Shutter on Plate Cameras, how does it work ?

[sapata]

After searching for a brass lens that would give me that kind of blurry effect, I 've decided to go for the whole thing so I'm intending to get one of those very old plate camera.
I've seen quite a few on ebay made of brass and mahogany but with no shutter, my question is (sorry if i'm being stupid...) how do you take pictures without it ?

Thanks a lot !

[lenser]

HI, Mauricio.

You might get lucky and find one of the very old brass lenses that have a studio shutter built in, or you can find a Packard shutter which attaches to the lens board behind the lens board. Both are operated by an air bulb. The Packards can be found on ebay and are still being made new.

Good luck.

Tim

[sapata]

HI, Mauricio.

You might get lucky and find one of the very old brass lenses that have a studio shutter built in, or you can find a Packard shutter which attaches to the lens board behind the lens board. Both are operated by an air bulb. The Packards can be found on ebay and are still being made new.

Good luck.

Tim

Hi Tim... thanks for your tip.
I was thinking of getting this one http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.d...tab%3DWatching
but it seems that there's no shutter. I'd have to spend an extra money to attach a packard shutter on it. I'm still intriguing how the hell they would take pictures without a shutter ?

Thanks....

[robert fallis]

It is possible to work without a shutter, but you can't use film with a high asa. I use aphs premium litho or ilford multigrade rc paper and rate them at asa 4, both these can be devloped under a red safe light, so you can watch them develop,
the range of exposure using the sunny16 rule is 1/4 sec at f16 to 2secs at F64, using a lens cap and stop watch these exposure are easily timed, and as you are watching the image develop any over or under exposure can be adjusted then,
a shutter with a slow film is not needed it just gets in the way,

bob

[lenser]

Robert is absolutely right that you can shoot without a traditional shutter and with slow film.

I have used that technique in some of my architectural work where I needed multiple exposures by the strobes, but did not want to leave the lens shutter open to gather ambient light between the "pops". I also did not want to re-cock the shutter between flashes (which could jar the camera out of position) so I made an 8x10 piece of cardboard covered by pure black velvet. I just hold it in front of the lens (not touching) between the flashes. The velvet drinks up light and does not record on the film as long as it is tilted toward shadow.

You can use the same thing as a very simple shutter. Just hold it in front of the lens while you pull the slide, drop it out of the way for exposure (long) and put it back while you return the dark slide.

Even the slowest of today's films are fast enough that you will likely need to stop down pretty far in daylight. For an indoor or window light portrait, you may be able to leave the lens wide open. To test, have a friend with a stop watch time you to see how fast you can move the card in and out from in front of the lens. That will give you a fair idea of how to expose and how to set the f stop.

Traditionally, lens caps and dark hats have been used the same way.

If you want to get really creative, you could devise a Guillotine shutter to fit the front of the lens. Make a frame that attaches to the lens. The frame needs to have a sort of track system on each side and be long enough for a slotted "card" that drops in front of the lens to pass from one completely solid, opaque side to another. The horizontal slot in the middle is the shutter, and by making several cards with slots of varying width, you have several shutter speeds. The cards have to be able to drop freely and not bind and they need to be flat black on at least the camera side so that no reflections can be recorded on film. Same principle as the focal plane Speed Graphic shutters except gravity powered instead of spring powered.

Could be a fun project.

Tim

[Ernest Purdum]

There is an article amongst those at the bottom of the home page that discusses this question.

[sapata]

Thank you all for the response...!