What lensboard is this?

[darcy_cote]

I recently bought an old Japanese field camera. The wooden lensboard measures 84mm wide x 96mm

high. (3.3inchesx3.78inches) In the description of the camera, it said that this is a linhof style. Is that

correct and if it is a linhof

style, is there a certain linhof board to look for? If it isn't a linhof style lensboard then what is it?

 

thanks,

 

Darcy

[michael_briggs2]

S. K. Grimes, Inc. has a fairly comprehensive list of lensboards, with photos and dimensions, at http://www.skgrimes.com/lensboards/index.htm. The dimensions that you give don't match any of the Linhof boards that they list. The current "Technika" board, fitting recent Linhof 4x5 field cameras, is 96 mm wide x 98+ mm high, with some complicated features: cutoff corners on the bottom, two notches, a narrow notch on the center, and a light trap on the back. This lensboard is also popular on other brands of cameras, but the dimensions don't match those that you gave. Neither do the dimensions of the earlier version of the Technika board, nor the board for Technika 6x9cm/2x3in cameras. So your board doesn't appear to be a copy of a Linhof board.

[jay_wolfe]

Michael,

Your suggestion to search the Grimes site is a good one. Note, however, that Darcy lists it as a wooden lensboard, so it won't be a Linhof-type board.

[brian_ellis16]

Linhof "style" and Linhof "size" aren't necessarily the same thing. Linhof "style" may refer to the offset center hole, it may refer to the bottom edge design, it may refer to the rectangualr shape of your board and Linhof boards (as opposed to the more common square of boards other than Linhof), or maybe it's just something the camera marketing department dreamed up in an effort to sell cameras.

 

"What is is it?" It's just a lensboard to fit your camera and probably no other camera. In looking at a list of board sizes for different cameras published in an old Calumet catalog I see no boards listed that are the size of yours. However, it's pretty easy to make a lensboard yourself or you could have someone like Richard Ritter or S.K. Grimes make one for you.