Travelwide first impressions and back/lens compatibility list.

[Richard S. (rich815)]

Well, yes, it was, but I already had a 90mm lens and for some reason I thought I had an incompatible lens and I may need to find another one better suited to the Travelwide. It was only when I checked again a few days ago that I realised that I actually already owned the recommended lens.

I knew there was more to the story!

 

[TheFlyingCamera]

Mine arrived yesterday. I'm glad it is finally here. I'm mostly planning to shoot pinhole with it, at least for now, so I'm not too worried about the focusing screen being all but transparent plastic. I'll just say the process of getting it has left me underwhelmed instead of excited. We'll see how the results turn out before I pass final judgment.

 

[Nige]

1st true outing with my Travelwide, some fishermen & my son rehabilitating a hip injury

both 1/30 @ f8 (handheld)
lens Fujinon 90/8 SW
both J&C 400 in XTOL / HC110 replenisher concoction (I didn't have enough XTOL so decided to chuck in some extra something...)
cropped slightly to straighten horizon (the sport finder is something I need to get used to)

 

[winterclock]

545 back on my new travelwide

I did some minor trimming on my 545 back and added some shims to the travelwide.
The first two images show the area where a small corner was trimmed off the sheet metal cover on the back of the holder, the last shows one of the three shims needed to space the spring out enough for the back to slide in.
I am using a Wollensak 90mm 6.8 wide angle in Rapax shutter for now, I have a Meyer Weitwinkle and an Angulon in reserve but both need CLA's and the Rapax is working. Haven't settled on a rangefinder yet, the Federal Ideal I have is calibrated in feet so I may have to add markings to the helical. Hopefully health issues will resolve themselves enough for me to get out before the snow flies.

 

[Steve Goldstein]

I posted this on the Large Format Photography Forum earlier today, but I realize that not everybody here also reads that forum...

Newsflash - Infinity focus with 75mm on the Travelwide

Yes, you read that correctly, I verified it this morning. You can use a 75mm on the TW with the regular focusing helical provided it's a 75mm f/6.3 Super-W-Komura. This is a relatively uncommon 8-element design having a flange focal length slightly over 100mm. Here are some things I learned during this exercise.

Infinity focus requires about 12.5mm of helical extension. This leaves ~7.5mm more extension available and gives a close-focus limit of a bit over 0.8 meters. This is based on calculation, I didn't actually measure it.

The extension of the helical inside the TW's body will cause corner vignetting at infinity, even at f/45. It should be easy to cut away parts the helical with a Dremel tool or a file to solve this problem, but I haven't yet done so.

One of the Komuras I tried is in a Seikosha shutter, and it really wants a thin shim between shutter and mounting plate. Something similar to those shipped with the 65mm adapter plate (38mm outside diameter), but with 32.5mm interior diameter for Copal 0 sizing, will do. Tightening the mounting ring without a shim causes the plastic mounting plate to deform very slightly and makes it difficult to adjust the aperture. Not impossible, just difficult. The minor added benefit of a shim is that you'll need less extension for infinity focus, which means your close-focus limit will be reduced.

 

[Dr Croubie]

Newsflash - Infinity focus with 75mm on the Travelwide

Woo!
That's the first thing that I was wondering when I mounted my 90mm f/8 SA. Like I said above, I'm not sure if it's the elements or the shutter, but I have to extend the helical about 10mm just to get to infinity on 90mm, at that rate a 75mm would probably get to f/22 hyperfocal (maybe even infinity) when retracted.
Sounds like that Komura is a bit of a retrofocus design with a 100mm F2F, I wonder if there are many other designs from other minor/older manufacturers (ie not the big 4) that are similar?
Or if there are any other older weitwinkel anastigmats etc that might be in weird 80-90mm lengths?
I've measured the F2F on my TW as 82mm, at that rate a 75mm f/5.6 Super Angulon should just fit (67mm filter) and focus (F2F 84.8) too, anyone got one to try?

 

[Dr Croubie]

So I finally took them out for a spin (a proper spin, with 65mm on one and 90mm on the other).
Took them on a Port River Dolphin cruise for my cousin's birthday.
I had 8 holders of Delta 100 (finishing the box), 1 of FP4 (ditto), 2 of HP5 (just in case I wanted high-speed shots of dolphins, or indoor shots of the birthday cake), and 1 each of Ektar, NPS, RVP, E100G (which I loaded well over a year ago and needed using up).
Plus my Kirk SS1 strap, Digisix, and Blik (but didn't use it). 21mm Voigtlander viewfinder on 65mm, included sportsfinder on 90mm (I hope that's around the right way), Orange filter on 90mm (except for colour), centre filter on 65mm.
Firstly, they don't fit too well in my Lowepro 350AW:

I either need to take less holders, or buy a different bag or something. Maybe one of those hipster-satchel shoulderbag things.
Secondly, I burned through all of this in about an hour an a half (on a 2 hour boatride).
Mostly B+W on the 90mm and colour on the 65mm, sunny-16 minus 1.6 stops for filters and I was at 1/30s f/16 most of the time.
Not exactly the speed I go through 35mm on my EOS 3 or Bessas, but 30 shots in 90 mins is faster than I normally do MF.

There is absolutely no way I'd have taken any other LF camera (that I own, maybe those with presscams might disagree) on a moving boat and handheld.
So comparing these to MF, I'd probably take these on any future landscapish expeditions too, but I'll have to crack open my RVP quickloads to keep the weight and volume down.

Now all I gotta do is process all the damn things...