I see nothing, HELP.

Darryl: You might be able to get a cambo bellows from Calumet. They Sell or sold the cameras. 1 800 Calumet. Where are you. If you are anywhere near NYC you can bring the camera in and we will figure it out.

Which "experienced view camera users" advised you to buy this particular camera? On the thread on photo.net which seems to be the one where you asked which camera to buy, no one suggested a Cambo (http://www.photo.net/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg?msg_id=00OBIv).

 

As Ashton suggested, you may be able to get the Cambo standards closer -- try removing the front standard and tripod block, then replacing them in a different order: front standard closest to the rear standard, tripod block in front of the front standard. This configuration is needed on some monorails to get the minimum spacing between the standards. Since we don't know precisely what camera model you have, and I'm not an expert on Cambo cameras, this is just a guess. Plus you may need a bag bellows, and/or a recessed lens board.

Did anyone make sure he isn't making the new user mistake of viewing the image with the film holder inserted? I didn't see any chat along those lines. Do you get light on the ground glass with the lens board off?

 

The 90mm doesn't sound short for that camera. A recessed lens board would get you closer. Shouldn't that camera work with a normal lens, 135mm? That's 5 inches. I just looked at one site, that's offering one with a 127 Ektar.

 

The 7.5 in lens to glass seems too far for any 4x5. Can the standards be turned around on the rail to move them closer? A lot of cameras are built this way.

If you can't get the lenboard closer than 7 inches from the glass, that camera will not take a 90mm. If it does focus close up on bricks, you know how to focus it. I think you need to get a camera that will focus the 90mm. A Tachihara, which you mentioned, is a good budget 4x5, so is Osaka. Sometimes you can find agood used one on Ebay. They are around $600. new.

Move the tripod mounting block out from in between the two standards, put it behind the rear. You should be able to get the two standards much closer together now, and should be able to focus a 90mm lens. I had a Cambo and it took a 90mm lens with the standard bellows (not much flexibility for movements though).

 

To focus a 90mm lens at infinity, you need to get the lensboard and the ground glass approximately 9cm apart (hence 90mm lens). The focal length of the lens is how far (roughly) from the ground glass the lens needs to be to focus at infinity. Wide angle lenses need the standards to be pushed close together. Longer lenses require more distance between the standards.

 

As you move the focus to add distance between the lens and the ground glass, you will be moving the plane of focus closer. It doesn't take too much movement to focus in from infinity to 15 or 20 feet away. When you extend the lens/ground glass apart until they are double the distance that they were at infinity, you will be focusing very close - macro territory.

 

I think your gear is fine and your lens is fine, just take some time getting the mechanics of focusing a view camera down.

 

Hope this helps!

Thank you all very much. I've decided to sell the Monorail and purchase either a Tachihara (kenrockwell loves) or Shen-Hao. My goal is architecture.

 

I appreciate you all tremendously.

There is a lot of theory involved in LF work, but you can mostly skip it and just adjust things until the ground glass looks right.

 

I would personally advise at least shooting a bit with what you have. If nothing else it will help you decide what to replace it with.

 

A first focusing attempt set up a light bulb on the other side of a dark room and try to focus on that, it should be bright enough so that you have no trouble figuring out when you have the focus right.

Thank you Zach

With the light bulb in a dark room, as an experiment to learn how focusing works, you can just hold the lens in one hand (pre-view lever set to open, aperture control set to wide open) and a white card in the other. Point the lens at the light bulb and hold the white card behind the lens. Move the card towards and away from the lens until you see an image.

 

Once you see what distance causes an image to form, you need to duplicate this distance with your camera. Maybe there is a way to do it -- see posts about with suggests to rearrange the standards.

Darryl,

 

I find it hard to believe that the standards can't be moved closer than 7 inches.

Usually a bag bellows is required for movements with a wide angle lens, but

most cameras 4x5 can focus a 90mm lens with the normal bellows.

It is possible that there is a way to slide the standards on the the rail independent of

what you do with the focussing mechanism? Sinars and several other monorails

work like that: You coarse focus by sliding the standards on their rail and then

use the (usually geared) focussing mechanism to achieve fine focus.

You might also be able to setup the camera in such a way that the two standards

are on the same side of the tripod mounting block, allowing them to be very

close together.

Thank you Stefan, I'll play with it tomorrow, my day off. Thank you too Michael and everyone.

Darryl,

If your goal is architectural photography you are must better off with a monorail than a field camera. The limited movements on a field camera are still fine for landscape work but too restrictive for architecture. In particular, the lack of movements on the rear standard of a typical field camera will be problematic.

 

Unless the Cambo has a fixed bellows you can get a bag bellows for it which is what you'll need for the 90mm. If the bellows is fixed you might look for a recessed lens board.

 

Rick

One final thought... a 90mm is a terribly useful lens for architecture. But it is a wide lens, which will tend to exadurate the foreground relative to the background. Often it is used in order to get close to a building so as to not see signs etc... and for interiors where you can only back up so much. You will also want other lenses such as someething around 135mm and 210mm. There are excellent used lenses available in these lengths for not too much $$$. I would recommend the 135mm Nikor, or wide field Ektar if you can find one. The Ektar 203mm is a great bargain in a longer length. Unless you are shooting color to commercial tolerances there are a great many old lenses (Symmars, Ektars, ILEX) which can be had for 1/3 the cost of newer lenses. That's probably a better place for money than new cameras, so long as you can get the Calumet to handle a 90. Monorails are essentially tinker toys... you can get them to do anything if you build them up in different ways.

Again, thank you all, great advice.

Should I <a href="http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=200225195677&_trksid=p3907.m32&_trkparms=tab%3DWatching">try this</a> with a recessed board?

I have it working great now. A bag bellows and recessed lens board were the needed remedy.