I just recently purchased an old Super Speed Graphic made in the 1960's to use as a field camera for landscapes. Aside from the old shutter on the lens possibly needing a good cleaning and possible recalibration, the camera itself is not in too bad of shape.

The one thing I've noticed so far is that the rangefinder is somehow misaligned so that there is considerable vertical misalignment even when the horizontal image is in focus . It also has a dial indicator-type distance finder on the top of the rangefinder that allows you to quickly approximate the distance for focusing. This dial is also not calibrated right.

I thought it would be nice if I could get these things to work properly. Is there any adjustment on these rangefinders to fix these problems? Is this something that I could fix myself?

-- Bill Riemenschneider (willir@hotmail.com), January 14, 1999

Answers

It may be cammed for a different lens. I know I have seen info on the web for calibrating them, but I dont remember exactly where. Try http://www.graflex.org/speed-graphic/pacemaker-speed-graphic.html

-- Ron Shaw (shaw9@llnl.gov), January 14, 1999.

Actually, I had already looked at the Graflex site and found where the old side-mounted Kalart rangefinder calibration is explained, but the Super has a different type than the one described.

I'm almost certain that the cam is the right one. The rangefinder seems to align the double images in the horizontal direction while at the same time I get an image that looks like the correct focus on the ground glass.

However, the mechanism is out of alignment vertically and I suspect changing the cam wouldn't help that. In other words, I still see double images in the rangefinder when the camera is focused properly, it's just that the images are on top of one another, not side-by-side.

I guess it is just an annoying thing that I would like to fix if I can. The camera is still quite usable otherwise.

-- Bill Riemenschneider (willir@hotmail.com), January 14, 1999.

Check out Stephen Gandy's Super Graphic page at:

http://cameraquest.com/supergrp.htm

There is also some other info on his main page at:

http://cameraquest.com/classics.htm

It has plenty about the Super - it may point you in the right direction for the rangefinder adjustments?

Tim A

-- Tim Atherton (timphoto@nt.sympatico.ca), January 14, 1999.