Update on the Shen Hao 617 Film Back
Have had quite a few people have asked me where I am at with my film back for the Shen Hao camera system.
My goals for this back were always
Be fully compatible with the existing Shen Hao TFC 617 Camera
Be functionally equal or better than the existing back in every way
Solve the film plane issue highlighted by Nick Carver
This nesesitated me purchasing an existing Shen Hao back, and then, creating an exact duplicate in 3D and then going about making changes to it to allow it to be 3D printed as well as hitting my three goals. As well, as I don’t own a Shen Hao, creating a duplicate rear standard of the Shen Hao for testing use on my EB 617 (itself not a small task).This is not an easy task, as an example, here are some (not all) of the various iterations I have gone through so far.
And here, this is just a small number of iterations just on developing the side catch retainer. Just getting the perfect spring size and rate on the catch took well over a week.
Each step requires multiple iterations dialing in tolerances, because at the end of the day, this has to not just work, but it has to work smoothly and perfectly everytime.
The old addage 80% of the work takes 10% of the time and the last 20% of the work takes 90% of the time, is never truer than with camera designing.
So this is a long way of saying, I am inching closer to a finished version, new versions of the back will be going out to Beta testers soon.
The last thing I would want to do is release the back and it not be 100%. But I am close.
