I don't think I get that much with the standard monorail and bellows.
What if I reversed a recessed lensboard?
At infinity focus you will need at least 20 inches of separation between the nodal point of the lens and the film plane. How you get to that dimension is immaterial.
I would think that you would find the single cell most usable if you do the following for b&W. Place the single cell behind the shutter, stop down to at least f32. Use a strong yellow filter such as a #15, focus with the filter in place while STOPPED DOWN. Your 500mm single cell may work fairly good under these conditions. This will greatly reduce focus shifts from the spherical abberations and the yellow filter will selectively reduce the wavelengths passed and help with color errors. Actually, you may find that a lens like this will work better with 8x10 contacts than 2x enlargements from 4x5.
This is only meant as a general statement. I have no experience in using a single cell from a convertible Symmar.
I did the same occasionally, and though the results were not striking they were pretty much usable.You will need less bellows draw if you use the front element (on the front) and remove the rear element. Unfortunately, performance is not as good as when you use the lens the way it was designed for convertible performance, i.e. with the front element removed. But it may be ok for some applications, portraits for example, or images where a fairly small central image is required.
Sandy King
We use cookies and similar technologies for the following purposes:
Do you accept cookies and these technologies?
We use cookies and similar technologies for the following purposes:
Do you accept cookies and these technologies?