Alternative bellows...

[clark]

I'm thinking of making my wife a 4x5 camera, but I'm a bit put off by

the prospect of making a bellows, and I'm too cheap to buy a new one.

I was thinking about alternative materials for the bellows, and one of

the things I came up with was flexible, accordian fold hose <a

href=http://www.usplastic.com/catalog/product.asp?catalog%5Fname=USPlastic&category%5Fname=57&product%5Fid=2183>

like this</a>. This particular product comes in 8" diameter, which

would be plenty big for 4x5, and I would assume that it is light tight.<p>

 

Can anyone think why, apart from obvious lack of aesthetic appeal,

this is a bad idea?<p>

 

Thanks,<BR>

Clark

[hugh_crawford1]

I had the idea of using hose like that for a lensbaby like project but the stuff I looked at turned out to be very very stiff

[walter_degroot]

unless you need a lot of movements, a speed or crown graphic is inexpensive. many had ektar lenses and I think all theb later models had a double extension bellows, at least mine does.

[danny_wong2]

How light tight are they?.

[george_jiri_loun]

Clark, if you try it you'll see that it doesn't have the flexibility of bellows - you cannot fold it and stretch it as easily as real bellows. In fact, bellows is the most natural and the most simple solution that a camera needs. That's why it survived centuries! As many other inventions it imitates nature - take a look at your wrist...

[davidv1]

I just got a nice Calumet 540 with perfect bellows for $180 off our favorite auction site. I watched them for awhile, and that's about the going rate. And a Crown Graphic in decent shape is $200 or so. I even got an older Speed Graphic in the pn classifieds for $65 a few months back.

 

Building a 4x5 is probably not be a way to save money. But if that's your thing, have you seen the Bender?

 

www.benderphoto.com

 

$329 gets you the whole kit.

[silent1]

Clark, I've handled hose like that. Not only isn't it all that flexible ("flexible" in their parlance is as compared to PVC pipe), it's also not terribly compressible -- you'd wind up with a camera that has only about a 50% bellows extension from minimum to maximum, compared to the 500% or more that's common with a straight bellows (if you don't need movements when compressed) or better than 20:1 with a tapered bellows.

 

What I'd suggest is to visit several of the many-many sites on the web about bellows folding, and make your own, or buy one of the "slave labor" ones periodically sold on eBay by the maker of one of the various 4x5 camera kits, presumably mainly to support his kit buyers. As above, there's not really any substitute for a bellows if you want/need movements. If you don't, just make two boxes that slide one inside the other and be done.

[davidv1]

Doug Bardell has a page about making your own bellows.

 

 

http://www.cyberbeach.net/~dbardell/bellows.html

[glenn_thoreson]

On a good day, you can buy a Calumet/Burke & James Orbit monorail on the auction site for less than 100.00. Speed and Crown Graphics are still a bargain. Graflex Graphic view cameras are inexpensive and a good option. To build one seems pointless. To me, anyway.

[Sandeha Lynch]

If you want a working camera for your wife, buy second-hand as suggested above. If you want to build a 4x5 that will last forever, set aside two years.

[wyverndude]

eBay, eBay, eBay, eBay... repeat after me: "eBay".

<P>

It's not a dirty word.

 

<P>

But to the point: I'd agree with all of the preceding posts, with the suggestion that you might want to make a bag bellows. I made one for the Wyder45 (custom camera) not because I was cheap but because I needed an entirely custom configuration.

<P>

It wasn't expensive, but that wasn't the point. I used shutter curtain material from <a href="http://www.micro-tools.com/Merchant2/merchant.mvc?Screen=PROD&Store_Code=MT&Product_Code=SCM">Micro-Tools</a>

and glued it to vinyl upholstery material from the local fabric store. I'd guess if you really want to get cheap, you could probably skip the shutter curtain material.

[wyverndude]

Sorry, I should have put a smiley face with my eBay comment. :)

[miles_feigenbaum___dallas_]

bellows here-

 

http://www.keh.com/shop/product.cfm?bid=LF&cid=19&sid=newused&crid=10796240

[miles_feigenbaum___dallas_]

maybe at the same time your dear wife can make you some handmade underwear out of canvas...

[clark]

Thanks for all of the replies (except for the one about the underwear - sheesh!). I'll be looking into the possibilites presented. I hadn't realized that a used 4x5 camera could be had so cheaply.

 

Clark