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Graflex XLSW + MFDB?
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windhorse
Joined: 11 Jan 2012
Posts: 4
PostPosted: Wed Jan 11, 2012 11:03 pm   Post subject: Graflex XLSW + MFDB?

Hi

After many years using a Crown Graphic 4x5 I am interested in finding a way of mounting my Sinarback eMotion75 digital back on a smaller more agile Graflex system like the XLSW.

I want to use it to photograph people in their homes - hence my interest in the wide angle solution.

The main challenge I face at the moment is how to attach the digital back and if I do manage to do this how could I focus this system?

One solution I am considering is to mount the digital back on a sliding focussing back (GG plate + adapter plate for a digital back and/or MF film) that fits the XLSW's standard 2x3 Graflok back -- but so far have not found a 2x3 sliding adapter that does not cost a fortune.

It seems to be easier to find sliding adapter for a 4x5 Graflok back so I was very happy to read that Graflex did make an XL Graflok 4x5 adapter for mounting a 4x5 back on this fanastic camera --- though am not sure if the top of the adapter would cut off the view through the Mamiya 50mm viewfinder that I would like to use with the camera?

Besides this I cannot find an XL Graflok 4x5 adapter anywhere on the internet. Do they really exist and if so I would like to ask if anybody can suggest where I may be able to find one?

Do you have any other suggestion about how I could focus an XLSW without using GG (ie with the digital back mounted on the back of the XLSW just like a standard film pack), as I am not so keen on having to use the GG to focus then remove it to mount the digital back every time I take a photo.

Maybe with the 47mm angulon the depth of field even at max f4 opening is so deep that focussing is unnecessary? :-)

Any advice most welcome.
Dan Fromm
Joined: 14 May 2001
Posts: 2165
PostPosted: Thu Jan 12, 2012 2:59 pm

Quote:
Maybe with the 47mm angulon the depth of field even at max f4 opening is so deep that focussing is unnecessary?

Two versions, f/5.6 and f/8. I have a 47/5.6 SA, it has to be focused.
windhorse
Joined: 11 Jan 2012
Posts: 4
PostPosted: Thu Jan 12, 2012 4:40 pm

thanks for the reality check,

the problem with unfounded optimism is that it is unfounded...

looks like best solution is to focus the XLSW with GG like it was designed to do.
C. Henry
Joined: 13 Dec 2005
Posts: 360
PostPosted: Thu Jan 12, 2012 8:03 pm

Just a wild idea of mine, not something that I have actually tried.
If you are using the digital back tethered to a computer check to see if you can focus the camera by using the image on the computers monitor.
Zooming in electronically may make this easy with the right hardware & software.

C. Henry
windhorse
Joined: 11 Jan 2012
Posts: 4
PostPosted: Thu Jan 12, 2012 8:17 pm

thanks,

wild ideas most welcome :P

not so keen about a tethered solution... but maybe would work with my laptop that i can probably use [i]anywhere[/i] as you suggest to focus the digital back

hmmm... imagine what the candle makers said when edison invented the light bulb about all that wire
windhorse
Joined: 11 Jan 2012
Posts: 4
PostPosted: Thu Jan 12, 2012 8:58 pm

er... 1 minor detail:

[i]emotion75 does not support live view that was first introduced in the subsequent emotion75 LV and offered as an upgrade option for the emotion75 for a limited period of time that has since expired as the first generation model is no longer supported by Sinar[/i]

... back to the drawing board
1banjo
Joined: 16 Nov 2008
Posts: 492
PostPosted: Fri Jan 13, 2012 5:24 am

will by the time you use a 4x5 adapter back & then a sliding back
the LBSs mite make it as havy as a 4x5 Crown!!
BUT anyway if you could get a Polaroid Back for Graflex XL
and take off the adapter plate off of it 4 screws then put it on a sliding back
BUT you can't get it in foucss as that will set it back by 1/2" or so
But maybe use a 80mm Focus tube (lens barrel) with a 47mm lens
I thank that I cuold do it BUT it would take time to play to get it right

SO probly not the best thing to try & use a XLSW

banjo

PS I have used a 100mm Focus tube (lens barrel) to put a 65mm Angulon
on my XLSW
1banjo
Joined: 16 Nov 2008
Posts: 492
PostPosted: Fri Jan 13, 2012 8:23 am

NO I boboed you would need a shorter (lens barrel) or like us a 58mm
lens on a 47mm (lens barrel) AS to the silding back is thiker BE like putting on an 1/2" to 3/4 " Spacers AND as 45pss gives us in an other post

Spacers adapt the camera for MACRO photography.

With all cameras, regardless of format, macro focusing is accomplished by varying the distance between the camera's image plane and the subject. The lens focus mechanism will have a small affect on focus once the camera is positioned so that the subject is in rough focus.

so a slider back is not a good try for what you are wonting to do!!!
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