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Shooting tethered using barrel lenses?

B

BiggestAl

Guest
It may be a stupid question, but I have not seen it mentioned anywhere. As I understand the digital backs have their own "shutter". It is not a physical one, but more an on-off switch.

1) I am wondering if it possible to shoot with barrel lenses, or lenses without shutter (and no focal plane shutter)?

2) When syncing to flash, some of the older digital backs require one to attach a cable from the x sync to the back, and a cable from the back to the flash. Without a physical shutter, will the back trigger the flash itself?

I am thinking of building a stitching system with a Leaf Valeo 11 based on a bunch of different lenses from 4x5, Fuji 680, Rollei 6008 etc. It works with my 5D mkII, but would like to test it on a MF system that is sharp, no AA filter, not as many MP. In other words, larger film area, high quality, tilt/shift, workable pixel amount.

Hope someone knows!

Al
 
B

BiggestAl

Guest
Me again...

English is not my first language, so I will try to ask differently :D

The way a digital back´s shutter works is:

a) always on and physical shutter (light falling onto the chip) tells the back when an exposure is "done"?

or

b) off-on-off (and therefore can be used with barrel lenses, triggered from a computer) ?

Thanks

Al
 

FromJapan

Member
Al,

I've been through this, and digital backs need a physical shutter. I have found a way to mount such lenses on certain shutters with Mamiya RB/RZ and LF cameras.. Send me a PM if you'd like more information.

Kumar
 

Audii-Dudii

Active member
I've been through this, and digital backs need a physical shutter.
Not necessarily, as it depends upon the length of the exposure desired and possibly the specific back involved (I add this caveat as my knowledge of backs other than my Phase One P30+ is quite limited).

For instance, by using the Multi Shot and Long Exposure control box sold by Capture Integration (and others?) as shown here (or by fabricating its equivalent, which isn't that difficult):



I'm able to control the back independently of the camera body (in my case, a Contax 645) and trigger it to capture an image for as long as the back is able or as short as I can start and stop it, just as I did with a lens cap when using shutterless process lenses on my 8x10 Toyo back in the day.

It's initially a little bit tricky to use, as you have to remember to start and stop the exposure while there is no light hitting the sensor in order to avoid corrupting the image with streaks and other processing anomalies, but it quickly becomes routine and overall, works fine, even if it's all a bit clunky.
 
S

Shelby Lewis

Guest
It may be a stupid question, but I have not seen it mentioned anywhere. As I understand the digital backs have their own "shutter". It is not a physical one, but more an on-off switch.

1) I am wondering if it possible to shoot with barrel lenses, or lenses without shutter (and no focal plane shutter)?

2) When syncing to flash, some of the older digital backs require one to attach a cable from the x sync to the back, and a cable from the back to the flash. Without a physical shutter, will the back trigger the flash itself?

Al
Not sure this is applicable, but Jim Collum uses old lenses all the time... and in this post he rigged up a neat little system using a copal shutter as a trigger for his back.

Good luck!
 
B

BiggestAl

Guest
Great info!

That´s the info I needed :) I am used to the "lens cap practice", so I might go for a Kapture Group controller.

Thanks!

Al
 

FromJapan

Member
The KaptureGroup controller is a pretty nifty thing, and Keith Hughes has confirmed to me that it can be used with all digital backs, not just Phase One.

But a couple of questions:

1. Timing exposures of a second and above is doable, but for shorter exposures, how do you time the shutter speeds?
2. I'm guessing the overall exposure time would be limited to 32 seconds for most backs, except the Phase One. Is this correct?

My system is more like Jim's and I use a Shanel 5A shutter that has speeds from 1/100s to 1s, plus B and it has M and X sync. This shutter is specifically meant for mounting barrel lenses and is mounted on the camera with a hollowed out body cap epoxied to it. Then a lens can be screwed onto the front. For view camera usage, it can be mounted on a flat lensboard. And of course, being mechanical, it can be used with something called film :)

I have one extra shutter, in case any one is interested.

Kumar
 

Audii-Dudii

Active member
1. Timing exposures of a second and above is doable, but for shorter exposures, how do you time the shutter speeds?
Unfortunately, it doesn't. In some situations, though, you can use ND filters to make the exposures longer than a fraction of a second.

2. I'm guessing the overall exposure time would be limited to 32 seconds for most backs, except the Phase One. Is this correct?
This depends upon the specific back used. My friend's older Leaf, for instance, gets quite noisy with exposures longer than 8 seconds whereas my P30+ has so far worked well for exposures out to more than six minutes. YMMV.

P.S.: Your shutter setup sounds similar to the old Packard shutter setup I used briefly. Quirky, but functional.
 

FromJapan

Member
A large part of the appeal of old barrel lenses is using them wide open. And many barrel lenses don't have filter threads, so you'll have to rig up a filter holder as well. Packard shutters are different - they have limited speeds, and are a bit finicky to use. The Shanel is just like a modern Copal shutter, except that it is designed for front mounting, and therefore has no aperture mechanism.

Kumar
 
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