I have. I have two GVII's, one I use as an enlarger set-up in my walk-in closet cum darkroom. The other goes out of the house with me. On the the sacrilege I committed. I have two tripods, a Bogen 3021 which also shares the occasional burden of an F4s and a 69 Fuji. When I use those two cameras I uses a Giotto ball head. However, with the GV, I was getting too much flex to suit my taste. My other tripod is a Majestic 3300.
The Majestic head has a 3/8-16 stud and the Bogen also has a 3/8-16 stud sans head of choice. Please forgive me, fellow users and owners, but I took a drill and drilled out the 1/4-20 socket in the base of the tripod mount of my lovely GVII. I then tapped it to 3/8-16 and now I can use both tripods and they are equally happy with their newly modified friend.

Since you have obiviously read this far, can anyone recommend a modern 69 roll film back that will fit a Graflock back? I am most concerned with reliability and precision (film flatness and spacing). I really don't relish the idea of jerking the lens off my 69 Fuji and figuring out how to adapt the rest of the camera to my GV.

Go ahead and drill that sucker out! In this case you can always make a large hole smaller with one of those little screw-in adaptors.

Cheers to all,

More a matter of practicality than sacrilige. I always questioned the strength of those little 1/4-20 tripod screws, and the 3/8-16 is NOT going to fail. And, as you point out, you can always bush it back to the smaller size.

While the GV's weight could be carried by the 1/4-20 (with mabye not as much margin of strength as we would like) other cameras are over the limit. I got a B&J Grover 5x7 outfit for $95; the problem was there was no tripod mount. I made my own out of a plumbing T joint, epoxy bedded to fit the hex rail. A plumbing flange serves as the base, and its threads are filled by a pipe plug. That was cut flush, drilled for our friend the 3/8-16, and the new mount given a coat of hammertone gray for a nice look. The camera weighs about 14 or 15 pounds and I would never trust it to a 1/4-20

I don't know about modern backs for this -- alas -- aren't all of the graflok backs the same? I have a GVI with a spring back -- and am using a graphic 23 back on a separate spring back -- and it's just dandy. The graphic 23 is designed to go into the graflok back, if I am not mistaken. Mine works very well -- but I understand the film advance can get boogered on these.

I have used Linhof, Wista, Toyo and Calumet backs on my Views with a grafloc with no problem in the past, I also have modified one of my spring backs to be able to slip the Wista back on, just like on a Wista Field Camera.

Dave

<blockquote> Hi,</blockquote> I commit scarelige all the time. That's part of the fun of being a heathen. Now, to your other question. Use whatever Graflok or International compatable roll back you like. They'll all fit.<blockquote> <blockquote> Dan </blockquote> </blockquote>

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: danimal on 2004-10-28 15:31 ]</font>

Hassleblad and Rollei dealt with film flatness with a plate of glass. It'd be easy to do with a Graflex roll back, assuming you don't mind a little dust.

The other ways of doing this might be a vacuum back or spring loading after the film's advanced (very tricky mechanics)...a mere pressure plate can't do the trick, doesn't even do it with most 35mm cameras.

I don't think it's a real issue unless you're doing macro photography where the amount of film lack of flatness would be a higher percent Vs the focal distance.

Quote:

On 2004-11-23 09:06, djon wrote: Hassleblad and Rollei dealt with film flatness with a plate of glass. It'd be easy to do with a Graflex roll back, assuming you don't mind a little dust. The other ways of doing this might be a vacuum back or spring loading after the film's advanced (very tricky mechanics)...a mere pressure plate can't do the trick, doesn't even do it with most 35mm cameras. I don't think it's a real issue unless you're doing macro photography where the amount of film lack of flatness would be a higher percent Vs the focal distance.

Its the other way 'round, I think. Don't we get minimum depth of focus given aperture with the lens focused to infinity?

Cheers,

Dan

Dan, I get lost in the possible optical semantics, never did grasp a lot of the basics (love camera movements, however!)... so I'll just say I doubt film flatness is a real-world problem for Graflex roll backs, but if I'm doing critical copy work do I make the assumption that it's smarter to use sheet film.

Since the Hass and Rollei filmplane glasses were used on cameras intended for space travel and wherever it is people use TLRs (in their nostalgia?), maybe you're right.