Groundglass I.D.

[Bob Salomon]

Wista fresnels screens also have their name embossed on the fresnel so Beattie is now not the only supplier doing so.

However Beattie screens were originated by a man named Tony Fox. He sold them from TN as Beattie Screens until he sold his company to Fresnel Optics. He called his screens "Beattie Screens" because he made the Beattie long roll school cameras which had probably the darkest ground glass on the planet. So he developed a brighter scrren for them that were about 2 1/2 stops brighter. That's where their slogan came from.

It is very possible and very probable that the Beattie Screens sold by Tony did not have the Beattie name on all of them.

There is a second company in TN who also makes brighter screens named Brightscreen. You could also have one of his.

Of course it might be a bit easier to ID your screen if we knew what camera it came out of.

[jhogan]

Thanks for the all the info so far, everyone. I underestimated how difficult the search for a definitive answer would become.

If it makes a difference, this screen came out of a second-hand TK45s which I purchased from the original owner (summer '04). Unfortunately, upon purchase, he had the dealer immediately replace the factory glass (this was in '99) with the one pictured above, but he couldn't remember the brand his dealer installed.

After using the camera for 6 months the way it was, I decided to go back to the stock Linhof GG with Linhof Fresnel- I've found this combo works best for me.

With Bob's historical overview in mind, and carefully scrutinizing the fresnel gridlines here, one could make the argument that it's a Beattie- The system components are the same, and the gridmarks are almost identical as those currently offered. The only significant difference between the two systems is the presence of clipped corners on the current model. Perhaps it's one of the "Tony Fox" versions...

A call to the nice folks at Brightscreen didn't help to clear things up- They said they DON'T put their name on 4x5 sets... Some have clipped corners, some don't, etc... so it may be theirs- or not.

So- I'm resigned to never knowing for sure.

Thanks again to everyone. -J