[LargeFormat] intro and questions

[Les Newcomer]

Dear Josh,

The name of the guy in the West is Fred Lustig out of Reno. There's also
a guy in Canada, but I can't remember his name right now.Fred will
repair your shutter, but there are several things that go wrong with the
shutter. One is the fabric gets brittle  and is no longer light tight,
sometimes the fabric tears. The other is the spring is usually old and
weak. He's good but not cheap. There is also a guy in California, near
Hollywood. Check the posts on Graflex.org's helpboard for his name.

You might do better to use the front shutter. 

The Velebon is a fine cheap tripod. If you can swing it try getting a
Bogen 3020 with either a joy stick or ball head. In the long run this
will be cheaper. I've beaten mine up for 10 years and it still works
without fail.

If your camera uses metal lens board, then you should have a plastic
fresnel screen closest to the lens then a ground glass behind that.
Without both you will have trouble getting a sharp image. regular ground
glass can be bought through ebay or several private people. Stephan
Shurat  (StephanShurat.com) ?
His userID at ebay is "photofinder". If you can find one of his auctions
you can email him.

If you have any other questions, feel free to write me off line.

Les Newcomer


Clive Warren wrote:
> 
> >hi there,
> >i`m josh i`m from dallas. i`m in collage in arkansas right now. i
> >just jumped into the large  arena with a 4x5 speed graphic.
> >i haven't shot much just yet. i`m trying to find a better tripod
> >than what i have. any sugestions for a cheap one?
> >also the focusing screen on my camera is plastic. and showing lots
> >of use. would it be
> >cool if i got some thin heat tempered glass to replace it?
> >last question , i have a curtain type shutter in back and i was
> >wondering if any of yall could tell me any one who does an
> >outstanding job of fixing them.
> >
> >BB
> >josh
> 
> Hello Josh,
> 
> The Speed Graphic 4x5 is an excellent camera - not really enough
> movement for radical studio still life work, but a great machine for
> general photography.
> 
> I love this old cameras and have a couple sitting here that get taken
> out for occasional excursions :-) They are surprisingly easy to work
> on so if you don't fancy the idea of DIY then any camera repair shop
> should be able to do repairs. There is a chap who bought out the
> remaining stocks of spares for the Graflex cameras and carries out
> repairs but his name escapes me at the moment. A German chap who
> lives in South West USA. Maybe someone else knows and can let you
> know.
> 
> There is stacks of information on the camera at
> http://www.graflex.org, including links to most of the resources you
> will need.
> 
> Focussing screens on the early cameras were plain ground glass -
> later versions had a fresnel screen under the ground glass. These
> make the image brighter across the glass - some people like 'em,
> others do not...... in any case they are usually expensive to replace
> unless you can find an old original screen. Beware that if you want
> to add a fresnel screen to an older ground glass back which did not
> originally have one then you will need to fix it to the front of the
> ground glass rather than the back. The screen does affect the
> focussing plane of the back.
> 
> As for tripod, then try a mid-size Velbon - they are light and fairly
> rigid - a Speed Graphic should be fine on one of these.
> --
> All the best,
> 
>              Clive Warren   http://www.f32.net
>                             Large Format travel and stock photography
> 
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