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Welcome to the world of Film & Conventional where we will all happily help you spend your money. I only opened this section once by accident and now have a house full of film cameras and am about to start building 126 Chromas!
To answer your questions;
- Body – i.e. bellows and ground glass - Most new systems will come with both of these already as they're generally made to fit that particular camera
- Lens – does any LF lens fit any LF camera? - Within reason, yes. The main limitations are generally the length of the bellows (draw) and the size of the lens board. To focus any camera, regardless of the medium, the lens has to be a set distance from the film/sensor (flange depth). For example, if you buy a 90mm lens for large format, the flange depth is generally around 90mm, if you buy a 150mm lens, it's around 150mm. This will vary with some lenses (telephoto design are generally mounted closer to the film than their focal length) but is a good rule of thumb. Therefore, you need a camera with enough bellows draw to allow you to focus to infinity and everywhere up to that point. My Chroma has a maximum bellows draw of just over 300mm. Coupled with that, you need to factor in the physical size of the lens and the shutter size it needs as a result. A Copal 0 sized shutter is pretty common and uses a 36mm hole in the lens board to mount. A Copal 1 shutter is larger, and a Copal 2 is larger again. The lens board has to fit into the front standard of the camera (the part that holds the lens and allows it to move forwards/backwards).
- Roll film back – does any back fit any camera - You can purchase any 4x5 (or 5x4!) rollfilm back and it will fit any large format camera with a Graflok/International standard back. The rollfilm holder is basically mounted to a plate that's the same size as a basic 4x5 sheet film holder so fits into the same cutout on the back of the camera.
- Film back - ditto - As above, a basic 4x5 'DDS' "Double Dark Slide" sheet film holder is a standard size across all manufactures, although there may be some variation in the way the dark slides are locked in place).
- Roll film back spacing - There are two broad types of roll film backs, those with simple manual rollers that you turn to wind on the film and use a red window on the back to stop when the next frame number is visible, and those with geared winding levers like a 35mm camera that will wind the film on the correct amount automatically. Whichever type you use, the offer the same end result.
- Crop Factor - I'm not 100% sure about the comparison? A 90mm lens gives a wider field of view on 4x5 than a 90mm lens on a 6x9 system but if you use a rollfilm back, you're actually cropping the centre of the image so you will probably end up with a similar field of view. I haven't compared both options though so someone else might be better clarifying that?
Thanks for taking the time, that's really helpful.
Thanks, that's a handy reference.-
If you used 4x5 as your standard format then yes 6x9 would be cropped/you'd have a narrower field of view if you were standing in the same spot. Roughly, 6x9 is to 4x5" as APS-C is to 35mm.
The numbers below aren't exact but they're in the ballpark:
Code:FORMAT WIDE NORMAL TELE 35mm 28mm 50mm 85mm 6x9cm 55mm 90mm 165mm 4x5in/9x12cm 90mm 150mm 240mm