Mamiya 6,3/50
adapted to Graflex Century Graphic 2x3" (2013)
Among other things, I am on my way to the perfect wide angle camera and, to be clear, it is not this one. But the Graflex Century Graphic indeed is a small and light option to be outdoors with a 6x9 roll film camera and make use of some camera movements. One nice combination is to use it with large format lenses, e.g. with a Schneider 65mm Super Angulon, yielding an angle of view equivalent to that of a 29mm lens on 35mm. And, since the Angulon image circle is big, some movements are possible.
Another combination is that with lenses of even shorter focal lengths - without movements, because behind those lenses, the lens board sits inside of the camera body when focused to infinity.
This may still be of interest, as 50mm on 6x9 equals 20mm on 35mm and, well, I happen to have the lens (and I like it a lot). Those who own a 47mm Angulon may choose to read something else from here onwards...
Unfortunately, the 50mm
Mamiya is a pretty substantial piece of gear, compared to the elegant
Centrury Graphic.
To mount the lens nonetheless, I had to make an adapter that puts the lens in front of the lens board, the lens board itself is so small, the hole for the rear element of the lens leaves just enough material. Anyway, some measuring revealed that it is indeed possible...
For the adapter I used aluminium sheet metal and some leftovers from previous projects.
This is how the adapter looks:
And with the lens fitted to the camera:
Obviously, the lens is "over the top"... Even if there is no need for absolute parallelism between film and lens plane on such an outdoor camera, it still has to feel right - and it doesn't.
So the search for the perfect wide angle camera continues...