5X4 camera for 6X17 back

[cliffhes]

Does anyone have experience of the Da Yi 6X17 RF back. I have had difficulties in using this with the 90mm SA Schneider (Symar). I have made a new recessed lensboard but still cannot focus on infinity(with adapted Bender camera and bag bellows). If I recess the lensboard further I would not be able to control the lens functions. The distance between front and rear standard when closed is obviously not enough to focus on infinity. To acheive this would require redesigning or at least drastic adaptation. I probably need a new camera for this and don't have time to build one at present. Need to buy a new (or secondhand) camera which will take this back and do other 5X4 work. Any suggestions please.

[Charles Twist]

Yup, I have the DaYi RFH back. I think it's great. I use it on a Toyo 45A (similar to 45AII and 45CF) but the 135mm lens is the only lens which works for me. The metallic box that is the Toyo is too thick for shorter/wider lenses + the DaYi. With a normal lens board, I guess the limit would be about 100mm. All you need to do is measure the shortest distance from film plane to lens board, and that's the shortest focal you can use.
Hope that helps,
Charles

[cliffhes]

Thanks for that Charles. Good to know someone is using the Da Yi and finding it useful. My original idea was to photograph 5x4 sheets and stitch them together but the Da Yi might eventually be easier than this.
On this subject I intend to use my printer to produce panoramic prints on rolls of paper. This would enable much longer formats than possible with cut paper sizes. Does anyone have experience of working in these large sizes?

[Joanna Carter]

I use Fuji Satin roll paper in my Epson R2400 and can produce some stunning images 329mm x almost whatever length you want.

[DJ]

I just today printed a 16" x 42" pano on my Epson 4000 from an image which was taken on half a sheet of 5x4 ( see cheap pano adaptor thread ). The image was scanned at 3200dpi and was almost exactly the right size to print, I only had to downsample(!) it slightly.

Print looks great, lots of detail. These large rolls are great to use, and a much more economical way to print, I use Epson Premium Lustre and find it to be very good, has an excellent colour range with careful profiling, one of the best I've seen from any paper. A 30.5metre roll costs about £80, much much cheaper than sheets, plus as you say, you get the opportunity to make these large pano prints. Cliff you have an Epson 4800, same as my 4000 but with better inks, you should be able to make some stunning pano prints with that.

File sizes are quite large if you want to do full res prints at this size though, better have as much RAM as you can get you hands on, and plenty of swap space for Photoshop.

[cliffhes]

Will try premium luster roll paper, DJ. Where did you get your profile from? Since using the 4800 printer have only got one profile for fotospeed DWFB gloss (they profile the paper for free). This paper is excelent and has the look and feel of old fibre based papers but is very expensive for general use. Joanna's Fuji paper is probably excelent but have no experience of it.

[DJ]

Will try premium luster roll paper, DJ. Where did you get your profile from? Since using the 4800 printer have only got one profile for fotospeed DWFB gloss (they profile the paper for free).

I actually do my own profiling, I'm in the process of setting up a little profiling business ( to pay for all the profiling gear! ). I don't want to sound like I'm advertising here, but having a custom profile makes a big difference.

There are several places around who can create custom profiles for you, make sure you pick one who has invested in top of the line equipment and software. If you know someone who has a Spectrophotometer they may have some form of software for creating profiles, probably not the best but better than standard canned profiles.

I actually buy my Premium Luster rolls from a company called Bodoni, they do profiling also.

[cliffhes]

Don't mind you advertising! Let us know cost and then I can make my own decisions.