rear lens cap is when you are fitting the lens and board to the camera...

Hopefully I've learned that lesson from a friend's experience and don't need to relearn for myself.

I'd caution against transporting lenses in the field with release cables attached. The attachment of the cable to the shutter or the cable release itself could be damaged in transport.

138S said:

John, you are right, graflex boards are an excellent choice, also they are sold newly made for $15 to $20 at the auction site.

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rounded corners, cheep and adapter boards make it a no brainer, unless one has a better way of doing it. prolly, maybe 16 years ago i read this, and i haven't looked back.
the problem arises when one can't find the adapter boards. the toyo110>speed graphic is rare as hens teeth, the graphic>speed graphic is found easy. now if the OP is wondering how to attach lenses to lensboards without a mounting flange ( nut ) .. tape, wire, cardboard and a prayer works really well.

StepheKoontz said:

the aperture scales

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Yes, this is true, each lens has it's own scale so we need to calibrate the equivalent marks.

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For the OP, let me explain what we have to do when replace the shutter in a lens.

If you use different cells in the same shutter then you have to calibrate the scale for the new cells, or you have to use a probe to meter in the camera back. Each lens type has a different compression of the rays in the aperture section so the same aperture trims more or less light.

Scales for lens-shutter combinations could be obtained in the past from manufacturers or service, I guess this is more difficult today.

Anyway we may DIY make the second scale by calibrating light in the back. I did that by attaching a DSLR in the back of the view camera, for a SINAR Norma I attached an extension ring with Nikon F mount to a Sinar lensboard which I placed in the rear standard, in this way I mount a DSLR in the camera back.

Then we may use the DSLR meter to have matching readings in the new scale vs readings with the original lens. I did this two times, one time it was to upgrade a lens after purchasing Symmar-S 135mm lenses because of the MC to shot Velvia. The second time I had a broken Seiko shutter in a fujinon 90 and and I bougth a destroyed lens to salvage the shutter. Now both lenses expose perfectly.

For the time I lacked a shutter for the fujinon 90 I had a second scale in a label on the shutter of the 135mm, so I could use the same shutter with the two pairs of cells, anyway I always mounted the cells at home taking one lens or the other to go.

One thing else, to calibrate aperture we may also use as a reference the metering of the DSLR (or SLR) with a prime lens. For that we may use even a Nikon F65 with the 50mm AF/D using spot meter, it would make a perfect calibration, one important thing, when making the calibration with the DSLR/SLR in the view camera back we have to focus the view camera to infinite, by looking through the viewfinder of the attached DSLR/SLR.


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Some liking to be "hostile" would serve better the community by explaining how apperture scale can be DIY calibrated LOL

ic-racer said:

I'd caution against transporting lenses in the field with release cables attached. The attachment of the cable to the shutter or the cable release itself could be damaged in transport.

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Very good point!

I've often thought the ultimate way to carry lenses would be to mount them onto some type of bayonet from a Canon EOS or Pentax 6x7 for example. Then the mount would be only slightly larger than the back cell. No lens boards except for the one left on the camera. I've already shrunk my LF carry stuff though. I use a hip pack for the five lenses, filter stack, and usually for the dark cloth and film holders too just placed on top, made by LowePro (Orion). I leave the camera on the tripod. Makes everything easy and simple. I never have to lay anything on the ground. Eliminating lens boards in favor of a bayonet though would make it even smaller. If you used compact lenses on a bayonet you could probably get away with just using a fanny pack for the lenses and a small sling for the film.

I've seen a handful of shutters that had their aperture scale modified such that it had small captive thumbscrews in place of the screws so that you could swap out nice big clear scales depending on how you had your lens configured. To me that looks far easier than squeezing multiple scales in the same place and remembering which goes with what lens configuration.

[I would suggest making good clear notes anytime you're working with custom scales. Such that you can easily relabel a new scale as needed from clear measurements rather than starting the process from scratch if you want to swap back or happen to lose a scale somehow.]

A related note for scales, another neat trick I've seen and may have to do myself at some point is to create a bellows-compensation string for each lens you're using. Label them clearly and you can coil up the ones you're not using at the time and tuck them away somewhere on the camera, and not have to deal with accidentally reading the wrong scale if you just stick them side by side on the rail/camera board.

This discussion is tremendously helpful. 138s's stuff is a bit beyond me at the moment, but sounds like you're replacing a shutter? Don't think it's in my View Camera books... but I'm sure it's spot on. Is this something everybody does?
So for the record, I have 3 lenses on lens boards, but just bought a macro and was kind of reluctant to buy it a lens board of its own. Completely understand now why I see Arca Swiss F-lines running around with small front standards and taller backs.

Well.... nothing left to do but clean up the film holders and get going. Just about ready to go....now that I've started developing negatives again!!! (YEAH!! I know it's drudgery, but it's fun drudgery).

JWMster said:

This discussion is tremendously helpful. 138s's stuff is a bit beyond me at the moment, but sounds like you're replacing a shutter? Don't think it's in my View Camera books... but I'm sure it's spot on. Is this something everybody does?

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For swapping a shutter on a lens, or for using the same shutter for different lenses [or lenses that you can 'convert' with different cell/group/section pairings]

Given that I've yet to do it for any of my personal gear, I can say it isn't something 'everybody' does, but it is one of those random tidbits of knowledge that is good to be aware of. While you might never end up using it, it is a good thing to remember things like f-stop scales, focus scales, or bellows-factor scales might change when you start fiddling and swapping gear. [Even when dealing with the same model of lens, tasks like swapping a front element may require a different shim thickness for fully corrected performance.]

JWMster said:

, ... but just bought a macro and was kind of reluctant to buy it a lens board of its own.

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If you intend to use it, buy a board. In the entire scope of things it’s not a monumental additional cost. Otherwise you might find it’s such a hassle to be moving lenses between boards that you just won’t bother.

JWMster said:

This discussion is tremendously helpful. 138s's stuff is a bit beyond me at the moment, but sounds like you're replacing a shutter? Don't think it's in my View Camera books... but I'm sure it's spot on. Is this something everybody does?

Click to expand...

Most modern lenses are compatible with standard Sizes 0, 1 or 3, you can interchange the shutters between lenses of the same size, but you have 2 important factors:

1) Each lens has its aperture scale on the shutter, so you need to get the right aperture scale or you have to make the markings DIY. Today we have have worse service for shutters so a DIY calibration starts making sense.

2) Some lenses have shims (Rodenstock Sironars in particular) in the front cell that adjusts the inter-cell spacing to an optimum for that particular unit, you have to move those shims to the new shutter, if not the lens will work suboptimal specially in the corners. If those shims are lost (some in ebay, etc) then the lens should be "shimmed" by manufacturer's service or specialized shop, this has a cost and you may have to send the lens quite far, but also there is a DIY procedure, you unscreew the front cell until the lens works optimally, they from tours counr and thread pitch you know waht simming you need. Shims are extremly rare in Fuji lenses but commom in some Rodenstock types.

So shutters can be interchanged between LF lenses of same mount size, but you have to do those two things, just ask when you have to do it, not difficult but it has a technique.

138S said:

Most modern lenses are compatible with standard Sizes 0, 1 or 3, you can interchange the shutters between lenses of the same size, but you have 2 important factors:

1) Each lens has its aperture scale on the shutter, so you need to get the right aperture scale or you have to make the markings DIY. Today we have have worse service for shutters so a DIY calibration starts making sense.

2) Some lenses have shims (Rodenstock Sironars in particular) in the front cell that adjusts the inter-cell spacing to an optimum for that particular unit, you have to move those shims to the new shutter, if not the lens will work suboptimal specially in the corners. If those shims are lost (some in ebay, etc) then the lens should be "shimmed" by manufacturer's service or specialized shop, this has a cost and you may have to send the lens quite far, but also there is a DIY procedure, you unscreew the front cell until the lens works optimally, they from tours counr and thread pitch you know waht simming you need. Shims are extremly rare in Fuji lenses but commom in some Rodenstock types.

So shutters can be interchanged between LF lenses of same mount size, but you have to do those two things, just ask when you have to do it, not difficult but it has a technique.

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might as well get a casket set, or get a copal 1 and a boatload of gclaron cells and make a casket set oneself
swapping lens cells on a single shutter is a PITA unless it is made to do that like convertible lenses or casket sets...

I carry all (that is “both”!) lenses. One lens and camera wrapped in padded Velcro bandanna and other wrapped separately. Only one cable release, but after reading this thread will take along a spare from now on. My LF is only a 45 Wista, so all packs neatly in not very large bag along with film holders, cloth and magnifier.

Chamonix makes light, carbon fiber lens boards if the weight makes a difference.
http://www.chamonixviewcamera.com/accessories/lensboards

Absolutely keep my lenses mounted, I’m not keen on using a wrench in the field where a gust of wind can get a bunch of crap inside my elements / shutter.
Also... I buy the Gepe bright red releases and always have 2 (sometimes 3) just in case. Add in a dark cloth, a spot meter, my journal, and holders and we are ready to rock.