Whole Plate Film Holders... Hand Count

[Sal Santamaura]

...Sal - the Lotus AWB are out of our price league. We're humble members of the working class...

I'm a member of the same class, but have been working for quite a few decades and rather conservative with money. The Lotus holders (and Ebony camera) were only purchased after much internal debate and grinding of teeth, but I eventually decided to go for this once-in-a-lifetime extravagance.

[Mike Castles]

So as a later comer to the whole plate party, would be interested in a few holders.

Anyone know if they would work on a Universal, Rochester Optical Co. Whole Plate camera? (and yes some 7x11 holders would have been really great, but there seem to be just a handfull of us using that format).

[Rob_5419]

From Sal's description, the Kodak older plates are very similar in dimensions to the current Fotoman whole plate holder due out in 3 weeks time. Not long now!

Paul - any update?

[Rob_5419]

2 weeks?

[Rob_5419]

It now says on the Fotoman website that they'll be out late September. This is getting a bit frustrating that the production date is a continuously moving target.

;(


It's a deflating target. When they come I wonder if I'll have any energy left.

I'll return to relying on bookform plate holders in the meantime.

[Regular Rod]

Did these ever materialise? Anyone got any new whole plate film holders for sale?

RR

[RJ-]

The Fotoman ones never did materialise.

Many of us use these:

http://www.chamonixviewcamera.com/

which are made from maple with carbon fibre darkslides.

After a few years, the maple looks worse for wear; a few light leaks develop too, and need resealing. It can be frustrating trying to work out which holder is leaking, and acquiring a used one can be rather frustrating since these issues develop over time.


Istvan of Argentum also makes custom ordered whole plate holders:

http://www.argentumcamera.com/eng/pages/other/home.htm

His are especially beautiful, machined from European walnut with brushed metal finitions, and use the identical sizings as the Chamonix and Kodak whole plate holders. The darkslide is a polymerised synthetic. They are perhaps easier to obtain for Europeans and are extremely hardwearing.

I used to think that Rob_5419's suggestions were rather peculiar and vintage: since the film market has become decimated with fewer and fewer options in the past 6 1/2 years, I think I've realised too late, that it would have made more sense to revert back to making hand-made dry glass plate negatives for use with bookform holders.

[Roger Thoms]

Did these ever materialise? Anyone got any new whole plate film holders for sale?

RR

Contact Sandy King here on the LFPF, he may have some. I recently purchased 8 from Sandy, very nice holders and the price was very reasonable. Plus Sandy was a pleasure to deal with.

Chamonix also sells WP holders but they weren't the right dimensions for my Eastman Kodak 2D.

What ever you do check the dimensions and make sure the holders you are buying will fit your camera. I have about a dozen vintage WP film and plate hiders and the dimensions are all over the map. Even the Eastman holders that seemed to fit the camera nicely had a focus problems because the T dimension on the holders didn't match the camera. The holders I bought from Sandy had a greater T dim. which required shimming the ground glass on my2D. If I had stuck with the Eastman holders I was going to have deepen the ground glass rabbet which I was not looking forward to doing.

Roger