Using Bronica Bellows Extension at infinity

[Kloppervok]

The extension bellows are all nice and good for macro work, but I'd bought it in hope that I would be using it for working pictures with vertical shift at 50+ feet (or infinity).

These bellows are not very flexible, so I do not have any flexibility at all with shift/rise at infinity for fear of tearing them. Is there any way to replace these bellows, with a finer more flexible set?

Is there something I can do mechanically so that I game it such that, infinity is one inch in front of body, rather than none? I guess this is why view cameras have BOTH a rear and front standard, and not just one.

 

[elekm]

Once you put something between the lens and the body (when it's not part of the original design), you lose infinity focus.

I don't know if any accessory bellows are created to allow for infinity focus, as the lens would have to sit exactly where it was without the bellows mounted, which would be inside the bellows tunnel.

This applies to bellows and extension tubes.

 

[Christopher Walrath]

Not unless you could score an old2.25x3.25 or some such lens on the cheap and fab a way to affix it to the front of the bellows. Just something with a longer focal length than the dist from film to the front of the bellows, allowing for lens mounting distance as well.

 

[John Koehrer]

I've used a 135mm Tessar in a leaf shutter on a Nikon with a cheap bellows but wasn't trying to get T&S. I just mounted the shutter on an extra body cap & put it on the bellows. To get T&S you could rig up a flexible box for the front of the bellows. Two pieces of wood/plastic W/fabric between them & some screws to tighten them down.
Where's the shutter on the camera or lens? If it's in the lens there would not be any way to couple them together.

 

[David A. Goldfarb]

Is this the Type II bellows with full movements for the S2/S2a/C, and with adapters the EC and EC-TL?

This bellows replaces the helical, which is separate from the lens and the body on these cameras, so it does focus to infinity, but it doesn't lend itself to architectural photography, for the reasons you're discovering. If you have a wide lens, then it protrudes into the camera body, so there isn't much room for movement, and even if the bellows were more flexible at short extension, the lens barrel would bump up against the lens mount on the camera. If you want to adapt a view camera lens that won't protrude into the camera body, then it's going to be around 105mm or longer, so it isn't going to work well for architecturals either, unless you can move way back from the subject. The Bronica T/S bellows was designed mainly for macro and tabletop work.

You would be better off just using a view camera.

 

[Kloppervok]

If you have a wide lens, then it protrudes into the camera body, so there isn't much room for movement, and even if the bellows were more flexible at short extension, the lens barrel would bump up against the lens mount on the camera.

I have the Type II bellows, David. I do enjoy having focusing rails over a helical in most of my shooting situations. I get infinity (or very very close it ).

Thank you for the reminder that lens design in fact gets in the way.