Sinar history

[Robert H]

Carl Hans Koch created the first Sinar camera in 1947 and released the first production model a year later.
As I have a strong personal interest in his company and it's products I thought this might be the place to learn more about them as the internet currently has a limited amount of information.
Would therefore appreciate any relevant contributing information on the early years of this company (now in the hands of Leica) by the members here.
As a starting point I would also like to ask those owning early examples to supply the date of manufacture of their cameras, plus any interesting or possibly unique features and/or details. The two digit number stamped underneath the lower horizontal standard on the Norma models will indicate the year of production. Thanks to all for your participation.

A brief history: http://prezi.com/poih-q713vtp/history-of-sinar-camera/

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[Robert H]

An interesting note from C. Koch (Jr.) on a previous post (21-Jul-2011):



"Dear Grant,

My grandfather thought of a way to escape the negative sides of being a provincial allround photographer in the inherited studio, run by his widowed mother. During WWII, where he served in the Swiss air force as a captain in a radio division, he realized the shortcomings of the leading (Linhof-) view cameras for tasks in the studio, industry, nature, architecture and reproduction (thus the acronym "Sinar") mostly by not being modular enough.

In 1948 he had the first prototype made at an advanced camera repair shop whom he had given technical drawings made by his brother in law. He liked it a lot, changed it a bit and immediately ordered 5 more to show to his fellow professionals in the Swiss professinal photographers' association of which he was also president for a while.

They liked the ideas in the new design a lot. Linhof's engineers were less excited and were not interested in purchasing the idea and sent him home with words such as "if this idea was any good, it would have been invented at Linhof already". Needless to say that some of his new ideas appeared in Linhof cameras anyway...

Supported by his wife, he decided to start to market the cameras by himself. The camera repair and manufacturing company seemed to be the right bet and a not so waterproof contract was made with the owner of it. As the sales increased to never imagined levels, the transfer prices were not adjusted to reflect the economies of scale. Also, the success led to greed by the supplier and Oswald realized, that his sons, who did not sign the contract, could not be stopped legally to jump on the bandwagon and sell such cameras in competition to their main customer. When trouble started to strike the view camera industry in the 1990ies, Arca moved from Zurich to France, probably to reduce cost. They managed to keep the company to a minimum size and within the family.

All the Sinar drawings were still in Feuerthalen in the basement, in the former factory building, where Jenoptik, who bought the company off our family, left them. However they might not all get moved to Zurich, where a pro photo dealer has become the new owner of the brand.

All the best

Carl"

[Robert H]

A young Carl Koch (on the left) demonstrating his new creation (circa 1948).

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[Robert H]

Graphically sophisticated Sinar advertising campaign from the early 1960's by the Gerstner & Kutter design agency.

Sinar was later to adopt their Helvetica style logo due to this promotion.

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[Emmanuel BIGLER]

The name of the subcontractor working for Herr Koch at the beginning is : Alfred Oschwald (not Oswald).
The Sinar Norma bears both names : Koch for the system and Oschwald for the actual manufacturer.

In the following document, however,
http://prezi.com/poih-q713vtp/history-of-sinar-camera/
there is no mis-spelling ...
... since the name "Oschwald" is never mentioned ;)

[Robert H]

You are of course correct Mr.Bigler, the spelling is indeed Oschwald.
I was quoting directly although I was aware of this. Thank you for the correction.

[Robert H]

"An interesting, but little known fact - both the original ARCA-SWISS monorail and the Sinar Norma were designed by members of the same family. The company that designed both was called Alfred Oschwald & Co. The owner's son Alfred Oschwald, Jr. designed the original ARCA-SWISS monorail. And the father, Alfred Oschwald Sr. and his other son Max Oschwald, at the request of Karl Koch, did the design work for the Sinar Norma and the original Sinar behind the lens shutter.

So, it's not just coincidence that these two classic Swiss monorails share many desirable attributes - and continue to be usable over 50 years after they were originally designed. Clever guys those Oschwalds."

Kerry Thalmann
Really Big Cameras

The above is a direct quote but it seems Carl Koch was in fact the designer of the Sinar and Alfred Oschwald & Co. the manufacturer.

[Emmanuel BIGLER]

"his sons, who did not sign the contract, could not be stopped legally"

And this started a very long controversy between both companies.
The irony of the story is that one of Alfred Oschwald's sons bears the same first name : Alfred.
But he was not bound to the Koch family and to the Sinar company by his father's contract regarding non-concurrence.
Formally, Alfred Oschwald senior never developed any competing product and never infringed the contract ... neither did his two sons Alfred junior and Max, since they were not at all involved in the contract. You know the rest.

Very nice example of small European family-owned businesses who dare to go to a worldwide market with top-class products, even if they are actually very small companies. At least at the beginning for Sinar which became a big company afterwards.
Germany and Switzerland have many examples of successful small family-owned manufacturing businesses with a world-wide market. And who, often, do not want to grow and insist on being a family-owned enterprise on the long term.

Another aspect in successful family-owned companies in Germany and Switzerland is the involvement of the father founder and the family in the products. This does not guarantee that the company will never fail, but the spirit of many of those family businesses is that the family does not only care for the profit they can make, they actually care for their products on a technical basis, not only financial.
One of my French friends who is a professional carpenter and a passionate LF photographer recently visited a family-owned company in Germany, one of the European leaders in professional electric tools for carpentry. When visiting the workshop were the products are manufactured, the person in charge of the visit told to my friend : see this old man dressed like a worker, near this machine in operation ? This is our big boss. He often comes here to see what is going and and discusses with us on the improvements of the products and the processes.

[Drew Wiley]

I do a big chunk of my tool business with German and Swiss mfg. But their interest in profit is keen. They just have a different way of looking at it than the fastbuck
cheap product mentality of the US stock market - more of a success in the long haul rather than smoke and mirrors every quarter. And since there's is such a big
vacuum for quality in this country, both these particular mfg and myself have all the business we can handle. Just between each of these "clear the mind" posts that
I make during the day I turn thousands of dollars worth of goods, often in mere minutes. Quality is very much in demand. What is lacking is distributors who realize
that rather than just following the usual batch of lemming MBA's and CEO's right off the same ridiculous cliff that has already ruined one company after another.
The demand for Sinar might finally be slowing down some, but they've had one helluva run.

[Robert H]

Yes Mr. Bigler, these small European family owned companies have produced some wonderful products, often setting a world standard for their quality. The current efforts by Mr.Vogt and his wife and son at Arca Swiss are a good example: aesthetically gorgeous and technically perfect designs !

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[Don Dudenbostel]

I purchased my 4x5 Norma new in 69 and it's marked M69 on both standards. There's also a 43 on the front and 45 on the back. There are no focus locks and the geared segment is nylon or similar.

I still have the receipt and ran across it some months ago. Seems like the cost was around $360 for the basic camera. Put that in an inflation calculator and see what it would be today. To put it in perspective I purchased my first used M2 Leica body in 68 and it was $250.

[Oren Grad]

I still have the receipt and ran across it some months ago. Seems like the cost was around $360 for the basic camera. Put that in an inflation calculator and see what it would be today....

About $2300. :)

http://www.bls.gov/data/inflation_calculator.htm

[VictoriaPerelet]

Sinar history is pretty well documented here

http://www.sinar.ch/category/history/

Too bad. Looks like history is only thing that is left. Company changed hands several times during past few years, melted, there's pretty much nothing/nobody left, but trademark.

Sinar (much like Kodak) entered digital very early with high end E model. Both companies miscalculated market and counted on digital as high end part of future photography ...

[Emmanuel BIGLER]

and counted on digital as high end part of future photography

If you go back to the years 1968-1969 when Don Dudenbostel bought his Sinar Norma, and if you imagine what would be the answer of an expert in the watch market at the time, he would have predicted that the high-end of watchmaking would be electronic quartz watches and the low-end would be the continuation of affordable mechanical watches, like those cheap mechanical watches made by Timex corp.. And some experts would have added : the medium segment of the market will consist of mixed-technology electro-mechanical watches like made by Elgin in the US and LIP in France since the fifties and Bulova (with a steel vibrating tuning-fork, the legendary Accutron model).
What happened is that electronic watches are now the lower end of the market, mechanical watches compose the higher-end and mixed electro-mechanical watch technologies of the fifties and sixties no longer exist except in watch museums.

Unfortunately I'm not expecting to see the market for mechanical film cameras to become any time soon as profitable as it is nowadays for mechanical watches : the Swiss watch industry makes about 50% of sales in value for the worldwide watch market, most of this $$$ incoming from mechanical watches, mainly luxury $$$$$$ mechanical complicated watches.
However, affordable Swiss mechanical watches did not disappear, on the contrary: for example the SWATCH group will soon introduce on the market a so-called "Swatch Sistem 51" mechanical self-winding movement composed of only 51 parts, 100% Swiss-made in highly-automated top-class production lines. (http://www.swatch.com/zz_en/sistem51.html)

Too bad for us, a watch is marginally a precision time-keeping instrument, it is also an object of social distinction, a fashion item, whereas a precision Swiss monorail LF camera like one of the Sinars is nothing but an austere precision machine-tool like a lathe ;) Try to impress your friends at a party by showing them a lathe!
And even worse: our beloved LF monorail cameras are precision machine-tools of a lost job named: LF professional film photographer ...

[Drew Wiley]

Well, several hikers passed me on the trails last weekend with my Norma in use, and they were pretty damn impressed by both the looks and quality of machining, and
commented about it. You just don't see many things like that anymore is this age of disposable electronics whatevers. That's not an uncommon occurrence with that
particular camera. One of them struck up a long conversation and turned out to be a pretty savvy print collector of 19th C images, who also recently inherited a lot
of pro MF and dkrm gear, and was wondering what to sell and what to keep in case he wanted to try a little dkrm printing himself. I'm certainly not a camera collector, but it does give me a good feeling when using something as handsome and functional as a Norma.

[Robert H]

from:

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"Sinar AG traces its history back to 1865, when Carl August Koch (1845–1897), the second son of a silk dyer from Zurich, travelled to Marseille, France in order to learn the then newly developed wet collodion process. Upon his return to Switzerland, he worked in Langenthal in the Studio "Gyr and Koch" in the 1870s where he took portraits or travelled with his equipment into the Alps and to several Swiss Cities to capture the scenery and create some of the first photographic records of many places. Later he moved on to Schaffhausen, where he advertised his portrait studio in 1879 in a local paper. For some years he worked with the local photographer Alfonse Louis Tronel, but finally set up his own shop in 1886 and moved it to Vordersteig 2, Schaffhausen in 1890. Hans Carl Koch (1885–1934) took the studio over in 1911. He expanded the business catering to the amateur photographers, by selling film and equipment, giving photography classes and operating a laboratory for their processing. In his spare time he wrote poems or expanded with his view camera the extensive collection of local landscape and architectural images that his father started. Due to severe health problems accentuated by economic worries during the Great Depression he died young, passing the business to his wife Käthe Koch-Kübler. Their son Carl Hans Koch (1916–2005) graduated 1937 from Vienna's renowned college of the Graphischen Lehr- und Versuchsanstalt as a professional photographer. During the Second World War he served in the Swiss Army as a Lieutenant in the airforce in a radio unit. He was a very ambitious character with excellent people skills. This trait enabled him to shoot some of the most sought-after portraits in Schaffhausen. He knew his profession thoroughly and was proud of that. He did not enjoy working with the clunky old view cameras that his father left him. Especially commercial advertising work was not one of his pleasures. He therefore thought of a better view camera design, especially on some of the more tedious moments in the military. Thanks to his supportive wife Hildegard Koch-Abegg, who ran the photo business to maintain the family and the development of the new camera, he successfully launched his fully modular view camera system "Sinar" in 1948."

[Robert H]

I'm a huge fan of high quality vintage watches and certainly view the internal mechanisms as art in the finer pieces. Beyond this however, for me the engine of a thirties Bugatti, a Tesa micrometer, an original Barcelona chair, an old Sinar camera or a beautiful Schaublin lathe speak exactly the same language and many of my friends share this view. There are "serious" collectors of old comic books. Motorcycles have had a show at the Guggenheim. Who can know what we will see as "art" next ? If the works of Damien Hirst, Andy Warhol and Jeff Koons qualify, a Sinar certainly should also !

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[Leonard Robertson]

I'm curious when Sinar was first officially imported into the US. I looked at some back issues of the Popular Photography Magazine Directory and for 1963 the US distributor is Karl Heitz Inc. Price shown for the Standard 4X5 is $369 (4X5 Expert $599). In 1967, the distributor is Paillard Inc, longtime distributor of Hasselblad. Prices had jumped to $468 for the 4X5 Standard and $780 for the 4X5 Expert. I don't know if possibly the price increase was due to the change in distributor, because by 1972 the distributor was "PTP Inc., sub. EPOI" and price for the 4X5 Standard was back down to $395, 4X5 Expert $740. I suppose price changes could be due to fluctuations in currency values. My collection of photo magazines doesn't go back much before the early 1960s, so if anyone has literature from the '50s with mention of Sinar US, it would of interest.

I don't recall Sinar advertising in the US amateur photo magazines. Linhof in the 1960s was a regular advertiser in Popular Photography magazine. Possibly Sinar advertized in publications aimed at professional photographers. I seem to remember a Sinar ad in an issue of "International Photo Technique", the quarterly magazine Linhof published, but I believe that was a real rare event for Sinar to advertise there. I need to dig out my collection of IPT and see if I'm remembering correctly.

Robert - Thanks so much for posting the Bugatti engine picture. I've been a lover of Bugatti for over 50 years now, although I don't think I've ever seen one in real life. I need to dig through some old slides and see if possibly there was one at a classic car show in Spokane WA many years ago.

Len

[Robert H]

Interesting information Len. And although I was aware of Paillard being the distibutor for Hasselblad, Sinar and of course Bolex, I was not familiar with Karl Heinz Inc. Hopefully someone else here will supply additional information. By the way, as you seem to be in the Seattle area, send me a pm and I'll give you a link to my brother there. He has a small private museum containing his type 57.

[Robert H]

There is an image of a camera on the official Sinar website History page dated 1951 depicting a model with a Copal shutter. Interestingly the camera appears to be lacking the focusing lock mechanism, which has now been assumed to be a much later modification ! Perhaps this is the reason some believe this detail was missing on the early cameras.

Link : http://www.sinar.ch/en/category/history/1947-1951/

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[David Lindquist]

My 1956 Pop. Photo buying guide shows the Sinar. The price for the 4 X 5 Standard was $259; Karl Heitz was the distributor. The next earlier buying guide I have is 1950 and the Sinar is not shown in it. Following the prices (again for the 4 X 5 Standard), in 1957 it rose to $299 and stayed there in 1958. In 1961 it was $369 and, as Len notes, stayed there at least to 1963.

I have some evidence that distribution changed from Karl Heitz to Paillard in 1966. I bought my 4 X 5 Sinar Standard new in March 1966 (the standards are marked M 64) for $468.00. I have both a Karl Heitz and a Paillard guarantee card for it. Karl Heitz of course also imported the Alpa.

It looks like the distributer changed from Paillard to "PTP Inc., sub. EPOI" in 1969. A 1970 buying guide with a copyright of 1969 shows the latter while a 1969 buying guide with a copyright of 1968 shows Paillard as the distributor. By way of comparison, circa 1969 the 4 X 5 Sinar Standard was $468 while the 4 X 5 Deardorff Special with reversing Graflok back was $395, or $425 with a revolving Graflok back.

Now how about some pictures of a Schaublin lathe Robert? Preferably a 135 or a 150 or a 160 :-).

David (who has a nice Etalon vernier height gage he got free but after looking at the Tesa bore micrometer thinks he should add to his Swiss tool holdings)

[Robert H]

Schaublin 102:

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Boley watchmakers lathe:

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Miscellaneous Tesa:

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[David Lindquist]

Thank you for these!
David

[Leonard Robertson]

David - Wonderful you could find Karl Heitz as US Sinar distributor in 1956. I would be inclined to believe he may have been the first US distributor, without really knowing that to be true. One of the few 1950s era photo magazines I have is a March 1953 "Photography" (doesn't include the word "Popular", but Bruce Downes is the editor). There is an ad for the new Alpa 7 with Karl Heitz shown as distributor. Near the bottom of the ad is the phrase "Swiss Precision Photo Equipment". No mention of Sinar, but it seems likely if Sinar was looking for a US distributor then Heitz would be a good choice. Also, near the back of that magazine is a section called "Trade notes and news" with brief descriptions of new photo products coming onto the market. The new Alpa 7 is mentioned there. It seems possible when Sinar was first brought to the US, there would have been an announcement, especially if the distributor was an advertiser. Of course it really isn't especially important when Sinar first came to the US or other countries, but I find information of this sort quite interesting.

Len

[David Lindquist]

David - Wonderful you could find Karl Heitz as US Sinar distributor in 1956. I would be inclined to believe he may have been the first US distributor, without really knowing that to be true. One of the few 1950s era photo magazines I have is a March 1953 "Photography" (doesn't include the word "Popular", but Bruce Downes is the editor). There is an ad for the new Alpa 7 with Karl Heitz shown as distributor. Near the bottom of the ad is the phrase "Swiss Precision Photo Equipment". No mention of Sinar, but it seems likely if Sinar was looking for a US distributor then Heitz would be a good choice. Also, near the back of that magazine is a section called "Trade notes and news" with brief descriptions of new photo products coming onto the market. The new Alpa 7 is mentioned there. It seems possible when Sinar was first brought to the US, there would have been an announcement, especially if the distributor was an advertiser. Of course it really isn't especially important when Sinar first came to the US or other countries, but I find information of this sort quite interesting.

Len

I agree with you, I find this sort of information very interesting. I find industrial history fascinating though my interests here are fairly circumscribed, running mostly to machine tools in addition to photography (especially large format). I dearly wish someone would write a history of the U.S. Goerz optical company of the caliber that Arne Croell does. I have a bad feeling that that company's archives are gone.

Incidentally the 1950 buying guide I mentioned does show the Alpa and the distributor shown is "Heitz and Lightburn", surely "Heitz" as in Karl "Heitz". The more expensive of the two Alpas shown, the "Alitax Model" with an f/1.8 lens was $315 which, if you run it through an on-line inflation calculator, is $3045 in 1913 dollars.

David

[Leonard Robertson]

I started looking through some old issues of "International Photo Technik" to see if my memory was correct regarding Sinar advertising there. I've only looked at a few issues from the early 1960s and found three different full page Sinar ads. It seems a bit odd to see Sinar ads in what was widely thought of as the "Linhof Magazine". I did a quick snap of one of the ads from the 1/1960 issue and posted it to my Flickr page here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/78824315@N00/12511273014/
I want to set up a copy stand and do a better quality picture, but this gives an idea of Sinar advertising from that era.

Len

[Jerry Bodine]

I did a quick snap of one of the ads from the 1/1960 issue and posted it to my Flickr page here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/78824315@N00/12511273014/

And I can just make out the Karl Heitz USA distributorship in the lower right corner.

[Leonard Robertson]

And I can just make out the Karl Heitz USA distributorship in the lower right corner.

It is rather annoying, but it seems if you aren't signed onto Flickr, the pictures can't be enlarged. I don't know if this is deliberate on the part of Flickr so people will be inclined to join up to see the enlarged versions of pictures. But then if you aren't a Flickr member, you wouldn't know about the enlargement feature. I sometimes wonder if computer programers and website owners ever actually try using their creations. I posted the link to Flickr, rather than posting the image directly on the forum page, so people could see the larger version. Also some forums are fussy about the posting of material that has ever been copyrighted.

You are right, Karl Heitz is shown as the US distributor. This ad is from the English language edition of IPT, so the distributors for Sinar in all English speaking countries are shown.

Len

[Leonard Robertson]

Many times over the years I've run across statements similar to this claiming a Norma is on:

"...permanent display in The Museum of Modern Art (as an Industrial Design Object)..."

I've assumed the reference is to MOMA in New York City (http://www.moma.org), but I can't find any mention of a Sinar in their collection when I search their website. Possibly that is due to my dubious search skills. Or is the Norma at MOMA an internet urban legend? Was a Norma in a show there once upon a time, but not in the permanent collection? Do I have the wrong MOMA? Anyone have any insight?

Len

[David Lindquist]

Many times over the years I've run across statements similar to this claiming a Norma is on:

"...permanent display in The Museum of Modern Art (as an Industrial Design Object)..."

I've assumed the reference is to MOMA in New York City (http://www.moma.org), but I can't find any mention of a Sinar in their collection when I search their website. Possibly that is due to my dubious search skills. Or is the Norma at MOMA an internet urban legend? Was a Norma in a show there once upon a time, but not in the permanent collection? Do I have the wrong MOMA? Anyone have any insight?

Len
I remember reading somewhere many years ago (pre-internet) that the Sinar was in New York MOMA's collection of iconic industrial objects. I wouldn't expect something like that to be on permanent display but I would expect it would be possible to search the collection of a place like MOMA and find it.
David

[David A. Goldfarb]

It doesn't show up in the online MoMA catalogue as an object in the collection, though many other cameras do, including a Minox.

[Drew Wiley]

Not a rumor at all. The Norma was displayed as "Industrial Art". But I can't recall exactly where, maybe the Smithsonian? Their own archives would tell you.

[Leonard Robertson]

I suspect there was a Norma in a museum show of industrial design sometime. But I'm just wondering which museum and approximately what time period. It may have been in a MOMA show. The Sinar in the MOMA "permanent collection" is what I'm starting to question, much as I would like it to be true. I remembered MOMA is supposed to have a Cisitalia sports car in their permanent collection, and that does show up doing a search on the MOMA website. But no Sinar comes up in a search there.

I found an interesting entry on Wikipedia (although I don't consider that the ultimate authority on any subject) - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk%3ASinar. I'll quote from the entry in case the link is changed in the future - "I removed the statement that the Sinar Norma is part of MoMA's permanent collection because I am unable to locate any reliable source to verify this claim. I searched Google Books, as well as the web sites of MoMA and Sinar. Nothing. Nada. Zilch. NYCRuss ☎ 18:30, 5 February 2012 (UTC)"
But of course I don't know if the person who made this entry is any better at searching than I am.


Len

[Leonard Robertson]

A Flickr member recently posted a picture of a Sinar Norma with the caption "Deutsches Technikmuseum Berlin". Go to Flickr and search Sinar Norma Berlin to view his image. In the picture, the card between the two lenses in front of the camera says it is a 13X18 cm 1956 Sinar Norma.

I went here http://www.sdtb.de/Home.623.0.html and while the museum does have a photography display, I couldn't find anything related to Sinar using their Search function. Maybe the Norma isn't cataloged in their searchable database, or the Norma was part of a temporary show.

This Norma may not be the origin of the Sinar in a museum story, but it does make me wonder how many Sinars may be in museum collections around the world. For anyone who is ever in Berlin, the Deutsches Technikmuseum looks like a fascinating place to visit.

Len

[Robert H]

I too have read the Norma was part of the permanent MOMA Industrial Design collection but like Leonard Robertson have not been able to confirm this with an internet search.
The vast majority of their Design collection are of course not on display but are kept in storage and occasionally drawn upon for special exhibitions.
Being the world's first all metal technical "system" camera, I could understand it's importance historically.
It's minimalist relative simplicity and visual elegance of course contribute also.

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[Robert H]

No "Sinar" at the Smithsonian.

[Emmanuel BIGLER]

Well, with all respect due to the MoMA, it's not really the place I would visit if I were a true Sinar-o-phile ;)

Natürlich I'd visit the Vevey (Switzerland) Camera museum instead.

http://www.cameramuseum.ch/fr/N2539/.html

(sorry, found no pages in English, only French & German ; may be some time, when English will be the 5-th official language of the Swiss Confederation ...)

OK, I live just 2 hours drive from Vevey, so it's easier to me to go there.
At the Vevey Camera Museum, you can also respectfully bow in front of a small oratory, where you'll see a spectacular cut-through of Ludwig Bertele's Holy Wild Aviogon Lens, the ancestor of all modern top-class view camera WA lenses (to the best of my knowledge, the Aviogon lens was designed in Switzerland just before Bertele designed the Biogon for Zeiss)

[Drew Wiley]

The whole point is that it was industrial "art". No big camera looked like that when it appeared. They're still impressive in terms of finish.

[Robert H]

Thank you for the link Emmanuel. Looks like a fascinating museum. Will have a visit this summer as I'm not far away here in the Netherlands. You're lucky to live in beautiful Besançon, surely one of my favorite French towns.

[Robert H]

1948 Sinar Prototype. Images 1-4:

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[Robert H]

1948 Sinar Prototype. Images 9-12:

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[Robert H]

1948 Sinar Prototype. Images 5-8:

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[Robert H]

From Musée Suisse de l’appareil Photographique, Vevey,
Two Sinar prototypes, including early "P":

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1948 Sinar No. 11248:

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[Camillou]

Thanks a lot Robert for all those pictures.
They are greatly appreciated! Aesthetic of mechanical products is a field I'm really interested in.
I once had a rather early Norma and I've been really disappointed when I sold her for a Sinar P. (I now use a similarly beautifully engineered Linhof Master Technika but if I find a really early Norma or a "Bi"... it will be hard to resist! Anyway, two cameras (and such different cameras) wouldn't be that many.)

[Leonard Robertson]

Many thanks to Emmanuel and Robert for the wonderful links and pictures. I had no idea I would ever be able to view pictures of these early Sinars.

It is interesting Sinar used a black rail on the prototype, then didn't use it on production cameras for many years. I love the style of the black rounded knobs on the prototype. I once had a 4X5 Linhof Color with a similar style knob. I remember focusing with that big knob was the best feature of the camera.

Maybe everyone knows this already, but the Google Chrome web browser will auto detect languages and translate entire pages to English. It may also work to translate English to other languages, but I really don't know. Maybe there is a feature in other web browsers to translate pages, but I haven't seen it for Firefox which is my normal browser. Of course these translator programs do an imperfect job, but it is better than me trying to read French or German.

Len

[Robert H]

Thank you Len and Camilllou. Appreciate your interest. By the way, did you notice the interesting rail caps, one with a spring? The idea was to use the rail as a "D" cell battery compartment for a flash system power source. C. Koch was always thinking !

[VictoriaPerelet]

... *The idea was to use the rail as a "D" cell battery compartment for a flash system power source. C. Koch was always thinking !

Robert, do you have reference for this quote? If this is true - it confirms that Koch always had problems with electronics analogue or digital - "D" cell battery for studio flash?:confused: Glad that it never materialized and Broncolor become defacto Sinar lighting solution since 70's.

But then, I looked over Koch patents and can't find it, he patented "everything"

http://www.google.com/search?q=%22c.+koch%22+camera&biw=768&bih=928&sa=X&ei=ni4dU7-mL5L0oASp9oHICg&ved=0CBQQpwUoAjgU&source=lnt&tbs=cdr%3A1%2Cptsdt%3Ai%2Ccd_min%3A01%2F01%2F1947%2Ccd_max%3A01%2F01%2F1999&tbm=pts#q=%22c.+koch%22+camera&tbm=pts&tbs=cdr:1%2Cptsdt:i%2Ccd_min:01%2F01%2F1947%2Ccd_max:01%2F01%2F1999

[Robert H]

Have come across this information a time or two but don't recall exactly where Victoria. Looking at the end caps on this prototype however did remind me of it and as the internal diameter of the rails / tubes remain 34mm to this day, a "D" cell with a diameter of 33.2mm would fit nicely. May also be he was thinking of a power source for a lightmeter of some kind or possibly an electronic shutter. Do agree a set of 1.5 volt "D" cells would prove quite hopeless for any kind of serious flash unit. By the way, thanks for the link to the Carl Koch US Patents also. Seems he was also considering ball bearings as a tilt support on the "P" in 1971. An expensive but very interesting solution !

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[Leonard Robertson]

At the time Koch was designing the Norma, flash bulbs weren't nearly so obsolete as we think of them today. Now we tend to simplify and think the only place flash bulbs were used was singly on the side of a Speed or Crown Graphic. But multi-bulb setups could be wired. "Graphic Graflex Photography" 1944 edition shows wiring diagrams to fire up to 60 bulbs at once using 110V power fired by a relay triggered by a 9V battery at the camera. Another diagram shows up to 20 bulbs fired from a 6V automobile battery, using the same trigger relay. There are example photos in the book of two and three flash setups which I believe were fired direct from the camera flash batteries. I've read that long after studio strobes became widely used, industrial photographers continued using big flashbulbs if they needed to light a large area.

Anyway, that is my theory. Koch wanted to give his professional photographer customers the ability to fire flash bulbs from the camera. By the time the camera went into production the idea may have been dropped in favor of a better rail extension hookup.

I'd like to see the outer side of the rail end cap shown in Robert's "SINAR_PROTOTYPE_11.jpg". The inner side seems to have two battery contacts. I wonder what sort of contacts are on the outside?

Len

[Robert H]

Good points Len. Thanks.
It's interesting to realize the official launch date for the Norma was also 1948 so the gentlemen must have been very busy during this time as aside from the lensboard and bellows holding system, everything else seems to have been radically redesigned from the above images, almost as if executed by a totally different designer, not only technically but also aethetically. I find the final camera much more elegant than what is shown here and although I now know you like those Linhof style knobs, I frankly don't as for me they would look more at home on an old bathtub ! They are in fact one of the reasons I chose a Sinar over a Linhof all those years ago. Sorry about that !
Sadly the images shown are all I have available for now and obviously the details are of a non-complete / unfinished prototype. Perhaps someone somewhere will at some point provide additional information !

111953

111954

This is NOT me but I liked the image:

111955

[Jimi]

Just found this fascinating thread. I have a 13x18 Norma, which is marked M61 on the front standard, with two separate metal pieces and faintly stamped into the metal M62 on the back standard. It has the focus locks and the gear segment is steel.

I do wonder if this is really any clue to the manufacture date or just parts numbers?

When the Norma was introduced, did it comprise the 4x5, 5x7 and 8x10 (or the european equivalent 9x12, 13x18 and 18x24) - or was it only 9x12/4x5, and later expanded with the bigger models?

[VictoriaPerelet]

Probably worth mentioning

http://www.epi-centre.com/reports/9903cs.html

(people who allergenic to digital do not need to click:)

[Jimi]

A 4x5" passing through - it is a typical cobble job - older rear standard (M60) with the steel gear and focus lock, while the front is younger (M64) with "nylon" gear and focus lock. The rail was such in a bad condition I had to replace it with a slightly newer one - even locked down the front standard wobbled.

[Robert H]

One of the attributes of these old cameras is that even after decades of use, they can usually be tuned back to perfection regarding smoothness of operation as virtually everything is adjustable with just some simple tools, primarily a few hex wrenches or allen bolts as they are called in the US. Finding the correct sizes is critical however as two are quite small (1,5 & 2,0 mm) and can strip the heads if the fit is not perfect. When properly set up these cameras become silky smooth with no free play what so ever anywhere. The later P and P2 models feel crude in comparison.

[Robert H]

But they're still an amazing piece of engineering ...

114384

[pierre506]

A new SINAR system owner asked a question about the 2 red points on the rail.
I can not answer it.
Does anyone know it?
115382

[erie patsellis]

My understanding is that on the F, when each standard is slid past, they can both be swung 90 degrees to be packed flat, with the bellows removed, of course.

[Coucoubox]

Hello, I am a french reader ( in Burgundy) of the SINAR Story and .....it's wonderfull to learn a lot of details about this great Camera Sinar Norma. Often, i ask myself : How know and discover in images each Norma model after model trought the years to look the evolution and knowing what is my model ( one bloc is all in metal micrometric focusing and the others are with "teflon" micrometric focusing.... and I woulf like to know how see the year model on a Sinar Norma.
Someone can help me to learn these details. For advance Thanks, if someone can answer me. Sorry for my bad english to explain my questions.
Francis.

[Coucoubox]

201054

[Coucoubox]

This is how I use my Sinar Norma for yet a few years ( the clock was bought in Sinar company when i took a seminar to learn to use the Sinar camera....many years ago )

[Coucoubox]

inside the Norma rail:201055201056201057