"fixing" my SX-70

[apocaplops]

As many of you know, you can't use the SX-70 with 600 film as-is. This is my first primitive attempt at circumventing that problem.

I made a 2-stop ND filter for the lens using some filter stock keithslater was nice enough to send me.



Nasty huh?

Then I went and tried it out on a bush. The shot on the left is with the filter and dial set all the way to "darken," the right exposure is just the filter. Somewhere in between will probably work fine.

[ImageMaker]

How'd you find the viewfinder for focusing with the filter in place?  Especially since you have no other alternative, with the filter covering the scale you might otherwise use when, for one reason or another, you can't focus through the viewfinder...

[apocaplops]

Actually focusing was nice and fast, and accurate I'd say. The 2-stop didn't make things as dark as I had feared.

[ImageMaker]

Cool.  You're focusing at about f/18, but in bright sun that shouldn't be a problem.  I'd worry about trying to focus in room light -- but then, if you don't have any Flashbars or a strobe that fits the Flashbar mount, that's largely a moot point, right?

I'm still planning to try putting the filter over the film -- just have to get over to the local Lee Filters outlet and get (or order in) a small sheet of their ND .6 (2 stop) sheet, and then figure a way to mount it to the pack so it won't wrinkle when I put the pack in.  At $7 for a sheet that will make a couple dozen filters, it's cheap enough to just throw away when the film is used up, so I don't much care if it gets wrinkled coming *out* -- though I'd be open to a way to mount it inside the camera, under the moving mirror, too; that'd be pretty much permanent.

[apocaplops]

I thought of mounting a .6 filter over the pack, but I'm not sure if that would get in the way of the ejecting mechanism. To be honest, I'm not sure how the ejecting mechanism works.

I used a Lee .6 filter over the lens here.

[ImageMaker]

The film is pushed slightly from the rear corner (where there's a cutout in an empty pack) to get it to the rollers, then pulled out by the rollers.  As long as you don't cover the cutout in the rear, no problems.  I need to slip a print back into an empty pack and see if there's any room to run tape over the little lip on the pack; if so, it should be possible to use transparent tape to mount the filter flat on the top edge of that lip, where it'd be clear of the film by a couple mm but wouldn't even contact the camera body.  Alternately, if there's a little clearance, it might even be possible to mount a filter sheet in a plastic frame that just drops into the slight well in the top of the pack, though that'd be in a little danger of dropping *out* into the camera if you exposed a shot with the camera upside down, on either edge, pointed straight up, etc.