RB Graflex Series B 2x3 - Detailed Walkthrough

Just sharing this recent video that I made to provide a detailed look at the RB Graflex Series B 2x3 camera. My intention was to be exhaustive and offer a thorough run through of the camera and how its functions and mechanics work. These are great little cameras and I see a lot of people end up with examples that don’t work because of not understanding the design and what to look out for. Hope this is helpful for anyone who snags one of these or is interested in this camera.

Video link: There is a clickable table of contents in the video description to make it easy to drill down by topic.

Thank you! I have an older but very similar RB Tele that needs a new shutter and this was very encouraging.

Lee Rust said:

Thank you! I have an older but very similar RB Tele that needs a new shutter and this was very encouraging.

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That’s great! I’m glad it was encouraging and hope it helps you get your camera working again. Good luck with the project!

I had one, they're capable of amazing portraits. It's the shutter that usually causes people issues. Otherwise it's a straight forward MF SLR (in a sense, ha). The shutter was iffy on mine, and I thought of replacing the lens w/ one in a shutter, but didn't think it could equal the lens that came on the camera.

Yea, the Graflex Super D was made to use both a lens-in-shutter as well as the focal plane shutter but those were never made in this small 2x3 size (smallest Super D was 3x4). Thats not to say you couldn't put a lens with shutter on the front of one of these. You can really do anything with them. They're great for modifying. The shutters tend to only be bad if you've ended up with a camera that was stored improperly for a long time and realistically most of these were which is why it comes up so frequently. If you're able to find one that was stored in temperature control and in a climate not too dry, the shutter will usually be good to go. The other issue that I mention in the video is that its pretty common for these to have been stored with the shutters wound and tensioned and that kills the springs after a few decades of being stored that way. But yea, one of these stored in a good environment without any tension on the springs would likely perform almost as new all these years later.

You left out one important feature for the average user. There is a clip at the front edge of the view hood at the ground glass that releases the view hood from the ground glass allowing for cleaning the top surface of the ground glass. There is a grove just above the rear of the groundglass that the rear edge of the view hood frame slips into for reattaching the view hood.

The Graflex RB instruction manual:

Instructions for servicing Graflex Focal Plane shutters:


The leatherette on my 1949 RB Series B 2x3 was bad so I removed it and painted the body satin black with lacquer. i purchased it frim the original owner, a retired photographer who worked for Miller Racing. He had a picture of hom with Ansel Adams framed and on his wall. The shutter is worn out and after servicing only reaches a top speed of 1/250.
I have seen 1 Graflex SLR that reached table speeds, a 4x5 Super D that had sat in a box on a newspaper photo department shelf since new. A basic shutter servicing returned it to like new operation. The avwrage Graflex SLR shutter only runs 1/500 after servicing., improperly stored or heavily used cameras barely make 1/250.

More information at https://www.graflex.org/helpboard/

shutterfinger said:

The leatherette on my 1849 RB Series B 2x3 was bad so I removed it and painted the body satin black with lacquer

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After 173 years, I'm not surprised.

shutterfinger said:

The average Graflex SLR shutter only runs 1/500 after servicing., improperly stored or heavily used cameras barely make 1/250.

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I know this isn't really the place to ask this, but since the topic came up, I thought I'd ask. I'm trying to check the speed on my Series B 2x3 post-tensioning.

Either my camera is confused, or I am. I'm trying to check the shutter speed with a 240 fps cell phone camera (so obviously, limited on how fast I can test).

Strong light behind the Graflex, cell phone in record on tripod mount facing camera lens, trip mirror / shutter.

Load video into editor, advance to opening. Pick a frame where the lens is partially lit, and a specific horizontal line across the lens. Count how many frames it takes for that line to go dark, approximate partial frames.

The problem I have, is based on this method, which I know is mildly inaccurate, I'm getting inconsistent numbers-- 1A and 1B are fast (1/24 and 1/104) and 1C and 1D are slow (1/120 and 1/240). For reference, speeds should be 1/10, 1/70, 1/250, and 1/500.

Have I over-tensioned the roller, am I doing something wrong, or is there a deeper problem I need to be looking for?

1. Graflex requirements are A) the shutter should close and lock from O with the tension on 1. Lock is the wind key will not turn opposite the wind arrow; B) the shutter will wind and lock at the smallest aperture with the tension on 6 or high.
I have found that the shutter may meet condition A with the camera vertical but fail with the wind key pointing down. The shutter should run and close smoothly without hesitation. I have encountered some cameras adjusted to meet condition A ran 1/30 on aperture A and tension 1.

I test with a photo transistor at the center of the image plane and the light shinning through the front standard without a lens installed. The photo transistor has a 10 degree angle of view and a .008 millisecond response time

For anyone looking for the video. I retired my old channel along with a bunch of social media in an effort to reduce the noise and focus more on my work. I moved some of the videos over to my personal channel to keep them available but spaced out on this one. I've since been getting requests to re-upload it for folks who are using it as a learning resource for their cameras. I don't seem to be able to edit the original link so below is a link to where the video has been moved to. I'll also try sending a note to the admin to try to get the original link up top updated. Anyway, just wanted to update and I hope this video continues to be useful to folks. Enjoy.