Polaroid 110 to 4x5 conversion

I'm interested in converting a Polaroid 110 (not 110A or 110B) to a 4x5, but

from some cursory research have learned that it is a particularly delicate model

to machine. Can anyone recommend a place that excels at this type of service? I

hate to send it somewhere and have it come back broken beyond repair.

Dean Jones (Razzle) is your go-to guy:

 

http://homepages.ihug.com.au/~razzle/index.html

 

Shoot him an email. I remember a couple of others mentioned but don't have info at hand.

Why would you want to do this? It is heavy, bulky, the lenses aren't changable, and the viewfinder and rangefinder will both be way off?

If you're a ground glass guy, f64 kind of guy, this kind of conversion may not make sense to you.

 

But if you like to work handheld in smaller formats then this kind of conversion makes perfect sense.

 

I've been very pleased with my conversion. It's lighter than a linhof and the rangefinder/viewfinder is fine.

 

Build quality/feel is definitely not Linhof quality, but it's small and light for a 4x5 and quick to work with.

 

Not every camera has to have every feature, it just has to have the features that you want at the time that you are using it.

 

Very pleased with mine. And he made mine bright blue at my request.

Viola! Not bulky, my <A HREF="http://www.youtube.com/watch?

v=KGBGaun4orc&NR=1"> LowProfile back</A>. A 4x5 back you can <A

HREF="http://www.photo.net/photo/6482793"> palm</A> in one hand.

<p>

 

 

Viola! <A HREF="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l3Nl33sqvno"> Interchangeable

lenses</A>.<p>

 

 

Viola! <A HREF="http://www.photo.net/photodb/folder?folder_id=769715"> My latest Hoax.

</A><p>

 

Viola! Not hard to <A HREF="http://www.photo.net/photodb/folder?folder_id=420601"> focus

</A>or <A HREF="http://www.photo.net/photodb/folder?folder_id=747193"> frame </A>.

<p>You do it because these are great, fun cameras, and Polaroid doesn't make film for

them anymore.

Bill, you need to have another look at this 4x5 camera........<div></div>

I just weighed my (unconverted) Polaroid 900, and it's only approximately 1/4 pound lighter than my 4x5 Crown Graphic. The Graphic is much more ergonomic (and sexier, too).

Bill; folks did this in the 1950's when a Speed Graphic was a months pay; and old or junked early Polaroids were door stops; like an old 386 computer today. Conversions like this are as old as using a lawnmower engine on a homemade go cart; or using an Edmund acromat on an Exakta VX; ie before the Nikon F was born. We messsed around with these 4x5 conversions in 4H club in Indiana; in a dirt poor town in the 1950's. In that era folks made things themselves; and manufacturing in the USA wasnt a horrible thing.

Ah Bill....half the 900's components are dispensed with, cutting the weight dramatically, the 4x5 back adding only 350g to the final tally. The 110B finishes up even lighter.

The real advantage lies with the parallax corrected single window brightline finder, there's nothing faster or more suitable for hand held use than a converted Polaroid. I've used Crowns and Speeds, but to me they are just too old and clunky....plus I've not yet seen a RED one!<div></div>

Kelly, that was then, this is now (Lipmann's selling for thousands of dollars?).<P>Dean, the 110B (and 900) bright-line frames are the only 100% exact framing I've ever seen, but they were for 3.25 x 4.25 images. How does it translate to 4x5?

I find that by using a 150mm focal length lens, the framing remains quite accurate, but having said that, the finder remains only serves as a guide. Even expensive DSLR's fail to offer more than a percentage of the actual image captured, but with a little experience, it soon becomes apparent where the boundaries lie.

<p>Hello Mr. Dean Jones, as well as anyone else reading. I wonder if you have any advice for a novice camera converter. I have little to no experience in this field but am very mechanically inclined and I am an engineering student, so i am good at understanding instructions; If this helps the picture about me any saying that. I have both an 800 and a 900, and i am going to convert both of them to use 70mm roll film and then when i have more money down the line i am going to upgrade the front standard on one of them to a nice (expensive too i bet) lens. any suggestions on to which body i should discard the front standard and upgrade the lens? the one whose lens i will keep will be the one that i finish converting 1st so i can start to use.</p>

<p>I was thinking about leaving the 800 front alone, as its got the connectors for X sync flash, and i was just going to wire up straight from there to a modified hot shoe. The 900 has the nice view finder and auto exposure or manual feature but i don't think theirs an x sync for it.<br>

I seen examples online, of photos taken from both an 800 and 900 converted to 120 panoramic format and the photos looked nice so i dont think the quality of the lenses is much different. am i wrong?<br>

Also when you tell me wich i should save for the upgrade let me know what lens you think i should save up for? or should i just save up for the 120 camera, as that has my favorit lens from all the Polaroids. There is Somone that wants to sell me a SEIKOSHA-SLV Shutter looks just like the one for the 120 but without the ev dialing. It has no elements and i was thinking i could look for some from a 110. I remeber reading a post when i 1st started to look into polaroid conversions. It was about the 110 4x5 conversion and one guy asked if he can use a difernet shutter and the responder was saying how he had to use a #0 only and needed to be percise on the distance apart of the lenses.  Continuing futher to say how hard it is to find the shutters in good working order and that they break and how he has a few sets of elements laying arround and no shutters to place them in . But for the life of me i cannot remeber where i read that post so i cant contact that guy . Anyway , the store that has the shutter for sale thinks its for a for  120mm lens.</p>