Has anyone ever used a 35mm....

John Bartley · Oct 22, 2005

.....body and shutter on a LF front standard, with the 35mm body modified to take a barrel lens for 4x5 or 8x10 or "whatever" and was the conversion successful? I know it sounds crazy, but 35mm SLR's are a penny a pound now, they have a full range of shutter speeds and the shutters seem to work in all temperature ranges without too much trouble. I wonder if the adaptation would be more work than it's worth?

Just a thought...

rbarker · Oct 22, 2005

Are you thinking of using the 35mm SLR body as a replacement for something like a Packard shutter (and removing the SLR's back), and still exposing 4x5 or 8x10 film with the rig, John? If so, I think the size of the 35mm film gate would be rather limiting.

I have seen adaptations that mount the 35mm SLR (or, digital) on the rear standard, with the objective of exposing 35mm film (or digi-sensor) using the view camera and lens as the front end.

John Bartley · Oct 22, 2005

Hi Ralph,

I guess the truth is I wasn't really doing too much thinking at all before I posted - the idea just kinda' popped into my head and then spilled out onto the keyboard .

But..... yes, the idea was to use the shutter as a Packard style shutter. Then, (thinking while out while out shopping) I sorta' twigged to your thought about the "gate" size, and now.... I wonder if it's possible to put the shutter between the the elements.

If I have my lens theory right, the image flips R to L and top to bottom, with all the light passing thru' the three dimensional centre of the lens assembly. If the two dimensional centre of the shutter curtain could be put at the same place as the three dimensional centre of the light path, then the "gate" size shouldn't matter ??

It's likely not worth the effort - quite a bit of machining involved to do this.

cheers

David A. Goldfarb · Oct 22, 2005

I've seen some old roller blind shutters that were designed to go behind the lens, so the idea isn't entirely off base. With some medium format cameras costing a nickel a pound these days, you might have better luck investing the additional four cents and going that way for the larger gate.

Dan Fromm · Oct 22, 2005

John, the lens projects a cone of light. You're proposing to put an obstruction -- the SLR's gate -- between the back of the lens and the film plane. Draw a sketch and see whether a ray from, for convenience, the center of the back of the lens to the corner of the film will clear the SLR's gate. If it will, you're ok. If not, you can't get full coverage with the lens.

FWIW, I use a number of lenses, from 4.75" to 480 mm, front-mounted on a Copal #0 on my little Graphics. All cover 2x3 just fine. 4x5 may be another matter, but that's for you to find out. Although your idea looks hare-brained it might work for 4x5. On general principles, 8x10 is iffy.

You'd do better to start with the thinnest 35 mm body possible (screw-mount Leica or clone) or, better yet, extract the shutter assembly and use just it.

You might do even better to use an ex-oscilloscope camera Ilex Universal or Alphax. Now that I think of it, Betax #5s aren't that expensive and they're huge.

Remember that for LF long timed exposures are much more useful than short ones. That's why I use the Copal with a front-mounted lens on my 2x3 Speed. The Speed's focal plane shutter's longest timed speed is 1/30, and that's often faster than I want. The Copal times down to 1/1.

Good luck, have fun,

Dan

David A. Goldfarb · Oct 22, 2005

Dan Fromm said:
Now that I think of it, Betax #5s aren't that expensive and they're huge.

In fact, I do this with an Ilex 5. Rather than trying to find the shutter by itself, look for a nice lens that you could use already in a big shutter (mine is a 10" WF Ektar), and then adapt from there.

Also, some of the earlier Sinar shutters have come down in price and can be adapted easily to many 8x10" cameras.

John Bartley · Oct 22, 2005

Hey guys!! Thanks very much for the questions and ideas !! I'm going to cruise the flea markets for a "cheapo" curtain shutter camera and take it apart just to see...

MattKing · Oct 22, 2005

John Bartley said:
Hey guys!! Thanks very much for the questions and ideas !! I'm going to cruise the flea markets for a "cheapo" curtain shutter camera and take it apart just to see...

John:

It occurs to me that, as indicated in one of the earlier posts, a medium format body might meet your needs.

You might try a Mamiya 645 Super body. They have the necessary mirror lock up and tend to sell quite inexpensively on Ebay and at KEH (there is a bargain grade one there now for $126.00 US). They also have both an electronically controlled shutter, and an electromagnetic shutter release (the release may be important, because finding a way to actually release the shutter when it is inside your view camera may be important ).

I have two Super bodies. When I get home later today, I'll make some measurements of the throat diameter, body depth, etc. and report back.

Matt

Dave Parker · Oct 22, 2005

I have never used the body of the 35, but I have used somem 35mm lenses on a Speed graphic with the rear shutter, it was an interesting project, but the lens did not cover that I was using, did get some neat looking round images though.

Dave

MattKing · Oct 22, 2005

John:

I've taken measurements from my Mamiya Super.

The film plane/shutter opening is 58mm wide by 43mm high.

The lens opening cavity has a baffle that I had forgotten about. It is irregular in shape, but at a minimum it is 44mm wide by 40mm high.

The depth between the front of the shutter curtain and the front of the camera/lens opening/front baffle is hard to measure, but it is a minimum of 54mm (to the baffle) and a maximum of 64mm (to the varios bumps on the front of the camera.

At most, there is 2mm from the front of the shutter curtain to the back of the camera body.

Matt

John Bartley · Oct 23, 2005

MattKing said:
John:

I've taken measurements from my Mamiya Super....snipped....

Matt

Thank you for the measurements Matt. That's a pretty compact assembly with a fairly large opening. I'll keep an eye open for something like that in the scrapper piles at the flea markets.

cheers

Nick Zentena · Oct 23, 2005

John Bartley said:
they have a full range of shutter speeds and the shutters seem to work in all temperature ranges without too much trouble. I wonder if the adaptation would be more work than it's worth?

Just a thought...

Okay I got to ask. Do you really need a full range of speeds? A #3 goes to what 1/125? With LF even with fast film how often are you using speeds even close to that?

FWIW I've got a couple of shutters off some sort of school equipment. Flash card like things. They mount on the front of lenses. Nice for some barrel lenses that aren't worth the money to mount into normal shutters. I don't think front mounting a MF camera would be that hard. Take a Kiev 60 remove the back and mirror. figure some thing out to hold the remaining body in front of the lens with the lens inside the old front of the camera.

John Bartley · Oct 23, 2005

Nick Zentena said:
Okay I got to ask. Do you really need a full range of speeds? A #3 goes to what 1/125? With LF even with fast film how often are you using speeds even close to that?

Hi Nick,

Ummm no, I don't really need the full range, I was more thinking and typing at the same time (a bad thing to do when I think slower than I type and I can't type anyway ).

FWIW I've got a couple of shutters off some sort of school equipment. Flash card like things.

They sound interesting too - I've never seen one - any chance of posting a digi-pic?

cheers

Nick Zentena · Oct 23, 2005

The closest I come to digi things is the flatbed scanner-) It's a shutter with basically a piece of pipe behind it. The pipe has set screws that fasten to the outside of a barrel lens. Shutter actually has an aperture to but I never use it. One of mine is in pretty good shape the other one is slow at some speeds. No flash sync.

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