Back in Big Bend

After what seems like forever I made it back to Big Bend National Park earlier this month.

Something wonderful about the desert in spring.

I had a few days of sun and a few days of good clouds.

I tried to be frugal with the view camera this year, only using it on days with great light potential.

This was one of those days. Overcast clouds flying past in the later afternoon. It was windy but with the potential for a great sunset. I went right to the good afternoon view offered at Sotol Vista.

Here I am waiting for the light.

Tour of an Arca-Swiss Discovery Part 4

The Wide Angle Leather Bellows is a perfect bellows for someone who sticks with just the 30cm sized rails. Go to a longer rail and you will need to go to a longer bellows, but for use with the 30cm rail the Wide Angle Bellows is all you need.

See these two images. The top one is the bag bellows on the 30cm rail focusing a 210mm lens at infinity.

As you can see the 30cm rail still has a bit of extra room and will probably do a 240mm lens.

Then the second image has the 210mm lens focused at infinity and about as much rise I feel comfortable with, and what is most of the rise possible on the 171mm standards.

Tour of an Arca-Swiss Discovery Part 3

The bag bellows may be the best accessory I added for the Discovery. The folding rail made it easier to carry but the bag bellows adding the flexibility to make images.

Arca-Swiss makes two types. I opted for the leather wide angle bellows. The specs gave it a slightly longer expansion which I wanted to make it usable with the 210mm.

This is another finely crafted piece of equipment from the folks at Arca-Swiss. Soft, supple, and sturdy are the words here. The Fonz would approve of this leather.

The bag bellows give much more movement with short lenses over the traditional accordion bellows. Example, with my 75mm lens-I have almost zero rise with the regular bellows (maybe a couple of millimeters). With the wide angle leather bag bellows I have all the rise the lens will do.

The great things about this bellows is I can use it for all my lenses. It will cover the 30cm rail that I have and even allows me rise at full extension. See my next post for those pics.

Here is the camera with the 75mm focused at infinity and just a slight rise. The bellows and lens can both do more than this.