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[zeiss150]

Im a family portrait photographer and I am considering using a speed graphic to do family portraits with. But I need to know if the "graphics" take NEW portrait lenses. I want NEW lenses because of the multi coatings. Also can you cuppel the range finder to work with a NEW 240mm or 300 mm lens (APO Sironar S 240 in Copal 3). Thanks for your help

[Les]

The side rangefinder would probably work with the 240mm, but the bigger problems are the physical limitations you run into when you try to mount an 8x10 view camera lens onto a press camera. The rear element on both the 240 & 300mm SironarN, S & Ws are 80mm, too large to go through the front, so you'd have to remove the rear cell, mount the lens up front and then thread the rear cell in from the back.

Second, the 240mm has a flange focus of 230mm (on the S, slightly longer on the N). That's 9 inches just to get to infinity. You've got 45mm left to focus with and while I haven't run the formulas I suspect that would get you close enough for a 'not quite head and shoulders" shot. The 300mm is too long to use.

At this point the camera will be front heavy and pushed to it's limit. I doubt you could ever hand hold this.

If that doesn't turn you off, I'm not sure that the size of a Copal # will even fit on the front of a Speed. It's possible, even probable that part of the shutter will extend off the board and be interfered with/by knobs and struts from the front standard.

Anybody else out there that can get their hands on a Copal 3?

Of course you could try to use an 8 or 10" Teleoptar. The shutter will fit, and the lack of multicoating will save a ton in soft focus filters and retouching costs.

[zeiss150]

Thanks for the info. Know that I have that information I have revised the question a little. Would a Nikkor 180 or 210 W series in a copal #1 work well? Most importantly would the range finder cuppel with thoes lens!???

[LelandRay]

I don't know about rangefinder coupling, but I do know that a 210mm will "work" on a Speed, but as Les said, there's not a whole lot of extra focusing room. As a test, I put my Nikkor 210 on an old Crown just now and focused through the groundglass on a lamp about seven feet away. I got focused, but the bellows extension was extreme.

PS: I just noticed that you said "family" portraits, which of course implies shooting wider, and with the 210, that would mean from farther away. I expect that would work on the Speed so long as you could find a cam.
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[ This Message was edited by: LelandRay on 2001-08-12 04:37 ]

[Les]

I think you'd get more general use out of the 180. The 210 would be difficult to rangfinder focus. The side rangefinder would work for distances-you'd get infinity and (I'm guessing )20 feet? maybe 15, but then you'd run out of travel of the arm.

I suspect the same thing with the ttop finder, plus cams might be hard to find.

Both would work by using the ground glass.