Alpa lens on viewcamera

[ruebe]

I am wondering how easy it would be to use certain techcam lenses on a 4x5 viewcamera as a hybrid approach. For example, is there a possibility to adapt an alpa mounted legacy SK lens (no ultrawides) on a 110mm arca swiss board (cambo has such an adapter plate for their actus line: https://www.cambo.com/en/actus-series/actus-db2-view-camera/acb-alp)? Alternatively, how difficult is it to unmount the lens incl. focus mount and put it with the copal 0 shutter on a 110mm lensboard (and of course, remount it if needed)? I tried to read up on this for days now. Thanks in advance for any insights.

 

[Paul Spinnler]

Just get SK Grimes to make you a custom Alpa adapter for your view camera. You'll need a large enough lens board format to recess the lens enough and have a bit of space around the Alpa board (and just in case you want shorter focal lengths as well) used in digital medium format.

Arca F metric could be a good host.

 

[ruebe]

I gave up my quest in the meantime but this looks like an Alpa adapter that would probably work (or not depending the needed flange distance?) with an Arca F or M line camera: https://www.ebay.com/itm/115525843649?

 

[Paul Spinnler]

Yes it could work, but the quality with these Chinese adapters is sometimes a bit spotty. Receiving frames are still quite tight in terms of tolerances, so if the thickness of the adapter is not 100% spot on, it might not fit despite being advertised. You almost would want to read a review on it.

The other aspect is that if you have say an Alpa lens with a tube and helical the FFD distance will be too short for all except the longer focal lengths.

That's why its better to stay within the R system – the lensboard of the R mount sits just below the copal shutter and the lens can be detached at this point which means the whole back lens element protrudes into the view camera which will give you a short enough FFD for all lenses.

Ie – within Arca, the R and F-metric 6x9 should be compatible via R to 6x9 adapter board. I would properly mount Alpa lenses into R via their respective R mounts at the factory.

For Alpa on Arca, I would take a vintage 4x5 f metrc frame which is 141x141 I think or thereabouts and commission a recessed adapter. Problem is you'd need a second hand f metric to do this as the new carrier frames and lensboards are I think mroe like 110.

 

[rdeloe]

To Paul's point about tolerances, some systems are very picky. My Arca-Swiss F-Universalis has the modern format frame design and does not work with Arca-Swiss 110mm lens boards for the F-Metric (the old style boards). They are too thick. I contacted some eBay sellers of lens boards and they couldn't guarantee their product had the exact thickness needed for the locking system on an F-Universalis to work correctly.

This is of course not a problem on other systems that are less picky. My former digital view camera, the Toyo VX23D, was much less fussy. I was able to use all kinds of boards.

 

[Paul Spinnler]

I lost 300 USD on a non-perfectly cut chinese Linhof 5x7 to 4x5 adapter ... better SK Grimes. The Arca f metric is quite tight with tolerances.