From tail board cameras to ...Front focus?

[mark]

Okay, I was just flipping through the Antique and Classic Camera website and was wondering, for no other purpose than curiosity, when large format cameras moved from the tail board rear focusing design to the....well if it is not a tail board, and it would be rude to call it a phallus board front focusing camera...I will just call it the way it is done now?

I actually have a tail focusing 5x7 "dental camera" that I got dirt cheap. Why did folks build them that way? What a PIA. At what point did someone with some common sense say, "okay, this sucks. Wouldn't it be easier to focus if this damn rail was not jabbing me in the neck or giving me a crick as I try to look over the rail from the side."?

Yeah I am avoiding my homework again. This whole PhD thing is wearing me out.

 

[Ole]

Both yes and now, and it's also a question of geography.

The classic German "Reisekameras" are "tailboard cameras", but even in Germany there was also production of the "Englische Type" front-focus cameras at the same time. The Resiekameras were copied by the Soviets, and were in production until very recently.

Most monorails can be considered as either. Try focusing a WA lens (say 90mm) at infinity with a Linhof Color, and you will get a bruised neck. At least I did...

Conclusion: so many different cameras have been produced over such a long time in so many parts of the world at different times that the question is meaningless.

 

[mark]

Like I said, curiosity.

 

[paul ewins]

One reason for the tailboard design was the physical size of the "rapid" lenses which needed a very solid front standard. They still had movements, but only on the rear standard.

For a dental camera it makes sense too, as you would be doing closeups. With front focusing you're magnification would change as the lens moved. but with rear focusing the lens to subject distance remains the same so only the focus is affected.

Once camera design got past sliding boxes to bellows both designs appear to have existed side by side for a few decades until film improvements negated the need for the Brass cannon style of lens.

 

[Frank R]

I think the tail board design was used earlier because it incorporated a simple light trap; light entering the gap between the two boxes would have to make a 180 degree turn in order to fog the film (plate).

If the front box was smaller, the light could enter almost straight in, at least along the edges.

The tail board was a simple, effective, low tech solution to light leaks.

 

[John Kasaian]

The the bodies on my 5x7 Agfa Ansco Universals can be reveresed 0n the rails to be either a tailboard or schlong focusing. What a "universal" design!

 

[mark]

So that would be a camera that swings both ways

 

[jimgalli]

The Calumet C1 is a tailboard that was sold into the mid 1980's. Yes, a pita.