super angulon 9omm.&speed graphic 4x5: marriage made in heaven? Not?

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i am planning to use a 90 mm. s. angulon with my speed graphic. Does anyone know if the camera bed will show in the images?

I need the information now because i have no way to test in advance.

ALso, does anyone have information on a LF tele xenar 500 mm.f. 5.5? What is the coverage?

-- domenico foschi (applethorpe@earthlink.net), April 19, 2002

Answers

If you leave the bed horizontal, it will show with any 90mm lens.

This is not really a problem though, just drop the bed. The bed depresses a sufficient amount to clear the lens viewing circle.

-- Ed Balko (veggie@monmouth.com), April 19, 2002.


Go to http://www.schneideroptics.com/info/vintage_lens_data/large_format_lenses/

You'll find technical data on all Schneider lenses there...

And they give the image circle of the Tele Xenar 500mm/f5.5 as 312mm.

-- Ole Tjugen (oftjugen@online.no), April 20, 2002.


Well, as I mentioned in the thread just below, I think you will have a problem putting the 90mm Super angulon on a Speed Graphic. You will need to drop the bed, then move the front standard back far enough on the rails to focus the 90mm on infinity. I believe you will find the standard drops off the back of the rail before you get it to focus on infinity. ( someone jump in here and correct me if I'm mistaken, this was quite a few years ago I tried this)

You could also check this yourself: go to the Schneider site and find out what the "film-to-flange" distance is for the 90mm super. Now take a ruler and move the front standard back (with the bed dropped) until you get to that distance: Will the camera still focus and lock down ok? Your question is answered.

-- Gary Frost (gary.frost@onemain.com), April 20, 2002.


It completely mystifies me why, when this question comes up, as it does from time to time, people always say you need to drop the bed with speed graphic and a 90 mm lens. I can't figure out why anyone would do this. I have both the speed and crown graphics, and never drop the bed. The bed only shows in the image when you get down around the 65 mm lengths. You do not need to drop the bed for 90 mm. Further, you will have no problem focussing: there is plenty of room and you do not need to rack your front standard all the way in and off the main bed to focus.

I am not sure if the f8 super angulon will fit or not, but I think it will. The f6.8 angulons certainly do. The 90mm XL may well be too big for the camera; again, I don't know the answers to those questions. But unless there is something extremely screwy with the 90 mm SA flange to film distance (which there isn't), then you will have no problems with the bed appearing in the image.

-- Erik Ryberg (ryberg@seanet.com), April 20, 2002.


okay Guys, don't fight now....

I got to verify the various suggestions and i found that i can see a very small part of the bed only at infinity and stopped down at f 32, no big deal....

Dropping the bed instead present s the big problem or having the film at different distances from the film, i have an old model speed graphic, which means i cannot compensate with a lens tilt..., making the option non acceptable.... Thank you anyway to everybody ,

domenico

-- domenico (applethorpe@earthlink.net), April 21, 2002.



i meant the from the lens.......

-- domenico (applethorpe@earthlink.net), April 21, 2002.

Okay, that makes one more person who says you get the bed in the image with a 90 mm lens focused on infinity on a speed graphic. No matter what I do, I cannot get my lens to do this on either my crown or speed graphic. I just tried it again. I shoot a 90 mm lens on these cameras many times a year, and have been doing it since about 1996, and have many images that do not show the camera bed. Either I'm crazy or the rest of the world is . . . .

I don't know what f32 has to do with anything, but I guess I'll quit telling people they can use 90 mm lenses on these cameras.

-- Erik Ryberg (ryberg@seanet.com), April 21, 2002.


Erik, I would believe you since you have the camera in front of you. Thanks for correcting me, and my incorrect recollection. I have a Super Graphic and 90mm f/8 Nikkor. I mounted it and there is no problem with the bed unless the back is switched to 'portrait'. ( this cannot be done anyway with the Crown or Speed: landscape only)

sorry, but my recollection was with some type of Crown or Speed with focal plane shutter and we had a problem with the hinge point where the rails go into the body. (does yours have a focal plane shutter?) Thanks, now I'll quit spreading misinformation.

-- Gary Frost (gary.frost@onemain.com), April 22, 2002.


Hi Gary,

Ah, the light bulb finally went on. Yes, if your camera lets you switch the back into portrait mode, that would likely make a big difference. I never thought about that - those Super Speeds let you rotate the back.

I haven't used the camera with the focal plane shutter in years (I finally got lenses with shutters on them) and it is in storage. But I may drag it out and put the lens on it, because now that I think about this I do sort of dimly recall having to put the lens right at the hinge point with the 90. You definitely have to do that with the 65mm on the Crown. But not the 90.

What I could never figure out was why these cameras came with up tilt on the front. Unless you are taking pictures of ceilings, the only reason for upward tilt is to compensate for the lens being racked out on the dropped (and angled) bed. But any lens long enough to get you out on the dropped bed is too long to have the bed show anyway, so there is no reason to drop the bed. Once you get lenses wide enough to require dropping the bed, they are racked in on the portion before the hinge, and thus don't require any tilt to compensate for the drop. Perhaps this question is also answered by the reversing back on the Supers. Maybe the bodies were basically the same on the super and the crowns for production reasons, and this accounts for the strange and unneeded "feature" on the crowns? That would explain it.

-- Erik Ryberg (ryberg@seanet.com), April 23, 2002.


Good point Erik on the drop bed/backward tilt issue. I know with the Crown you can turn the front 'fork' around and mount it so you now have forward tilt instead of 'backward'. Now you can't drop the bed but, as you say, I can't see the use in dropping the bed anyway! OTOH, there is good use for forward tilt. A few of these things and mainly the rotating back is what drove me to choose the Super Graphic.

-- Gary Frost (gary.frost@onemain.com), April 25, 2002.


Well, Gary's comments about putting the 90 mm on the hinge on the focal plane shutter models was gnawing at me, as a little wisp of a memory of maybe having to do that after all started to come back, so I went and dragged the old focal plane speed graphic out of storage and to my shame and embarrassment: Gary is absolutely right. The 90 mm lens clamps just aft of the hinge. Not a big deal, really, but there you have it. I was totally wrong when it comes to the models with the focal plane shutter.

HOWEVER, what I also noticed, TO MY HORROR, was that the bed shows in the image at infinity! What, did I never shoot a 90 mm with this camera? Did I always use a little rise (hmm, that might actually be the case, come to think of it . . ..). Anyway, I am repairing to the mountains to flog myself now. On the speed graphics with focal plane shutters, the bed does indeed show at infinity with a 90 mm angulon. So you need to drop it after all, and thus it is a good thing the lens focuses aft of the hinge: otherwise you could never focus it, because it would drop with the bed, and be thrown way too far forward even if you tilted the lens up again.

Those focal plane cameras sure are heavy, but it is awfully nice when on a budget to be able to use the shutterless tele-optars and other lenses that come in barrel. I have no use for this camera at all anymore, but I just can't bring myself to sell it. I pretend that there may be some day I need to shoot something at 1/1000 second, the high speed on the shutter. I actually used to use this camera hand-held with the 15 inch tele-optar, and shoot HP5 rated at 800 and shot at 1/1000. Made great pictures.

-- Erik Ryberg (ryberg@seanet.com), April 25, 2002.


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