"Vladamir30" wrote in message
.com...
I recently purchased a Deardorff 8x10 camera that has a
new bellows
installed. I discovered that with a 400mm lens on the
camera, the lens panel
raised to its top position, the camera tilted up about 15
degrees to include
the top of a building in the photograph, and the lens and
back brought to
vertical postions parallel to the front of the building,
the bellows sags
quite severely and gets in the way of the photograph. I
lose about an inch
of the photograph at the bottom of the photograph (top of
the negative). The
sag is pretty much in the middle of the bellows. If I use
my hand to push
the bellows up from the bottom the problem is reduced but
not eliminated (I
still lose about a half inch of the photograph).

Is this something other Deardorff users experience? I used
to own another
Deardorff camera with a much heavier bellows material than
this one and
never encountered a sagging bellows problem though I'm not
sure I ever used
it in this configuration with a lens this long.

I know there are workarounds to sagging bellows but none
that I've seen have
ever been very appealing to me. At this point I can return
the camera but I
don't want to do that if the problem is one I would
encounter with any other
Deardorff and any other bellows material. I'm not sure
what the material of
this one is, it feels very light, soft, and pliable so it
may be leather.

Use the ring on the top of the bellows. For long extension
do _not_ clip it to the hook on the front. Rather use a
section of dowell run through it and supported on the back
and front standards of the camera. This will lift the
bellows and make them straight. If the bellows does not have
the tap with ring on it you can either support it from
underneath in a similar way or use the rod above with some
cord looped around the bellows to pull it up to the rod. Sag
is pretty common in all cameras with long bellows.


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Richard Knoppow
Los Angeles, CA, USA