Repair of 4x5 Super D Graflex Camera

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I have a 4x5 Super D Graflex. When I look down in the hood at the ground glass, the bottom 1/3 appears out of focus. I checked and the focus is ok on the graflok back. Who would be a good repair shop to have correct this problem? Is this something I would be able to do?

-- Preston Jones (spjones@alpha.delta.edu), April 29, 1998

Answers

Probably your mirror is not sitting at the correct 45 degree angle. Check inside to see why not. Alternatively, perhaps your groundglass and fresnel lens are not mounted correctly in the opening at the top of the camera. It would need to be a lonnnng way out to defocus 1/3 of the image though. The really nice thing about "American Low Tech" cameras is that you can probably adjust it yourself if you can accurately measure the mirror angle. As an experiment, focus the camera on a brick wall using a focussing panel in the film plane and then see what happens to the focus on the groundglass when you release the mirror but only let it rise a little, held from behind with a strip of tape and a string. Don't let the shutter release while you're trying this. It will probbly show you in what direction your mirror needs to be adjusted.

-- Chris Hale (chale@icom.ca), May 01, 1998.

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