4x5 Film motordrive?

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I seem to remember a motorized 4x5 film holder...it would hold x number of sheets of 4x5 and load and unload them into the graflock-compatible film back in sequence...in essence, a motordrive for 4x5 cameras...I can't recall who made it, or if it even got past the press release stage (remember it from shutterbug more a few years back.) Can anyone supply any more information?

Than

-- Sig (superfunkadelic@nandomail.com), January 13, 1999

Answers

I think you were dreaming.....but if you find one I'd sure be interested, Chet

-- Chet Wright (chetwr@zianet.com), January 13, 1999.

This sounds suspiciously like the autofocus Speed Graphic on the Graflex.org web site a couple of years ago, posted April 1. It was a joke Sig.

-- Darron Spohn (dspohn@clicknet.com), January 13, 1999.

SINAR, that haven for the engineer with too much time on his hands, made a motorized 4X5 film magazine, that held 100 sheets. I cannot find the article I clipped that showed it, but it was in one of those PhotoKina product review articles they run.

Since we're talking wacky, has any one seen or used Peter Gowlands 8X10 TLR? For fifty extra credit points, name the company that made a looong lens for 35mm (and the lenses focal lenght & max ap.) that was sooo expensive that, if you bought the lens, they'd GIVE you a Volkswagon!

-- Sean yates (yatescats@yahoo.com), January 13, 1999.


Pardon my ignorance, buy why in the world would anybody want to shoot 4x5 at motor-drive speeds? If one really needs to shoot lots of frames of fast-moving action, there are plenty of good 35mm cameras on the market. To me, working slowly and carefully, investing a lot of time, energy and thought in each sheet of film, is what makes LF so attractive. Burning film like a 35mm motor-drive freak defeats the whole reason for choosing this medium.

-- Rob Rothman (robrothman@worldnet.att.net), January 13, 1999.

I remember the motor film change back well. It was a working model and took about 1 second do cycle a new sheet of film into place. The one I saw held one 50 sheet box of film.

The object was not a motor drive like 35mm, but one to cycle the next sheet into place without all the film back loading/unloading time involved as well as saving all the time changing film backs & pulling darkslides in productions work. For a modest studio with a lot of setups it could pay for itself in short order.

I inquired of the company at the time about them making one that was manually operated for field use(50 sheets of film without having to carry around 25 holders) and was told they were only going to make the motorized one as that was where they felt the market was.

-- Dan Smith (shooter@brigham.net), January 13, 1999.



i too saw it demonstrated at PhotoExpo in NYC circa 1990 or 1991. Everybody else has the details pretty much right but I don't think that this was an official SINAR product. As for why might you need one? Catalog fashion work (remember this was 1990/1991. I am not sure if it ever really went into production.

SINAR, that haven for the engineer with too much time on his hands, made a motorized 4X5 film magazine, that held 100 sheets. I cannot find the article I clipped that showed it, but it was in one of those PhotoKina product review articles they run.

"Since we're talking wacky, has any one seen or used Peter Gowlands 8X10 TLR?" Yes.

"For fifty extra credit points, name the company that made a looong lens for 35mm (and the lenses focal lenght & max ap.) that was sooo expensive that, if you bought the lens, they'd GIVE you a Volkswagon!"

A Volkswagen Rabbit or Golf if I am not mistaken. The company was E.Leitz and I think the lens was an 800 f/5.6, and this was the late 1970's and the total cost of the lens was around US$20,000. But isn't this the photographic equivalent of an urban legend?

-- Ellis Daniel Vener (evphoto@insync.net), January 14, 1999.


Well, I'm not sure. If an urban legend is a myth, something that never really occured, than no, it's not, I have clippings on the Leitz lens including the advertisement that ran in U.S. photo mags. I tend to clip useful articles, how to's and the irresistably wacky. If you want, I'm willing to send photo copys.

I can't recall the gent's name that has done the mother-load of research on Urban Myths, but I can heartily reccomend his books, "The Choking Doberman" and "The Baby Train". There are others, but titles escape me at the moment.

-- Sean yates (yatescats@yahoo.com), January 15, 1999.


The back was made by a photographer named Wolf or Fox.

Unfortunately it scratched film and was never produced as a product.

Linhof had looked at it as we do have a motorized vacumm roll back for 5" film but when it wouldn't work the interest naturally ended

-- bob salomon (bob@hpmarketingcorp.com), January 16, 1999.


I think the author Sean was thinking of is Jan Harold Brunvand. He wrote 'the vanishing hitch hiker: American urban legends & their meanings,' that and other collections of urban legends.

-- david clark (doc@ellensburg.com), January 17, 1999.

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