Shenhao TFC624
Shanghai Shenhao has made a field camera for the 6x24cm panoramic format since at least 2008.[1][2] The maker's website listed only the TFC624-A up to about May 2011; in archives of the site after that only the TFC624-B appears.[3] The later camera resembles the TFC617-B, with the front standard at the front of its wooden rails; and the bellows extension range given for the two 'B-pattern' cameras is the same. It seems very likely that the earlier 'A-pattern' camera resembles the TFC617-A, with the front standard mounted a short way back, to allow a shorter minimum bellows extension for very wide lenses, but otherwise similar to the present model.
Like most of ShenHao's field cameras, the TFC624-B is made from black walnut wood, with aluminium alloy metal parts. As on the TFC617 cameras, the front and rear standards are each mounted on their own pair of wooden rails, which rack out from the base board separately, with their own knobs on each side of the camera. This allows the camera to be quite short front-to-rear when they are both racked all the way in; helpful in a camera that doesn't fold. It also means the camera can be focused by racking either the front or rear standard.
ShenHao gives the following specifications, which are very similar to those of the 6x17cm camera:
- Bellows extension: 70 - 320mm
- Front movements:
- Rise: 56mm
- Fall: 22mm
- Shift: ±45mm
- Swing: ±36 deg.
- Tilt: ±20 deg.
- Rear movements:
- Rise: 58mm
- Swing: ±11 deg.
- Tilt: ±10 deg.
- Width: 300mm
- Height: 200mm
- Depth front-rear: 125mm (when racked in, and excluding lens and film back)
- Weight: 2.4 kg (excluding lens and film back)
At the rear, the ground glass screen is mounted on a hinge at the bottom, so it swings down rather than detaching to mount the roll-film back. ShenHao offers the NSH624 'Art Panorama' roll-film back, for three exposures on 120 film. There are two shoes on top of the rear standard, for optical finders, and a leather handle.
Notes
- ↑ TFC624-B at the current ShenHao site.
- ↑ The TFC624-A is listed in ShenHao's site, as archived in September 2008 at Archive.org; before this date, the archive only has a Flash animation that doesn't complete. The camera does not appear in the site as archived up to December 2004.
- ↑ See archives of the ShenHao website at Internet Archive, in May 2011 naming the TFC624-A, and in July 2011, showing the TFC624-B.
