Posted by Carl vogt on December 20, 2000 at 14:31:37:
In Reply to: New Lens Availability?? posted by Ron Crawford on December 16, 2000 at 20:19:54:Ron,
You are right lenses for the Speed Graphic can be confusing. The
"normal" lense should be about 152mm. Many Speeds were originally
equipped with a 127mm or 135mm which are slightly "wide". About
90mm is a great "wide" angle lense on a 4x5. BUT,
There is a problem with changing the lense on your camera, the
Rangefinder, hopefully the lense on your camera and the rangefinder
cam are matched. If you change the lense when you focus
using the Rangefinder, the lense may not be in focus. As long as
you focus on the ground glass you are OK..
To check, Tape a newspaper on the wall set up the camera on a
tripod 15ft from the wall (measure from wall to FILM position)
Focus on the paper using the rangefinder, the scale on the bed
should read 15ft and the image on the ground glass should be in
proper focus... You could also test at 10ft and 6ft just for
fun...
Good sources of Information are "GRAPHIC GRAFLEX PHOTOGRAPHY"
Morgan and Lester, Photographers Mate 3&2 US Navy Training
Course 1966 (Excelent source for Graflex use ). Older books out of
print try used book stores or EBAY
Hope this helps,
Carl ( former USMC Photographer )