I didn't see all this information cleanly collected into one place. This morning, I did some testing of the "Simulated Front Rise" of the Horseman 970 6x9 camera.
To simulate front rise, you unlock the two bottom back connectors and extend them as far as possible before relocking them. Then push in the two front struts to drop the bed. These are both 15 degree movements so everything remains parallel, but now you have your lens risen in relation to the film, as well as focused closer. So you then need to push the front standard inward until it rests half-on, half-off the inside end of the rails.
With the camera like this and parallel to the ground, you already have your horizon line close to the bottom of the frame, so it's a generous amount of rise. If you need more, you can use the actual front rise knob. The bellows will prevent full use of this knob, but by that time, you're already past having the horizon line out of the photo when the film back is level, so you shouldn't need it. Note that I'm using a light Nikkor-SW 90mm f/8. With a heavier lens, the rise knob on this camera might not have enough friction to hold it in place.
Here's the side view of the setup without any front rise knob turning.
There are several key points to take away from all this:
1) Due to the front standard almost being off the end of the rails, this technique cannot be used on lenses wider than 90mm (equivalent to 39mm in 35mm format). That would be limiting for interiors or anywhere you can't back up sufficiently.
2) On the Horseman 970, there is no equivalent generous movement in portrait orientation, so you are limited to landscape orientation. It might be doable on the 980 and others.
3) It appears the rangefinder still works, although you would probably want the ground glass anyway to compose, unless you came up with some clever custom finder.
4) The tripod has to hold the heavy camera body at a 15 degree angle. A weak travel tripod might fail you here.
5) With a 120mm or higher lens, I think you wouldn't run into the bellows limitation on rise anymore. You might be able to use a 210mm lens or at least get close since the infinity stop gets pushed about 30mm toward the camera. A 180mm would definitely be okay on a flat board. Not that you'd necessarily want front rise with such lenses.
I plan to test all this on exterior architecture soon.
To simulate front rise, you unlock the two bottom back connectors and extend them as far as possible before relocking them. Then push in the two front struts to drop the bed. These are both 15 degree movements so everything remains parallel, but now you have your lens risen in relation to the film, as well as focused closer. So you then need to push the front standard inward until it rests half-on, half-off the inside end of the rails.
With the camera like this and parallel to the ground, you already have your horizon line close to the bottom of the frame, so it's a generous amount of rise. If you need more, you can use the actual front rise knob. The bellows will prevent full use of this knob, but by that time, you're already past having the horizon line out of the photo when the film back is level, so you shouldn't need it. Note that I'm using a light Nikkor-SW 90mm f/8. With a heavier lens, the rise knob on this camera might not have enough friction to hold it in place.
Here's the side view of the setup without any front rise knob turning.
There are several key points to take away from all this:
1) Due to the front standard almost being off the end of the rails, this technique cannot be used on lenses wider than 90mm (equivalent to 39mm in 35mm format). That would be limiting for interiors or anywhere you can't back up sufficiently.
2) On the Horseman 970, there is no equivalent generous movement in portrait orientation, so you are limited to landscape orientation. It might be doable on the 980 and others.
3) It appears the rangefinder still works, although you would probably want the ground glass anyway to compose, unless you came up with some clever custom finder.
4) The tripod has to hold the heavy camera body at a 15 degree angle. A weak travel tripod might fail you here.
5) With a 120mm or higher lens, I think you wouldn't run into the bellows limitation on rise anymore. You might be able to use a 210mm lens or at least get close since the infinity stop gets pushed about 30mm toward the camera. A 180mm would definitely be okay on a flat board. Not that you'd necessarily want front rise with such lenses.
I plan to test all this on exterior architecture soon.
