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I'm interested about panoramic film cameras. However I'd like to know if any of them offer a shift function, as I could not find any.

I also wonder what is the purpose of the metal grid structure outside of the lens, for example, in the Fuji GX617.

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  • \$\begingroup\$ What's your definition of a panoramic camera? The Noblex 135 S has 4mm of vertical shift, but maybe you don't want to use a rotating-lens camera. You can always just use a wide-angle PC lens on any format, and crop the result to a panoramic format. \$\endgroup\$
    – osullic
    Jan 3, 2019 at 0:00
  • \$\begingroup\$ Not an answer, but a guess... I always thought the "cage" / "roll-bar" around Fuji's 617 lenses was to protect the (certainly expensive and maybe fragile) lens from bumps and knocks. \$\endgroup\$
    – osullic
    Jan 3, 2019 at 0:02
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    \$\begingroup\$ This should be split into two questions. One about the availability of shift in a panoramic camera. Another about the cage on the GX617. \$\endgroup\$
    – xiota
    Jan 3, 2019 at 1:28
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    \$\begingroup\$ Bob: you've got a great answer to your second question, but none to the first. Could you please split this into two, so that can be answered and accepted? \$\endgroup\$
    – mattdm
    Feb 9, 2019 at 23:18
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    \$\begingroup\$ @MichaelC Then at least then we get one well-answered question and one unanswerable one, instead of this one which is half-answered and half-unanswerable (which in my mind rounds down to "problematic") \$\endgroup\$
    – mattdm
    Feb 15, 2019 at 1:43

2 Answers 2

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I wonder what is the purpose of the metal grid structure outside of the lens, for example, in the Fuji GX617.

When you put a set of human hands in the same frame with a GX617, it becomes more apparent just how large the GX617 is.

enter image description here

The cages on the lenses are there for protection of those somewhat skinny lenses that extend fairly far out of the large camera body. Each lens has its own cage, and the ends of the cage tubes are guide points where the lens is attached to the camera.

enter image description here

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To my knowledge, there are no 617 format tilt shift cameras available and a search of the more common photography outlets didn't yield anything.

A possible workaround, if you don't need anything super wide, is to use a 4x5 rail camera. There are a handful of 6x12 120 backs available out there. Alternately, just shooting on 4x5 (with shift if needed) and cropping to the desired aspect ratio may be an option that would give you what your looking for with some added flexibility.

I know two landscape photographers who use the latter method to great effect, one shooting on 4x5 and the other on 8x10.

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