Update on delivery status of LomoGraflok instant back
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A few quick-and-dirty snapshots of the thing mounted on a Horseman 45FA.
The bottom switch that shows as red in the second picture is a darkslide lock.
Classic Lomography, which is to say made of cheap plastic but decently finished. The image area is shifted downward a fair bit and slightly to one side relative to the center of a 4x5 sheet; the focus insert takes account of this.
There's a tripod socket in the bottom of the back, though in most situations I expect it will make more sense to use the camera's socket.
Takes AA batteries, not included. Without batteries, reads about 19 oz on my old mechanical postage scale.
Minor annoyance: the box doesn't include an instruction manual, only a QR code to scan to take you to the manual online - there's an excuse about being environmentally friendly - but it does include a little promotional folder. In fairness, it's a pretty simple device, and if you've used any Instax camera before it's easy to figure out. Probably even if you haven't.
The bottom switch that shows as red in the second picture is a darkslide lock.
Classic Lomography, which is to say made of cheap plastic but decently finished. The image area is shifted downward a fair bit and slightly to one side relative to the center of a 4x5 sheet; the focus insert takes account of this.
There's a tripod socket in the bottom of the back, though in most situations I expect it will make more sense to use the camera's socket.
Takes AA batteries, not included. Without batteries, reads about 19 oz on my old mechanical postage scale.
Minor annoyance: the box doesn't include an instruction manual, only a QR code to scan to take you to the manual online - there's an excuse about being environmentally friendly - but it does include a little promotional folder. In fairness, it's a pretty simple device, and if you've used any Instax camera before it's easy to figure out. Probably even if you haven't.
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And here's one with the focus insert.
The insert is made of a lightweight plastic. I wonder whether it might start to wear down, compromising the focal plane spacing, if one were to use it heavily, particularly in a metal camera back with a tight grip - but then it's hard to say how robust the ejection mechanism will be and how many cycles that's engineered for. And the spacing of film sheets within the film pack isn't high-precision either.
We'll see how the back holds up in use, but on first impressions I'd say the construction is reasonable given the low price.
The insert is made of a lightweight plastic. I wonder whether it might start to wear down, compromising the focal plane spacing, if one were to use it heavily, particularly in a metal camera back with a tight grip - but then it's hard to say how robust the ejection mechanism will be and how many cycles that's engineered for. And the spacing of film sheets within the film pack isn't high-precision either.
We'll see how the back holds up in use, but on first impressions I'd say the construction is reasonable given the low price.
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To be clear, if you rotate the camera back 180 degrees the instant film holder can be attached with effective rear rise rather than fall *and* the focus spacer will have the correct orientation when inserted.
EDIT: see my next post below
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Is this the best way to use it on the FA?
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Apologies for my confusing post - I've just edited it but should explain further.
With the Lomo Instax holder mounted in standard orientation, you effectively have some rear-standard fall, which gives the same effect as the corresponding amount of rise applied to the front standard. Similarly, there's a smaller amount of rear shift, which is equivalent to front shift in the opposite direction. Particularly with shorter focal length lenses used for general scenic work, many people find themselves using a bit of front rise pretty frequently. So for many pictures the standard orientation might be fine. I suspect the amount of shift will be too small to worry about in most situations. So I would start with the standard orientation and see if you run into a problem for the kind of pictures you want to make.
At this point I don't know that I'm going to start with the 45FA for my own initial tinkering with this holder. Right now I'm leaning toward going with my Sinar F2 configured with short rail and bag bellows. As with pretty much any monorail, the F2 movements will make it trivial to set up the camera so the front and rear standards are aligned to center the exposure gate relative to the lens, and then I can adjust from there as needed. But we'll see. I should be able to do some tinkering this coming weekend, will report back.
With the Lomo Instax holder mounted in standard orientation, you effectively have some rear-standard fall, which gives the same effect as the corresponding amount of rise applied to the front standard. Similarly, there's a smaller amount of rear shift, which is equivalent to front shift in the opposite direction. Particularly with shorter focal length lenses used for general scenic work, many people find themselves using a bit of front rise pretty frequently. So for many pictures the standard orientation might be fine. I suspect the amount of shift will be too small to worry about in most situations. So I would start with the standard orientation and see if you run into a problem for the kind of pictures you want to make.
At this point I don't know that I'm going to start with the 45FA for my own initial tinkering with this holder. Right now I'm leaning toward going with my Sinar F2 configured with short rail and bag bellows. As with pretty much any monorail, the F2 movements will make it trivial to set up the camera so the front and rear standards are aligned to center the exposure gate relative to the lens, and then I can adjust from there as needed. But we'll see. I should be able to do some tinkering this coming weekend, will report back.
Just got mine today. Looking forward to testing it. I first need to purchase some instax wide film, something I thought I would never say!?!?
BTW: I placed my pre-order on 2020-09-16, hopefully that helps some of you who may be in the first 500. Turns out I was.
BTW: I placed my pre-order on 2020-09-16, hopefully that helps some of you who may be in the first 500. Turns out I was.
I plan to use mine (when it arrives -- likely next year at this point, I didn't order until April) on my Speed with a mask in the viewfinder (calibrated RF, so I can adjust the infinity stops and go) and on my Graphic View II -- which, like the Sinar F2, has plenty of movements to correct perspective for the off-center image area.
Nice!
Mine came yesterday - yay! Now to try and find time to use it...
Got mine and made an unboxing and demo video.
cool. Thanks for that video.
This may be too early to ask, but does anyone know how many stops of range you'll get out of Instax color or B&W? Is it going to be in the ~5 stop range of E6 film?
This may be too early to ask, but does anyone know how many stops of range you'll get out of Instax color or B&W? Is it going to be in the ~5 stop range of E6 film?
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I haven't shot any transparency film in many years. However, you can compare the characteristic curves - look at the horizontal (log exposure) axis. The brightness range that Instax can record is very short.
https://www.fujifilm.com/products/instant_photo/pdf/instax_datasheet.pdf
https://imaging.kodakalaris.com/sites/default/files/files/products/e4000_ektachrome_100.pdf
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I received mine on Monday. However, it seems like the focus on my unit is a ways off of the ~19.4mm given in the manual and accounted for by the spacer. My initial photos were blurry at my focused point but sharp in areas closer to the lens. I've been a bit busy this week so I still have some more tests to run, but at the moment it seems like my film plane is around 22mm behind the usual (plus or minus ~1mm; those pending tests will get me a more accurate number).
Has anyone else been experiencing something similar, or is the spacer providing accurate focus?
I will note that my film packs were 2 or 3 years old; I have some new film coming in today so I'll see if there's any difference there. However, I did cut apart my first film pack and placed a roughened microscope slide across the "film rails" in the pack to try and provide a more correct groundglass to compare the distances. With that setup I measured a 21mm offset, though that seems slightly too short to be the actual film plane distance when I tested with real film (probably due to the image layer being separated from the "film rails" by the thickness of the rear cover sheet). That points to my problem being with the Lomograflok itself.
@Glem C
The manual QR link sends you to downloads.lomography.com, from which you can find the lomograflok manual (I'd paste in a direct link but it doesn't allow me to post due to anti-spam measures, probably on account of my very low post count).
Has anyone else been experiencing something similar, or is the spacer providing accurate focus?
I will note that my film packs were 2 or 3 years old; I have some new film coming in today so I'll see if there's any difference there. However, I did cut apart my first film pack and placed a roughened microscope slide across the "film rails" in the pack to try and provide a more correct groundglass to compare the distances. With that setup I measured a 21mm offset, though that seems slightly too short to be the actual film plane distance when I tested with real film (probably due to the image layer being separated from the "film rails" by the thickness of the rear cover sheet). That points to my problem being with the Lomograflok itself.
@Glem C
The manual QR link sends you to downloads.lomography.com, from which you can find the lomograflok manual (I'd paste in a direct link but it doesn't allow me to post due to anti-spam measures, probably on account of my very low post count).
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Thanks. I didn't realize Fuji had a full datasheet for instax. I'm not particularly good at reading these things, but It looks to have a similar range as transparency but shifted so it hits its minimum density at exposure -1.5, where E110 and Provia hit minimum at 0 lux seconds (I'm not sure what the x axis actually denotes, but being positive file, more exposure should equal less density, so I'm assuming the left side is less exposure and the right is more, but log h lux seconds? I don't actually know what that means. I guess I'll have to spend a few hours this evening reading up on it.)
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I was interested in this as well, and after a quick search it seems that the log H part means that (just like the logarithmic optical density scale) every 0.3 is one stop. So then for figuring out dynamic range we just need to pick points on the curve for the start and end of the straight area and then the difference in the X positions divided by 0.3 is the dynamic range in stops. This is the fuzziest part for me; I'm not sure if there's an official method of picking out the center/straight part of the curve, though I think you kind of pick a point around the center of the "turn" as it were.
My rough and inexpert choice of points result in around 5.5 stops on that E100 datasheet, and 3.3 stops on the Instax. I'll soon be doing some dynamic range testing with the actual film to establish some guidelines for my metering.
Thanks for the link
Fantastic information. This is why I read this forum. I recall using the peel-apart Polaroid back on my 35mm camera that had very poor focus but later discovered the door did not press the film pack up tightly to the frame, so I had to make sure I pressed the film pack all the way forward before closing the back. That fixed the problem....just in time for Fuji to stop production of the film
(MODERATOR's NOTE: moved from other thread)
I had a surprise delivery yesterday, the Lomography 4x5 instax back arrived (kickstarter was last year, it is about 6 months late for deliveries).
I just tried it on my Intrepid 4x5 camera, it is actually very straightforward to use. Put the focus spacer between the ground glass and camera, frame+focus, then remove the insert and ground glass, attach the back and fire away. Then you replace the dark slide and push the button to eject the sheet. The only little catch (as I found on the first shot) is that on the intrepid you have to detach the back before ejecting, otherwise the film catches on the ground glass holder and gets pinched.
The result is great as far as instax goes, yes the "wide" size is good, better than the mini (I have a mini camera too) but it has the usual "nothing really in sharp focus" look. Or maybe in all my excitement I botched the focus on the couple of test shots.
So...if you wanted a simple way to do instant shots without dealing with expired film etc etc it is pretty good!
I had a surprise delivery yesterday, the Lomography 4x5 instax back arrived (kickstarter was last year, it is about 6 months late for deliveries).
I just tried it on my Intrepid 4x5 camera, it is actually very straightforward to use. Put the focus spacer between the ground glass and camera, frame+focus, then remove the insert and ground glass, attach the back and fire away. Then you replace the dark slide and push the button to eject the sheet. The only little catch (as I found on the first shot) is that on the intrepid you have to detach the back before ejecting, otherwise the film catches on the ground glass holder and gets pinched.
The result is great as far as instax goes, yes the "wide" size is good, better than the mini (I have a mini camera too) but it has the usual "nothing really in sharp focus" look. Or maybe in all my excitement I botched the focus on the couple of test shots.
So...if you wanted a simple way to do instant shots without dealing with expired film etc etc it is pretty good!
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(MODERATOR's NOTE: moved from other thread)
There's already a long-running thread on these backs in the "Instant" subforum, and there have been comments there that the insert isn't the right thickness -- seemingly only on some of the LomoGraflok units. Those with a 3D printer should be able to rectify the situation by printing a new adapter the correct thickness for their unit, but it's disappointing for Lomography to be shipping units that aren't consistent and haven't been tested to match the inserts.
There's already a long-running thread on these backs in the "Instant" subforum, and there have been comments there that the insert isn't the right thickness -- seemingly only on some of the LomoGraflok units. Those with a 3D printer should be able to rectify the situation by printing a new adapter the correct thickness for their unit, but it's disappointing for Lomography to be shipping units that aren't consistent and haven't been tested to match the inserts.
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Finally had a chance just now to do some futzing out on the driveway and around the house with the back mounted on my Sinar. Happy to report that my focus spacer seems to be about right, though I'll spend another sheet or two on a really critical test at some point.
Following up on film_man's point, the ejection mechanism is oriented so that the sheet comes out on a slant heading toward the camera back, rather than parallel to it. On my Sinar, that means I need to get a finger or two in place to redirect the sheet it as it comes out, or else it snags on the camera back and gets bent before it pops out. Not hard once you know what to do, and of course you can also take the back off before ejecting. The geometry is such that I think this little hitch is likely to occur with many different cameras.
The other thing to watch out for is with the eject button - if you mash the thing too enthusiastically you can end up ejecting an extra sheet after the one you exposed.
Overall, though, it seems very workable. I was shooting quick-and-dirty under available light, so I have blue-ish pictures from late-afternoon shade outdoors and orange-ish pictures from incandescent light inside. Looking forward to some experiments with flash.
Following up on film_man's point, the ejection mechanism is oriented so that the sheet comes out on a slant heading toward the camera back, rather than parallel to it. On my Sinar, that means I need to get a finger or two in place to redirect the sheet it as it comes out, or else it snags on the camera back and gets bent before it pops out. Not hard once you know what to do, and of course you can also take the back off before ejecting. The geometry is such that I think this little hitch is likely to occur with many different cameras.
The other thing to watch out for is with the eject button - if you mash the thing too enthusiastically you can end up ejecting an extra sheet after the one you exposed.
Overall, though, it seems very workable. I was shooting quick-and-dirty under available light, so I have blue-ish pictures from late-afternoon shade outdoors and orange-ish pictures from incandescent light inside. Looking forward to some experiments with flash.
Just got another delay email.. order in early May. Not unexpected but, still sucks because I asked them twice earlier this month if they were still on track for October and they said yes.
Dear LomoGraflok Buyer,
We are sorry to let you know that due to COVID-19 still affecting global logistics we are continually encountering unforeseen changes in shipping and clearing schedules from carriers. Unfortunately this also causes delays for the delivery of your Lomography Graflok Instant Back which means that we cannot hold the delivery estimate given to you upon purchasing the item. It's also very likely that the delivery estimate given today is still subject to change.
Your Graflok Instant Back is scheduled to arrive in the local shipping hub at:
November 20th
Your Graflok Instant Back is scheduled to be shipped to you from:
November 24th - 30th
We would like to apologize for the unanticipated delays and let you know that we are working around the clock to get your Graflok Instant Backs delivered to you as soon as possible. In case there is a significant change for your delivery estimate we´ll get in touch again!
Thank you so much for your understanding and patience,
Lomography
Dear LomoGraflok Buyer,
We are sorry to let you know that due to COVID-19 still affecting global logistics we are continually encountering unforeseen changes in shipping and clearing schedules from carriers. Unfortunately this also causes delays for the delivery of your Lomography Graflok Instant Back which means that we cannot hold the delivery estimate given to you upon purchasing the item. It's also very likely that the delivery estimate given today is still subject to change.
Your Graflok Instant Back is scheduled to arrive in the local shipping hub at:
November 20th
Your Graflok Instant Back is scheduled to be shipped to you from:
November 24th - 30th
We would like to apologize for the unanticipated delays and let you know that we are working around the clock to get your Graflok Instant Backs delivered to you as soon as possible. In case there is a significant change for your delivery estimate we´ll get in touch again!
Thank you so much for your understanding and patience,
Lomography
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