adding sync

[Vick Vickery]

I keep seeing great deals on unsynced LF lens/shutters...can anybody add a PC or even a gi-post outlet to these lenses? Does anyone have any idea of the cost? I looked at Flutot's and Grimes' websites and didn't see this listed as available.

[David A. Goldfarb]

I've had Frank Marshman add P-C sync for me to a front-mounted Luc-type leaf shutter. The charge was under $80 including a shutter CLA, if I remember correctly. It was very simple--just a spring contact that closes a switch when the shutter is fully open, and a P-C socket on the body of the shutter, so I can use strobes with any of my big portrait lenses.

[Vick Vickery]

Thanks, David...do you have his web address or e-mail? I sent Carol at Flutut's an e-mail also just to make sure they didn't just leave this service off their web site.

[David A. Goldfarb]

Give him a call at 1-800-471-8133.

[Mark Sampson]

I had SK Grimes put X-sync in a big old Betax shutter when they cleaned it up for me. It didn't cost much extra, as I recall.

[Donald Qualls]

Adding a synch was a common practice in the 1940s and 1950s, when there was a lot of otherwise perfectly fine equipment around that was just too old to have a synch in the shutter. From what I've read, it's even quite easy to do in some older shutters -- and a major PITA in others. All depends on how much space there is to add the socket and a contact that touches a moving part at just the right time (like the leaf actuator ring, or the fork that drives it). IIRC, rim-set Compurs were good candidates (though having just disassembled one the other day, I'm not at all certain where they'd have put the sync contact).