Whole Plate Film Holders... Hand Count

[Oren Grad]

Further re the T-dimension and other specifications, I ordered a depth micrometer this afternoon which I should have within a few days. I have an assortment of older 6.5x8.5 backs and both film and plate holders, and will take measurements and compare against Sal's specifications for the new Lotus holders made for the Ebony.

I suspect many buyers will take anything close, because for many typical view camera subjects and settings you can get away with some slop. However, with any luck, the Eastman and Lotus holders in particular will be close enough so that we can come up with a specification that will be acceptable even for critical use by owners of both types as well as at least some of the other vintage Western camera types. Better still would be if it's also close enough to Japanese yatsugiri to enable Fotoman to sell some into the Japanese market as well.

[wfwhitaker]

I'd be good for half a dozen; maybe more as funds allow.

I'd like to second the suggestion to do some research on dimensions before committing to tooling. There are a number of vintage 6 1/2 x 8 1/2 cameras around and it would be a shame to manufacture a new holder which didn't fit at least some of them. Of the cameras I have, there are two sizes of film holders. The critical dimensions, T-dimension and rib lock position seem to be the same. But the overall width of one is a bit wider than the other. The smaller holders will fit in the larger backs, but not vice versa. It would make more sense (of those two options) to make a holder which matches the narrower one and possibly to offer and accessory guide widget which would center the holder.

But this gets complicated. I'll be happy to send measurements, drawings, etc. if things progress to that point. I will say the possibility of having new full-plate holders is a real bright spot. It's such a beautiful format.

[Oren Grad]

The smaller holders will fit in the larger backs, but not vice versa. It would make more sense (of those two options) to make a holder which matches the narrower one and possibly to offer and accessory guide widget which would center the holder.

There's something similar with Eastman holders vs the Tachihara holders made for the Rittreck. The Eastman holders will fit the Rittreck, but not the other way around. That's one of the things I'm trying to nail down here.

[Paul Droluk]

Hi Paul,

I thought you would never ask. I'm not interested in 13x18cm or modern later ULF formats - the thoughts on the full-plate 6 1/2 x 8 1/2 inch plate project are more than welcome.

I'd be happy with the metal construction, and knowing that your factory is based in the Far East, as long as the tolerances are guaranteed, I'd be happy to request an initial 10 plates, with a view to ordering 20 altogether.

I never want to go back to 8x10", so I guess I'm very much burning my bridge in ULF behind me as I move towards whole plate. If there was some way to improve film flatness in the plates that would be great too.

Best regards.

I hope it works out, although I guess you may have more support marketing the whole plate format in Japan, or even getting in touch with Ebony to produce them under licence with Ebony rather than the Fotoman name.

Other than for the obvious metal components (divider, dark slide, screws etc.) the construction would be injection molded plastic.

Now to the question of film flatness... they will be exactly like Toyo's, so film flatness would be just as good... not better, not worse.

BTW, let me say right up front... we are not trying to build a better mouse trap here, just better value and availability. I have been shooting 4x5 since 1998. Started using Fidelity holders, but after buying my 1st Toyo's, I've never used any other. That is why, complimenting Toyo, we are COPYING their holder precisely (except for the darkslide). We have already dissected every component and detail of their holder and have prints made with all dimensions specified to +/- .0001 inch.

[Sal Santamaura]

...We have already dissected every component and detail of their holder and have prints made with all dimensions specified to +/- .0001 inch.

Yet another compelling argument why your whole plate holder should take the same approach Lotus did, namely "shrink" the 8x10 design's length and width to accommodate smaller film, while maintaining T dimension and lock rib location unchanged.

[wfwhitaker]

...we are COPYING [the Toyo] holder precisely... We have already dissected every component and detail of their holder and have prints made with all dimensions specified to +/- .0001 inch.

That's all fine and good. But if the holders don't fit my camera, then I'm no better off than when I started and there's no incentive to buy.

Perhaps you'd be willing to share the critical dimensions with us (length, width, thickness, T-dimension, rib-lock dimension...) so I can determine ahead of time if they'll fit or not.

[David Karp]

This is all very interesting. Since we are probably a fairly small subset of the world wide LF market, I wonder how many people out there would really be interested in a whole plate camera? Maybe more than we would have thought.

I don't have a whole plate camera and I can't afford an Ebony, so I am not in the market now. However, if I end up some day with a whole plate camera (and hope to do so eventually) I will be in the market. This does not help you today, but if I end up with a camera, and the holders work with it, I would probably buy 5-6 at first, and eventually buy another 5-6, at the prices indicated.

[Christopher Perez]

One of the several challenges for Paul will be to sort out who responded where. Several of us are duplicated between this forum and APUG (where an earlier conversation took place). So one would have to be careful that "interest" in the topic wasn't somehow double counted to justify a business plan.

I stumbled across a very attractively priced whole plate camera with like new (really) tab-style film holders. As an experiment I will adapt 4x5 and 5x7 backs to this camera to see if I can efficiently cover three formats in one nice light portable system. So... keep your eyes open and you might find something you can't live without.

This is all very interesting. Since we are probably a fairly small subset of the world wide LF market, I wonder how many people out there would really be interested in a whole plate camera? Maybe more than we would have thought.

I don't have a whole plate camera and I can't afford an Ebony, so I am not in the market now. However, if I end up some day with a whole plate camera (and hope to do so eventually) I will be in the market. This does not help you today, but if I end up with a camera, and the holders work with it, I would probably buy 5-6 at first, and eventually buy another 5-6, at the prices indicated.

[Paul Droluk]

This is all very interesting. Since we are probably a fairly small subset of the world wide LF market, I wonder how many people out there would really be interested in a whole plate camera? Maybe more than we would have thought.

I don't have a whole plate camera and I can't afford an Ebony, so I am not in the market now. However, if I end up some day with a whole plate camera (and hope to do so eventually) I will be in the market. This does not help you today, but if I end up with a camera, and the holders work with it, I would probably buy 5-6 at first, and eventually buy another 5-6, at the prices indicated.

As some of you may be aware, we are already in the process of producing a 57PS Fotoman camera, which I hope to have ready in 90-120 days. If we do wind up manufacturing the WP film holders, it would only make sense to also produce a PS series camera for them. The camera would be considerably cheaper than the Ebony, but like all of our PS series cameras would not offer movements, until such time as we're finished developing our bellows adapters... even then, it would have front movement only.

[Rob_5419]

Thanks Paul.

It is reassuring to know that you wish to be in the whole plate market to improve availability of whole plate film holders. Like other comments elicited here, I do agree that such availability only makes sense if the new proposed plate holders are backward compatible with the larger number of vintage whole plate cameras than the future number of extremely minor number of Ebony Whole-Plate camera owner-wannabes.

The question of 'who would be interested in whole plate film holders' is also different from 'who is interested in a Fotoman whole-plate camera'. I kind of am interested in both, although I already have my mind set on a basic vintage whole plate camera which costs less than the probable cost of 10 film holders. The Ebony will be on the cards, although being open to swaying....

The lack of movements in any large format Fotoman camera would put me off seriously. I would rather shoot 5x4" with movements and use finer grain film than going for a whole plate with such a drastic restriction. More realistically, a cheaper vintage wooden wholeplate camera with movements would appeal to me more than a modern new wholeplate camera with no movements. I hope I am alone in that view, since I really want Fotoman to do well and to gain considerable stability in the LF market.

Btw - 5x7" film holders fit perfectly in my half-plate camera however do not adhere tight enough to form a light seal when the dark slide motion is in action. It is possible by clamping the frame of the ground glass against the film holder and the front of the camera - but the format issue of 5x7" may not gain any half-plate converts for such a venture, whereas the whole plate format is a distinction in itself.

All the best.