Horseman 45 Field Camera

I am fairly new to LF photography and have had the good fortune to be able to buy a Horseman 45 Field Camera, it came with two lenses, a 150mm and a 90mm lens mounted on Linhof boards, I know the length of the bellows is 315mm, but I was wondering what other lenses can I use with this camera, for example can I use a 300mm? And what's the widest I can go?
If I get a lens without a board, and fit the board myself, does the lens need to be calibrated?

Sorry lots of questions, probably dumb ones too, but I'd rather look stupid tan be stupid, so thanks for any help you may able to offer me.

Lenses for Horseman

I use a 90, 150 and 210 on my Horseman HD camera. I have a 65, but I haven't figured out how to use this lens - I have read that it will focus on my camera, but I have had little luck in a real world situation making it work

On the HD there are no calibrations required. I have added extra sets of infinity stops for the three focal lengths. It speeds setup but it's not essential.

You haven't said what body you have, but I think you will like working with he camera. Mine is a charm.

mcd said:

You haven't said what body you have, but I think you will like working with he camera. Mine is a charm.

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True, I thought (looking at their website) that they only had the one field camera, mine is the woodman 45.

So if I get hole of a Sinar lens, I should in theory be able to dismount it from the lens boar, and put it on a Linhof board and use it, is that correct?
Thanks for the help

freespirit67 said:

So if I get hole of a Sinar lens, I should in theory be able to dismount it from the lens boar, and put it on a Linhof board and use it, is that correct?
Thanks for the help

Click to expand...

Not if the Sinar lens is in a DB mount...

With reference to your original question, with the exception of telephoto lenses (more in a moment,) a 300mm lens will need 300mm of bellows extension to focus at infinity, more extension to focus closer. Infinity for these purposes is defined as 200x the focal length of the lens. So, in the case of a 12" (300mm) focal length lens, you need 300mm of bellows to focus it on an object 200 feet away and more extension to focus more closely. With a camera having 315mm of bellows, you probably can't focus a 300mm lens closer than 50 to 100 feet, if that (there's some wiggle room.) With your camera, a 240mm lens is probably the longest focal length that would be practical.

Telephoto lenses, by their design, don't need to extend as far from the plane of focus than a "regular" lens does. A 300mm telephoto, for example, may only need 190mm of bellows to focus at infinity. Since lens design varies, check to see what a specific lens needs before you decide whether it will work on your camera or not. Be aware that there are other trade-offs with telephoto lenses vs. "regular" lenses. Check out the articles on lenses on this website for a more detailed discussion.

Mike

*Sigh* Ok, I didn't realize that the Articles section was still down. Check out the articles on lenses on the large format website, http://www.largeformatphotography.info/ for more information.

Mike

freespirit67 said:

True, I thought (looking at their website) that they only had the one field camera, mine is the woodman 45.

Click to expand...

In field cameras, Horseman is best known for their compact metal technical cameras, like the 45FA, 45HD and the medium format VH. These have all been discontinued recently.

The Woodman 45 is very similar to certain other lightweight Japanese-made wood-field cameras, such as recent versions of the Nagaoka.

So when you ask for advice about a Horseman field camera, be sure to mention that you have the Woodman 45, or you will get lots of confusing and irrelevant advice.

As far as how wide you can go, see how far you can compress the bellows, and then use a ruler through the opening in the front standard to measure the distance from the front to the ground glass. Compare that against the "flange to film" or "optical register" specification for a lens, and you can determine whether the lens is usable. Note that if you have to compress the bellows to the absolute limit to allow a lens to focus to infinity, you will not be able to use any movements.

Yes, you can remount lenses to Technika-type lensboards. No special calibration is needed - when you remount the lens on the new board just be sure that the rear cell is screwed back in all the way so that the proper distance between the front and rear cells is maintained.

Thanks

That's why I like this site, most of the people offer friendly and very helpful advice, thanks to all who replied.