Plastic "Ground Glass" Am I nuts?

Philip Taylor · Aug 4, 2006

I'm starting to put together my ideas in preparation for a 4x5 monorail for field use. As part of this, I thought it may be better to use acrylic to cut down on weight however I've never seen anyone mention or do this. Is there any reason it wont work?

Also, I forget right at the moment, is the film plane in the same position as the front (lens side) or back (viewing side) of the ground glass? - i.e. what surface needs to be in the same position?

Thanks.

Dave Parker · Aug 4, 2006

Your not crazy, people do it, the ground side of whatever you use needs to be tword the lens and the ground side is the same as the film plane. One thing to take into account, is the amount of weight savings in this size of camera is going to be virtually nothing, as a real ground screen in this size only weighs about 4oz and a plexi screen will weigh about 3oz. In the overall scope of things, 1 oz is nothing.

Good luck....

Dave Parker
Satin Snow Ground Glass

smieglitz · Aug 5, 2006

I recently replaced a broken ground glass screen of a homemade 8x10 box camera with a piece of 1/8" acrylic that is frosted on one side and smooth on the other. It worked fine and I did not notice any loss in brightness with it. I certainly will be replacing the GG of my 11x14 with the stuff at the first opportunity.

Joe

Roger Hicks · Aug 5, 2006

Not nuts, no, but there is one small thing to watch out for. Plastic will flex far more than glass so don't press too hard in the middle of the screen with your loupe, or you'll be shifting the plane of focus. The bigger the format, the greater the risk, obviously.

Cheers,

Roger (www.rogerandfrances.com)

Papa Tango · Aug 5, 2006

As Roger & Dave point out, there is no appreciable weight savings and the plastic is not optically stable. In some cameras, the fresnel (which is plastic) achieves part of its plane characteristics by the support of the GG it lies next to. There are also issued with focus grain definition, brightness, corner falloff, etcetera. Rather than plastic, look at one of the Satin Snow GG's, or bite the big-buck-bullet and think about a Beatty interscreen. Either choice will make you happy you did...

tim atherton · Aug 5, 2006

there are some weight savings for 8x10, but not really so much for 4x5 (it's also rather easier to smash an 8x10 gg...)

plenty of info in a recent thread:

(there was a url link here which no longer exists)

(BTW - Maxwell screens are far superior to Beatty intenscreens. You might look at one of those rather than make your own plexi-GG?)

Lachlan Young · Aug 5, 2006

tim atherton said:
there are some weight savings for 8x10, but not really so much for 4x5 (it's also rather easier to smash an 8x10 gg...)

Has anyone ever put their head through a gg screen?

Lachlan

Roger Hicks · Aug 5, 2006

Lachlan Young said:
Has anyone ever put their head through a gg screen?

Lachlan

No, but I've broken enough GGs -- from 6x9 cm to 11x14 inch over the years -- that the one reason I would consider Perspex or the like is that it's harder to break.

Cheers,

Roger

jp80874 · Aug 5, 2006

Roger Hicks said:
Not nuts, no,
Roger (www.rogerandfrances.com)

He is here isn't he? Gotta be nuts.

John Powers

jp80874 · Aug 5, 2006

Lachlan Young said:
Has anyone ever put their head through a gg screen?

Lachlan

Philip is talking about a 4x5. That might be a challenging task.

John Powers

Roger Hicks · Aug 6, 2006

jp80874 said:
He is here isn't he? Gotta be nuts.

John Powers

Goooood point!

Cheers,

Polysporus O'Cohen

David H. Bebbington · Aug 6, 2006

Lachlan Young said:
Has anyone ever put their head through a gg screen?

Lachlan

No, but I did hear once about an LF workshop where the participants were sleeping in bunk beds. With a particular couple of guys, guy A was sleeping in a lower bunk and placed his 4x5" field on the floor next to his bed, screen uppermost. Guy B, sleeping in the upper bunk, lept out of bed in the morning, full of motivation to go out and shoot 10 shots to beat Ansel Adams, and put his heel through guy A's GG, which formed an effective photographer trap, the various shards of glass around the central hole digging into his heel and preventing him from removing same. You could say that the moral of this story is - fit an acrylic screen if you don't want to be taken to A&E with an LF camera stuck on your foot. On the scale of things, this is considerably less embarrassing than a vacuum cleaner stuck to your **** (I speak only from hearsay evidence), but still an experience you might prefer to avoid.

Regards,

David

Philip Taylor · Aug 6, 2006

Well. I don't have a big head, so that's one reason for a plexiglass screen, number two is I'll be carrying the thing on trains, and knocking it around here and there, and number three is I'll be near Uni students who like to pinch nice ground glass.

I think I'll give it a go.

Thanks all for the reply's.

Plastic "Ground Glass" Am I nuts?

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