Why So Many Sinar DB Mounts ?

[Scott Fleming]

ebay is always awash with them. Is it simply because Sinar is such a popular camera?

Secondarilly: How much trouble is it to get them out of those useless mounts and into a Copal? What does the conversion cost on average?

[Eric Leppanen]

SK Grimes recently quoted me $550 - $800 (plus shipping/handling) and 4-6 weeks, depending upon the amount of work and type of shutter required. This includes an engraved iris scale appropriate for the lens.

[Capocheny]

Scott,

I've also noticed the abundance of Db-mounted lenses on ebay of late.

I had the Sinar Auto-aperture unit at one time and all of my lenses were mounted in these mounts instead of the Copal shutters. At the end of the day... although the shutter was convenient and gave consistent exposures due to the use of a single shutter as opposed to separate shutters for each lens, I got rid of the thing because it kept jamming up on me.

It's "generally" pretty straight forward to remount the lenses into Copal shutters "if" you have the shutters available or have access to the appropriate sized models (Copal 1, 2, 3, or 3s.) The only lense I had problems with was the 360 Symmar and, in reality, it wouldn't be considered a real problem. I had to order in a pair of aperture scales from the distributors but it was going to take 3 months or more. As a result, I decided to send the lens and shutter down to S.K. Grimes. They engraved the aperture settings directly onto the shutter and, IMHO, it was a really professional job that they did. I couldn't be happier with the result. Mind you... now, unless I have another lens with an f6.8 this shutter will be strictly relegated to this particular lens.

As for Sinar in general... it use to be the case that you wouldn't see a P2 or an X on the auction block very often. Nowadays, it's not terribly uncommon for them to appear on ebay. That said, it seems that there are a lot of Deardorff cameras of all sizes too... in particular 8x10 versions. There's even an 11x14 on there at the moment and it's one of the first 11x14 Dorffs I've seen on there in a very long time.

Sorry but I don't recall the exact cost for the re-mounting. I'd call and speak with them directly. Specify exactly what lens you need to have re-mounted and whether you have the required shutter or not. If you don't... Copal shutters also show up on ebay for a lot less than the newest versions.

Eric,

Your price must have included a new shutter... they did the job for me on my 360 at a fraction of the $550 - 800 they're quoting you. A new Copal shutter will vary in cost depending on the size. A Copal 3 is pretty costly... while a Copal 0 is much more reasonable. What lens are you having them mount?

Cheers

[Eric Leppanen]

Henry,

My inquiry was for remounting a 300mm Sinaron-SE from Sinaron DB to Copol 3. Adam said he was not familiar with that specific lens, and I think he quoted their standard pricelist (http://www.skgrimes.com/products/index.htm) and assumed machine-work would be required. I subsequently was able to obtain a lens already mounted in shutter, so I never had to pursue the matter further.

[Scott Fleming]

Thank you gentlemen. Very informative as usual. Pretty much confirms what I suspected. 1. The Sinar system of the shutter on the camera is a pain. 2. Folks are dumping that system. 3. The lenses are not a deal on ebay as the cost of remounting is prohibitive.

[Armin Seeholzer]

Hi Scott

The Sinar System of the shutter on the camera is not a pain at al. The studios sell them because they go digital and for thad they need new lenses with new shutters for the much smaller digital lenses.
I like to use my behind the lens shutter for very long lenses like my 610mm APO nikkor wich has no shutter because it was used as repro lens and also for some older lenses like my Universal Heliar wich has no shutter. The Sinar was in the most studios the workhorse for years but now there are in comercial studios the time for Digicams and now you can get Sinars for a song on ebay!

[Capocheny]

Eric,

I think you're probably correct in assuming that they were quoting their standard price list figure with machine-work included.

BTW... that 300 Sinaron SE is a pretty nice piece of glass!

Cheers

[tor kviljo]

As for sinar shutters: my four Sinar-Copal mounted lenses costed me less than just one of them (Nikkor 300M) would have when mounted in modern Copal. Together with ability to very inexpensively add shutterless lenses to the camera: Plenty of good enough reason to stick with the Sinar-Copal system. Buy a Sinar-Copal shutter & enjoy inexpensive lenses instead of spending huge amounts of $$$$$ to buy new copals & remount them. I guess you get a nice working Sinar-Copal DB shutter - suitable for all your lenses - for less than one Copal 1 shutter.

[Capocheny]

Tor,

Your comment is well taken and, certainly in regards to shutterless lenses such as those of process lenses, the Sinar Auto-shutter is the only way to go. Mounting a process lens in a Copal shutter costs a huge amount of dollars to mount.

However, I found my shutter constantly jamming up on me and that negates any savings whatsoever on a Copal shutter mounted lens... and, of course, when this happened, I couldn't take pictures. Secondly, returning the shutter to be repaired also meant a significant amount of downtime. Lastly, this happened on 2 different auto-shutters.

This is the only reason I sold my Autoshutter in favor of going back to individually, Copal shutter mounted lenses. Otherwise, the convenience of the autoshutter was nice... in addition to consistent exposures!

Cheers