Graflex.org

[john wilton]

I have a 4x5 Crown Graphic I bought as a parts camera, but it really doesn't have much wrong with it except for a little matter of a deformed bed, that restricts focusing movement to about half an inch. I've realised that it works well dedicated to a 65mm Super Angulon.

I've been poring through the archives...although the Kalart adjustment instructions start at 100mm people have adjusted to 88mm. Anyone adjusted for 65mm on a 4x5 camera?

As the lens is inside the body and the frame finder is unavailable, I am trying to visualize a frame finder that I can improvise without a machine shop (apartment dweller). Perhaps an oversize removable wire rectangle velcroed to the camera top, and sighting from above the peepsight? Before I reinvent the wheel, what have people done?

[glennfromwy]

John, I just sent a reply to your email. I think you would be wasting your time trying to get the rangfinder to work with that lens. It would only require such a small movement to focus, it just doesn't seem workable. Not to mention the fact that it probably wouldn't adjust to that lens. My 2X3 with an 80mm lens only requires about 3/4" of travel to go from 8 feet or so to infinity. Yours would be much less. I think, unless you can find something like a Linhof finder, you would have to make something. Those Linhof finders a rather spendy, too. What's wrong with your bed? Is the door sprung? Send me an email with particulars. Maybe I can help.
_________________
Glenn

"Wyoming - Where everybody is somebody else's weirdo"

[speedtrials]

I'm planning on trying to adjust the rangefinder to a 65mm nikon but I am more optimistic that it will work. There was, after all, a 65mm optar. It seems like there is plenty of adjustment in the long scale to go down to 65mm...the short scale not so much, and that might well be the problem. In that case, I'll set down a scale and still go handheld.
I am in the same boat with regards to a view finder. I'm hoping for an optical solution but nothing that costs more than the camera Maybe a Voigtlander 15mm?

[Henry]

Good luck, but I don't think it's gonna work. Yes, there was (and is---I own one) a 65 Optar, but it's like glenn says: the range of movement to focus such a lens is really short! It's hard enough to focus it on the ground glass, and the view through the Kalart is gross by comparison. But who knows? You may have better luck with the Nikon, and you *are* talking about a 4x5, whereas I'm speaking of 2x3.