[LargeFormat] Bellows

[Jim Hemenway]

Philip:

Instead of leather, have you considered leather-like vinyl?  It can be
had much thinner than leather.

-- 

Jim - http://www.hemenway.com



"philip.lambert" wrote:
> 
> I just bought a Gandolfi 54 Variant Level One and am attempting to cope with
> its limitations (or mine). The standard bellows don't stretch much beyond
> 250mm and my long lens is 305mm so I need to make another top hat lens
> board, not really demanding if one has time.
> More of a problem is using my 47mm f5.6 S Angulon with the bag bellows -
> it's quite difficult to get the lensboard near enough to the glass and still
> have usable rising front. Gandolfi just promised to send me some
> instructions which if all else fails I shall have to read.
> If the bellows are removed the front and rear standards can get closer
> together. It looks to me as though the bag bellows fabric is just too bulky
> (it stretches to 120mm approx and works fine on 90mm lenses).  It is
> possible that a bag bellows of reduced material bulk would work a lot better
> with the 47mm and actually permit some rising front.
> 
> Does anybody have any views on reducing the bag bellows bulk?   I am not
> keen to cut it down as it's nearly new.  Maybe if I find an old Gandolfi
> bellows I could use the front and rear frames to have a less bulky bag made.
> Or even copy the frames out of plywood of the same thickness.
> 
> Anybody know what material a bag bellows ought to be made of and where to
> get it?  I can get leather from a hobbies shop but it feels a bit thick. The
> colours are a bit odd but I could use black suede dye at least for the
> inside.
> 
> Another possibility is to use an idea from the Toho monorail of having the
> w/a lens mounted off-centre on a circular disk that can be revolved on a
> lens board having a circular hole in the middle.  If the lens is mounted
> 12mm off centre it gives that much rising front, cross front and drop front,
> or a combination of cross with either rise or drop front. This is apart from
> any movement the camera permits.   I just ordered an adjustable circle
> cutter so as to make recessed lensboards, maybe it will come in handy for
> the Toho idea.  It will take three attempts to make it work right.
> Philip
> 
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