Sinar Norma spirit level holders

[Dave Dawson]

I have just taken delivery of a vintage Norma. All the bubbles have dried out and gone misty inside BUT one of the white plastic bubble holders is missing.

Does anyone have 1 (or 2) holders I could buy off them please?

Cheers Dave

[rdeloe]

I don't have any Dave, but by coincidence I was reading this guy's website because I was curious about the weight of a Norma. He has all kinds of bits and pieces for Normas for sale, including levels. http://glennview.com/sinar.htm

[Dave Dawson]

I don't have any Dave, but by coincidence I was reading this guy's website because I was curious about the weight of a Norma. He has all kinds of bits and pieces for Normas for sale, including levels. http://glennview.com/sinar.htm

Funnily enough I spotted that site as well BUT 6 new levels @ $50 a time plus postage to the UK (I only paid £125 for the camera!)

Cheers Dave

[Dave Dawson]

Ps......fleaBay item number:

173613865676

For the bubbles

[Leigh]

I have just taken delivery of a vintage Norma. All the bubbles have dried out and gone misty inside BUT one of the white plastic bubble holders is missing.

Does anyone have 1 (or 2) holders I could buy off them please?

Cheers DaveHi Dave,

Take a look at the large selection of levels on the McMaster-Carr website
https://www.mcmaster.com/levels

They don't ship to the UK.
But if you find what you want, I could order it and ship it to you.
I would need the proper catalog number.

- Leigh

[Dave Dawson]

Thanks very much for the offer Leigh but I have ordered the ones on fleabay and will see if they are suitable first.

Cheers Dave

[Drew Wiley]

Don't expect cheap ones to necessarily be accurate. A pendulum-type angle finder is a way better method of correcting verticals on view camera standards. And as far as horizontal, film seldom fits in the holder itself precisely aligned, so some amount of post-correction of alignment is inevitable if you need true vertical or horizontal lines. But don't forget that too thick an epoxy will offset the positioning of your replacement levels themselves. You should have you camera solidly set up and well-aligned before you begin, with a high-quality reference level on hand when you set your little bubble levels in, and for the duration of the epoxy cure time. Don't use the five-minute type. It's weak.

[Paul Ron]

amazon has hundreds to chose from.....

https://www.amazon.com/s?k=bulls+eye+bubble+level&ref=nb_sb_noss_2

[Drew Wiley]

There's actually quite an art to making a simple bubble level that's accurate. I've sat in on an entire factory seminar with German engineers on the subject. And I can confidently tell you, it's pretty rare that you find one done correctly unless it's machinist quality. I do know two other companies using patented methods. Not the kind of thing you can get at Amazon or your local home center. But that's just for sake of whatever ... I wouldn't worry about it too much in this instance. A basic inclinometer is always a good idea in an architectural photography kit - as if buildings themselves were always plumb and true! I don't even look at the levels on my on Norma, even though they're all still there.

[Jason Greenberg Motamedi]

A few years back I made a few sets of Norma levels using a 3D printer (for the base) and buying the vials from here:
https://www.geier-bluhm.com/product-category/acrylic-vials/acrylic-vials-acrylic-tubular-vials/ (see 3-0501)
These vials were a very close match (I can't see any difference) to the orginals, and my 3D printed bases work fine.

[Daniel Unkefer]

I always used original replacement levels directly from Sinar. Larry in the parts department always knew what I wanted; they had a stash of original Norma parts for quite a while. I have a few extras now and I'm keeping them.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/Original-Level-Bubble-and-base-set-for-Sinar-F1-F2-etc/143192575643?hash=item2156f14e9b:g:MKwAAOSwZcZcnkdL:sc:USPSFirstClass!43068!US!-1

These look legit to me; the later F and P ones had a white plastic base. Do what you want but if I needed a few I'd grab these.

[B.S.Kumar]

I've used Sinar cameras for my commercial architectural photography. Rather than relying on the built-in levels, which aren't very precise, I align the grid on the screen with building lines, and double check with a Diamond Ebisu card level. https://www.largeformatphotography.info/forum/showthread.php?140933-Precision-bubble-level

Kumar

[Drew Wiley]

Well, if the film sits in the holder precisely square (which it rarely does), and if the gridded groundglass is perfectly centered relative to all sides (also unlikely). Some amount of post-correction for vertical is inevitable. Some of you might have been following all the fuss in San Francisco concerning its newest, most expensive, and significantly highest skyscraper, which is sinking on one side, and is already eighteen inches out of plumb. That's enough to make a marble roll across a hardwood floor on its own. But lawyers relish the fact.

[Jac@stafford.net]

is already eighteen inches out of plumb.

That's something Mother Nature will take care of. Earthquake equity.

[Drew Wiley]

Well, everyone is blaming everyone else at this point. But I already know the winner - the lawyers, as always. It seems that an adjacent project allowed some of their own underlying stuff (not exactly either soil or rock in that downtown area) to ooze out into their construction void, and hence the Leaning Tower of Pizza served with SF Espresso. A friend of mine specializes in local history books and digitally cleans up a lot of old photographs. Most people don't know it, but a far worse quake than the 1906 one transpired on this side of the Bay in the 1870's, which he dedicates one book to. But due to the smaller population at that time, it is less remembered. It was on the Hayward Fault (a ten minute walk uphill from me), rather than the San Andreas fault. But it actually liquified almost the whole of downtown SF, which even then was largely built on landfill into the Bay. After that, building standards were enforced, especially regarding collapsing brick chimneys. What caused most of the damage later in '06 was the fire after the quake. Today, high-rises there rely on huge subterranean pumped structural concrete T-bases, like giant underground feet. But the quality of the rock is so-so. It's basically partially consolidated Pliocene mudstone that can potentially turn back to mud. With all my geology training, I went out of my way to buy property in a neighborhood underlain by granite rock that an earthquake wave rapidly passes through. The landfill developments shake like Jello. There are official detailed USGS neighborhood maps showing all the different soil condition. They're accessible to anyone; but the Realtors are the last people on earth that want anyone to know about them. It's really not that difficult, however. You just have to look at how frequently a particular street has been patched for severed water or sewer lines. In the fault and "slider" zones, it's obvious.

[Dave Dawson]

I have just taken delivery of the bubbles from Germany that are on fleabay and they are the correct size, fast delivery and are the fraction of the price of the official Sinar ones. SORTED.

Cheers Dave
ps. Still looking for a plastic holder