[pure-silver] Re: APX400, flatness, old glass

  • From: "Richard Knoppow" <dickburk@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • To: <pure-silver@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • Date: Tue, 21 Feb 2006 23:05:44 -0800


----- Original Message ----- From: <genej2@xxxxxxx>
To: <pure-silver@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Tuesday, February 21, 2006 2:05 PM
Subject: [pure-silver] Re: APX400, flatness, old glass


You know Richard,

I never gave that much thought to film flatness, and this experience surprised me in a couple of ways. Like I didn't expect the oldstyle back to be THAT bad, and I didn't expect the newer one (with rollers) to be THAT good. I also wouldn't have expected you to have found sheet film that wasn't flat! Just goes to sho ya, it's always somethin! BTW, the RB 67 back looks like it would probably fit on a mini graflex. They are really nice and well made but only have a film area of 55 x 65. Not bad, but the graflex 6x9 is noticeably bigger, and I like that. With the negs from this camera, I print a lot of 2/3 aspect ratio prints and I don't like having to crop so much image off.

Gene

If I had some spare dough I would look around for a good RB or RZ-67. Mamiya glass has a uniformly excellent reputation and, while these cameras are considered large by some people, I am used to stuff like Graflex's and they are hand cameras to me.
I was also surprized at the problem with the Minitature Graphic. Eventually, I will invest in some special cut Ilford film to test with. The stuff I've been using is Freestyle Creative which appears to be Foma Creative in disguise. It is decent old fashioned film, no match IMO for anything made by Kodak, Ilford, Fuji, or the late-lamented Agfa. What I discovered was that the images were out of focus at the center and sharp at the edges. I did very careful measurements of both holders and camera to insure the focal plane was correct. I got the same results with both the rangefinder and ground glass focusing. The lens on this camera is a Kodak Ektar, 101mm, f/4.5 and should be very sharp at the stops used. I calculated the amount of warp that would cause some loss of sharpness and think its possible. I am probably going to break down and do the slight surgery which will allow mounting a Singer-Graflex roll adaptor. I requires carving just a little wood away to clear the lump around the winding lever. Making the adaptor strips is simple. This is a neat little camera and I was thrilled to find cheap and easy to obtain film for it. I really want to find some newer holders, ideally Riteway holders, to test and make sure it isn't just the ancient Kodak holders that are the trouble.

---
Richard Knoppow
Los Angeles, CA, USA
dickburk@xxxxxxxxxxxxx 

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