Ebony Adjustments
I’ve not talked much about the camera I’m using much recently so I thought I’d rectify that. At the moment, I take two cameras out to with me whenever I’m out, a Canon 5D which is modified to feel like a 4×5 rather than 3×2 (i.e. it has a custom mask over the prism and black masks over the LCD display) and uses a 24-105 lens (equivalent to a 96mm to 420mm large format lenses). This camera is used as a scouting and framing tool and also to get captures that I’m uncertain are worth spending £7 per shot. I still take care making sure these photographs are sharp and usable though.
If the shot is looking good, then the Ebony 45SU comes out. I am so happy with the Ebony 45SU that I have been forgiving it a couple of small foibles. Firstly the focusing rails can be a bit stiff. This exhibits itself worst when first racking out the front standard. When the standard is reaching full extension, it loosens off somewhat. The rear standard is stiff but not unacceptably so.
After looking around a few forums and asking a friend, Gerry Gavigan, about it; it turns out you can adjust the screws along the two plates that hold the rails down. I would strongly advise getting a good quality 0pt Pozidrive screwdriver so that you don’t damage the screw heads. I loosened off the screws that were closest to the front standard by about half a turn and everything got a lot better. There is a balance to be had however in that if you loosen it to an acceptable tightness when you are starting to open it, then it will be a little loose at full extension (which is when you need the rigidity most).
I would recommend a tension whereby you need to grip hard to start turning moving the standard which will mean that the tension is still grippy when fully extended (you don’t want the standards moving if you push against them for instance).
The other balance is that loosening the tension affects both front and back standards equally (at least when adjusting the ‘starting’ tension). It’s all a balancing act but I would be very careful not to rotate the screws more than half a turn. It might be a good idea to mark the ‘home’ rotation on the screw head and if you aren’t moveing more than half a turnlooser or quarter of a turn tighter you can always check to see how much each screw has been moved.
The other adjustment I’ve made to the Ebony is to add markings against the front and back standads so I can see how much rise/fall I’ve applied and also marked the inside of the backstandard to show rotation angle (at least for back tilt and for non-shifted swing).
Using the Canon 5D and Ebony 45SU together like this does mean significant extra weight but I feel it’s very useful for me to understand framing and perspective.. It also gives me more freedom to fine tune composition and tripod position so that when the Ebony is on the tripod, I only need to make small movements.
One of the tricks with a large format camera is to set up your picture and then fine tune the composition by using rise/fall and shift. This allows you to move up to 50% in each direction (with the right lens) and not to have to refocus or change the relative position of anything in the frame…
I’ll try to add a picture of the screw layout sometime soon
