Just got my first 8x10 camera, and questions

Hello every one, I finally did, it after years of wanting an 8x10

camera, I finally managed to get an old Kodak 2d as a birthday gift.

I am using an old copy lens for the time being until I can afford

some thing better.

 

Question #1 Is there any trick to getting the front standard onto

the base that it fits on. It will unfold easy enough and slide onto

the bed with no problems but getting it from the bed to the base the

rear standard sits on is very difficult, even getting the front

standard to the rear of the bed can be very hard to do.

 

Question #2 What is this weird metal spring (See Picture) ? I'd like

to mount a Packard shutter and this seems like it would be in the

way.

 

Question #3 if I don't bother with the Packard shutter, and one have

luck with the lens cap on, lens cap off method of exposure. Even

with the lens stopped down to f90 a 100ASA film still requires less

than a second exposure in sunlight. Those of you who use this method

do you use ND filters? Or some other ?magic? tricks.

 

Thank you all very much

 

David Matuszek<div></div>

Just guessing on the spring. Just looked and mine has one too. I suspect that it helps the bellows fold properly when the standards are racked together.

 

With the rails tightened down properly you should be able to use the geared knobs to move the standards from the front to the back with no problem.

 

Be sure your standards are aligned from left to right and that none of the rack teeth are bent or broken and that the wing nuts are tight.

 

I just tried mine and you may have to jiggle things a little to get the gear teeth to jump from one rack to the next.

Congratulations! May your negs never be the same!

 

Re 1): I'm not sure what you're referring to. Sounds like you're having problems getting the standards over the "hump" between the short part of the bed and the longer part that folds down and locks. Is this the case? Also, does the bed fold up at the back or the front. If it folds up at the back, then you really don't need to move the front standard very much if at all; you can use the back to focus. Sometimes people switch these around, which shouldn't make a difference if everything's in good shape, but can make a difference on an old camera.

 

There are all kinds of things that could have gone wrong. These 2Ds (and Anscos and B&Js and on and on) are old cameras made of wood. If the finish is not intact and the camera was not stored properly for years, as is often the case, there might have been a little bit of swelling or shifting in the infrastructure. More likely, it might just be dirty.

 

Check the grooves in the wood that the metal hardware slides in. Are these clogged with dirt or old finish/varnish that's come loose? You can take a small tool and scrape along these grooves to clean them out.

 

A good way to lubricate them is wax. I read an old repair manual for the Ansco 8x10s where they recommended using tallow or paraffin wax, like what you find in candles, on parts where wood came in contact with other wood or metal. I keep some menora candles in the cupboard to use in case of power failures, and found that a little of the wax scraped off and worked into these grooves can help smooth things out. You could even use auto wax. Just be sure that you don't get excess in there that could in turn clog things up.

 

You can also check and see if there's crud built up in the gear teeth on the beds. A toothpick can help get that out.

 

The Kodak 2D was a very solidly-built camera, so if it didn't experience much abuse etc., should work pretty well.

 

Re 2): I hope someone else who sees this thread and knows what that is will enlighten the rest of us!

 

Re 3): The Packard shutter is a good bet. Even if you get one that's jammed up from rust etc., they're easy to take apart and clean out and get working again. If you don't want to drill holes in your camera for hoses, etc., you can mount one on the back of a lensboard. You could even make an adaptor lensboard that accepts smaller lensboards on the front, with the Packard mounted on the rear. With some practice, you can regulate the thing to 1/2 and 1 second exposures, maybe even 1/5 second, without using the "Instantaneous" pin setting. With the pin in place, a good hard squeeze on the bulb should get you about 1/15 to 1/20 second; you might with practice be able to regulate that down to about 1/10 second.

 

Just be careful that if you have to clean one out, don't use abrasive on the sliding brass tube. Use a solvent instead to clean out that apparatus, both tubes, and don't use any lubricant in it. Using abrasive will make texture on the surfaces which will hang up the sliding action; lubricant will gum up pretty quickly. Clean and dry is the key.

 

Hope this helps.

The Kodak #2 was built by Graflex for Kodak. The D stands for Dark wood. A lot of members of Graflex.org own them and one of the meadiators is very knowledgeable on the 2D. Now for the standard movement: vary the tightness/looseness of the standard lock to find the easiest to move via the geared knob. Clean and lube the track and gears (as previously stated). Check alignment and squareness with a small combo square.

Having just seen this one http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=15248&item=3831399876&rd=1 the build is very simular to my Comerical View. When facing the ground glass the knobs on the left are the standard lock knobs while the ones on the right are the movement ones. To unlock the standard turn the lock knob counter clockwise, once to its limit it can be used to move the standard fowarad but not backward. Mine sometimes tightens as I move the standard backward if I do not have it at the full limit.

Congrats on 8x10!!

 

When I started out and only had a process lens, I made due with a lens cap. Well...I actually used a 4x5 darkslide. I held it in front of the lens, removed the slide from the 8x10 film holder, flipped the 4x5 away from the lens, put it back, and then returned the slide to the 8x10 holder.

 

It works fine. I used about 4x ND usually, and managed with ISO 100 (sometimes pulled to 50) and with a lens that only went down to f/45.

 

Sometimes I got lucky and got exposures around 2-3 seconds. Sometimes I'd try to use another filter (like a pola or an appropriate color filter) if I thought I needed the added density. I made exposures down to about 1/2 second (my watch has a sweep second hand that moves in roughly 1/3 second increments). And of course, some of it was guesswork and luck.

Hi

 

Ive looked at your pic of spring and to me it looks like it maybe was a made to grip the rubber tubing/or if the flash sync type -the leads of a packard shutter to be held out the way of being in view of lens/film.I have an 2D camera with this type of shutter an that spring maybe the reason?

As for the bed problem, try some beeswax of candle wax along the rail guides on the side and see if the F standard brass fitting are slighty bent.when sliding the standard on to rails make sure it goes on even to the brass gearsas u only need a few out which may make it more dificult as u progress towards the rear standard

 

Exposure: I found the method of saying "1kentucky" = 1 sec 1ken=1/2 sec

1=1/4 seems to work ;)

 

 

Hope this helps

 

Hugh

Again Congrats! The spring helps bellows not to sag into the picture perhaps. You should be able to mount a 5 1/2 inch or so packard directly onto the lens board. I have great success with packard shutters. Need 1/4 second, just listen to your Nikon FM a few times at that setting and make the packard do the same. I love process lenses. Most are just as sharp or sharper than their f5.6 heavier counterparts. EFKE 25 film works fantastic for lens cap exposures. With a red filter and a polariser it's easy to drop into multiple seconds even with ASA 100 film. Freestyle APHS graphic arts film at asa 3 needs about 3 seconds at f22 1/2 with no filters. Development can be tricky with this film but you can watch it happen with a red lamp on. I use VERY dilute PMK Pyro and when the image "comes up" I multiply whatever time it took by 4. So if my image appears at 2 minutes, I give 8. Have a blast.