Betax No4

[taleman]

I recently bought a Brand View #17 camera, It came with a Betax No4 shutter and a Aetna Actinar 180mm f4.5 Lens. It came with a few other lenses as well but the only one that fits is the Aetna. However the camera will not focus to infinity. I get the feeling that the problem might be that the Aetna lens wasn't meant to be mounted on the Betax shutter. However I don't know enough about nay of this to be shure. Does anyone have any information that might be useful.

Like can the Aetna be mounted on the Betax No4? Or what shutter would I need to mount the Aetna on or what lens can I mount on the Betax No4?

[John Koehrer]

If you have enough bellows for infinity focus @ 180mm it may be the lens spacing isn't right.
That would mean the groups are too close or too far apart when they're installed on the shutter.

[taleman]

I guess I should have mentioned I'm front mounting the lens.

[Dan Fromm]

I guess I should have mentioned I'm front mounting the lens.

Thanks for the clarification, without which no answer would have been possible. Your original question was a bit incoherent.

If you look at your camera, you'll see that there's a tripod mounting block. Its been a long long time since I've been near a Brand camera (the 17 refers to the bellows' maximum extension in inches), but IIRC when the front standard is positioned in front of the tripod block the block limits minimum extension. You should be able to reposition the front standard behind the block to get the shortest extension possible.

For more information about your camera, try this Google search: http://www.google.com/search?q=%22vi...fe=images&tbs=

You should be ashamed of yourself for asking before searching.

There's no way that camera won't focus a 180 mm lens, even front mounted.

About front mounting. There's no reason to expect that any lens in barrel will screw right into the front of a shutter. You can find a table of shutter dimensions, including diameters and thread pitches of the holes that normally accept lenses cells here: http://www.suaudeau.eu/memo/pratique..._centraux.html

There's one exception and you don't have one. Tominon lenses for the Polaroid MP-4 macro camera screw into a #1 (Compur/Copal standard) shutter.

Buying a shutter to hang a lens on and having a mount adapter made to attach the lens to it will usually (great stress usually) cost more than an equivalent lens in shutter.

Until proven otherwise, your 180/4.5 Actinar is a tessar type enlarging lens. How well it works at distance is an open question. You'll find out, I hope you'll tell us.