Sinar Shutter on Century No. 7
Since I'd like to use some barrel lenses on my Kodak Century No. 7 8x10 camera, I made an adapter for a Sinar Copal shutter. Many people have done similar things before, but I wrote up what I did just in case someone might find it helpful.
I started with an old Century lens board that had some holes and cracks in it, and the finish was in very bad shape. I flooded the finished side with denatured alcohol, and the finish got soft, meaning that it was shellac. I applied more alcohol and wiped off the old finish. I lightly sanded the lens board, being very careful not to go through the wood's patina, and I filled the cracks and holes. I used spray shellac as the finish. It looks very good in person, although there's some orange peal. I could rub out the flaws, but I'm not in any rush.
Next, I took a Sinar lens board, the kind with a raised circular panel. The Sinar part number is 441.31.300. These might've been for using lenses in shutters on a Sinar Shutter in the early days, i.e. pre-DB mounts. If you unscrew the top hat section, you get a hole about 4.5" in diameter, which is great.
Using the Sinar board as a template, I routed out a hole in a piece of hobby plywood; and I contact cemented a piece of EPDM rubber on each of the two main faces of the plywood to act as gaskets.
If you measure a Sinar Bellows frame and a Sinar lens board, you'll notice that the lens board is about 1mm taller than the bellows frame. While you can squeeze a lens board onto the shutter, this really compresses the foam strip on the shutter. To avoid this, I ripped off 1/2mm off of the top and bottom edges of the Sinar lens board and painted the cut edges black. I bolted Sinar board to the plywood and Century board:
http://i955.photobucket.com/albums/a...psjncltfoh.jpg
http://i955.photobucket.com/albums/a...psapanrg7l.jpg
The Sinar Shutter attaches to the lens board just as it would to a Sinar Bellows:
http://i955.photobucket.com/albums/a...psxof9rx3a.jpg
A coupling frame attaches to the Sinar shutter normally:
http://i955.photobucket.com/albums/a...pstxniufe5.jpg
Re: Sinar Shutter on Century No. 7
Lenses on Sinar Boards attach to the coupling frame in the standard manner.
http://i955.photobucket.com/albums/a...pshrqylebc.jpg
http://i955.photobucket.com/albums/a...psetvxpjoo.jpg
This system allows me to attach the shutter and lens boards in the normal manner, and it only takes a few seconds to unattach them from the the Century camera and mount them back on my Sinar. The weight of medium sized lenses, such as a 17" Voightlaender Collinear, is no problem. The Sinar shutter has flash sync, and so the system is easy to use with radio triggers in the studio.
The Sinar coupling frame allows one to use Sinar bellows, rod and clips for a lens shade.
Re: Sinar Shutter on Century No. 7
I've been mulling over an elaborate shutter support frame and bellows to lensboard connection to do the same function (but on a field camera), but the design in my head just seemed overly complicated. Your use of reversed board simplifies it a lot. Thank you for posting this. My Sinar shutter is no longer for sale.
Chris
Re: Sinar Shutter on Century No. 7
Peter,
Your work sort of opened my mind to more possibilities, as I use regularly a Sinar F2 camera and own already a Sinar Copal shutter.
Thanks for sharing, great work, indeed,
Cheers,
Renato
Re: Sinar Shutter on Century No. 7
Inquiring minds would like to now if it would be possible also to make the same work with a - not Speed Graphic - Graflex 4X5 camera,
Cheers,
Renato
Re: Sinar Shutter on Century No. 7
Now has me thinking about using mine on a 5x7 - the shutter is in its box in the loft but may just be coming down soon. Thanks for the inspiring idea!
Re: Sinar Shutter on Century No. 7
Thanks, Folks. The prices on Sinar pieces have some down so much that putting things like this together isn't too expensive.
Renato, you want to use a Sinar shutter on a Graflex 4x5. Does the focal plane shutter not work? How big are the lens boards on the Graflex?
Re: Sinar Shutter on Century No. 7
Peter,
That's what I was thinking about, if the lensboard of the Graflex 4x5 is big enough to receive a Sinar DB board over it. I'm talking about the Graflex "other models" including the baby 2x3, not the Speed Graphic which has a built-in focal plane shutter,
Cheers,
Renato
Re: Sinar Shutter on Century No. 7
Renalto, I thought you were referring to one of these: https://www.graflex.org/articles/series-d/
The lens boards on the cameras you're talking about are pretty small, right?
Re: Sinar Shutter on Century No. 7
