Too hot these days, one of my assistant crafts master got stroke when he practiced kendo, and in Persistent vegetative state now, what a pity!
He is only 54 now.
Friday, July 29, 2011
Saturday, July 23, 2011
busy week
This week I'm gonna finish this conversion batch, forgive me for no further information on RF.
Wednesday, July 13, 2011
Some Ideas on Range-Coupled mechanism
Thinking of range-coupled mechanism these days, just came out of some ideas. No matter Linhof or Graphic, Horseman or other brands 4x5 cameras, if installed with rangefinders, all need a match cam for specific lens, otherwise no range-coupled functions available.
People are troubled when they tried to find lens and matched lens cam, the pair are rare to find these days, and the price always sky high, handheld 4x5 photography restricted by this, so called range coupled 4x5 almost vanished.
What if
Too excited! can not sleep at night.
an interesting discussion here:
http://www.largeformatphotography.info/forum/showthread.php?t=79196
People are troubled when they tried to find lens and matched lens cam, the pair are rare to find these days, and the price always sky high, handheld 4x5 photography restricted by this, so called range coupled 4x5 almost vanished.
What if
- Range coupled function needs no match lens cam.
- Any lens can be range coupled, no matter what camera used.
- Lens calibration needs no professional expert. one lens can be calibrated in 10 minutes.
Too excited! can not sleep at night.
an interesting discussion here:
http://www.largeformatphotography.info/forum/showthread.php?t=79196
Friday, July 8, 2011
Rangefinder calibrations on 110B- part6
Now there goes to final part of RF calibration.
We match the lens with rangefinder with a tailored cam, so camera can be range coupled with ONE specific lens, but that is all it can do, if you want to use other lenses, these lenses are range UN-coupled, that is, rangefinder as a pure rangefinder only, reading out the rangefinder indicates, then we adjust the lens position to match the focus.
What if we could change this ONE-LENS-ONLY range coupled camera into a multi-lenses RF camera? I thought about this for years, and many clients asked the same question also, everyone wants multi range coupled function.
Here I list some issues on this conversion as follow:
Multi cam
More than one lens range coupled needs more than one more cam, how many cam possibly be installed on a camera?
As we measured, each cam needs at least 40° of rotation, so as 360° divided by 40°, maximum we can make 8 cams simultaneously be installed on one camera, but that is too much and too complicated, I would say 3 cams is enough.
Each cam separated and distributed at every 120°, that leaves enough space and tolerance to mechanism.
Field operations
If we solve all the problem mentioned above, the final problem arise as how to operate this mechanism in field. We need a knob to rotate the cam pole, to match the lens we change, that involves changing the outlook of the RF housing, but pity there is no space for it in my opinion, best way is to re-design and re-mold the RF housing, but consider the quantity and mold making cost, I stop at this place and never go any further.
We match the lens with rangefinder with a tailored cam, so camera can be range coupled with ONE specific lens, but that is all it can do, if you want to use other lenses, these lenses are range UN-coupled, that is, rangefinder as a pure rangefinder only, reading out the rangefinder indicates, then we adjust the lens position to match the focus.
What if we could change this ONE-LENS-ONLY range coupled camera into a multi-lenses RF camera? I thought about this for years, and many clients asked the same question also, everyone wants multi range coupled function.
Here I list some issues on this conversion as follow:
Multi cam
More than one lens range coupled needs more than one more cam, how many cam possibly be installed on a camera?
As we measured, each cam needs at least 40° of rotation, so as 360° divided by 40°, maximum we can make 8 cams simultaneously be installed on one camera, but that is too much and too complicated, I would say 3 cams is enough.
Each cam separated and distributed at every 120°, that leaves enough space and tolerance to mechanism.
Stacked cam and rotating pole shape
Each cam curve is dedicated to match a specific lens, there may be differences between lenses, although they are in the same focal length, or even the same type. So it is impossible to order a batch of 3-in-1 cams that restrict clients to use only 3 pre-defined lenses, and since lens has its own character, to amend the outer curve in such a 3-in-1 is tiresome.
Best way is to separated each cam, stack 3 in a row according to each client's specific request.
But for keeping these cam staying at their rotating angle (120°), we should change the rotating pole from circular shape into a triangular shape.
Mirror arm and cams
As mentioned above, best way for multi-cam is to stack them to match the clients' request, but the original shape of the cam is un-stack-able, it is too thick.
You can see that original cam is thick to mirror arm, so this installation is unfeasible to 3-in-1 stack cam design, what we should do, is to reverse the mirror arm- cam relation, that is , to make mirror arm a thick arm, and make the cam a thin metal sheet. Such arrangement makes mirror arm easily be triggered by stacked cams, and metal sheet cam makes stacked thickness in bearable range. And the greatest advantage is to make cam much easier to file, to tailor its outer curve to match the lens character.
Field operations
If we solve all the problem mentioned above, the final problem arise as how to operate this mechanism in field. We need a knob to rotate the cam pole, to match the lens we change, that involves changing the outlook of the RF housing, but pity there is no space for it in my opinion, best way is to re-design and re-mold the RF housing, but consider the quantity and mold making cost, I stop at this place and never go any further.
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