Tilt/shift for the poorman

I just received from Taiwan a Movable adapter for 645 for $130 that arrived super fast.

The adapter is made by Widepan and is excellent quality. It looks as if the designers knew that it had to be strong to support the weigh of the 645 AFD AND the P25 digital back.

I made a quick test with a 135mm lens and the images taken are perfectly stitch able since the view camera is attached to the tripod head and the Mamiya is shifting "scanning" the image circle and avoiding PARALAX, a problem that you would encounter if the lens was doing the shifting while the Mamiya was attached to the tripod.

The other advantage of this --besides being a less-than-$200 solution-- is that focusing can be done with the camera avoiding potential damage to the sensor encountered with back sliding solutions. With this the back never leaves the camera body, so less exposure to air and dust.

The applications are basically studio based table top --as in commercial/advertising-- where you can use tilt shift to manipulate depth of field and or perspective issues.

It can also serve as a close up solution.

And for stitching two or more "scans" of the 4x5 lens image circle to produce images of 130MB and up.

leonardobarreto.com said:

I just received from Taiwan a Movable adapter for 645 for $130 that arrived super fast.

Click to expand...

If I understand your description correctly, it's a shift/tiltable adapter between the Mamiya 645 AFD(II) body and a viewcamera (or lens?) ? Do you have a link/image available?

Bart

It has a bayonet mount standard for Mamiya and mounts in to the body as a lens, then the other end is standard GRAFLEX 4x5 so it securely locks in to any 4x5 and makes the camera-back in to a digital adapter.

You can then use the view camera in normal way --with the exception of not being able to use shorter than 100mm, maybe 90mm lenses -- with shift raise swing and tilt.


http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dl...K:MEWNX:IT&item=330250123796#ebayphotohosting

I forgot to mention that the camera rotates and the device has a click for when it is landscape or portrait...

Leonardo,

Any magenta or other color shifts with movements of the camera as these geometrical alterations can result in light striking the imagine plane obliquely?

Asher

Asher, that is a good question, I would have to do some testings using a measurable subject but my instinct say that it will probably not be a problem since we are using long lenses (135mm 180mm) so the image is coming pretty much perpendicular. I was worried about vignetting and the first testing I could see a very clean image with lots of shift. Here are two very fast images done with the wost possible lighting conditions and subject etc. One of the shifts is stronger than the other....

This is with my Fujinon 135mm, I have a Schneider 135mm that should be much better and wide open. You can see the look of a large format in the shot, and is a lot of fun since you are using the camera's view finder to compose and focus, so you could be in and out of a product set up since shifting takes no time at all -- so does stitching, since the images drop in place perfectly well --

You don't have issues of waking the back up when the lens is about to be released or deal with cocking the lens, opening and closing it etc. you only use the f/stop and the camera does the exposure.