Biggest Sinar board opening you have seen

[erian]

I have the board with the 102 mm hole and I could not find any larger. Has somebody seen anything that is wider?

[Greg]

Little bit under 130mm for a large barrel lens (from an overhead projector) that I once had. Lens was mounted (S K Grimes?, don't remember) firmly onto the Sinar board, but the lens had to be supported by a custom auxiliary standard (aux standard was custom made to prop up bellows sag). Never used this lens mounted on the Sinar board alone cause it was way too front heavy. In back of it, used it with a Sinar shutter which has an opening of 75mm which acted as a "stopped down" iris for the optic. Whole set-up proved to be too impractical to easily use. Made a few test exposures, but the results were a whole lot less than I had hoped for.

[jaytral]

maximumx factory made was 102mm (Sinar DB)

[Daniel Unkefer]

Sinar Norma made a camera standard, larger by one size than the normal Norma front standard. I have never found one in over thirty years, it's in the catalog. My guess is that it was the 5x7 rear standard, with some additional specially made parts. I'd like to have one. I believe the "special bellows" was the designation, probably 8x10 to 5x7 standard front. Also never seen one of those. Reinhart Wolfe had a 1000mm Zeiss dialyte that required two Norma standards to stabilize. The rear mount of that lens was/is truly impressive in size.

[Drew Wiley]

I once did a bigger hole than any of those using a fly cutter on a drill press. Fortunately, the rigidity of the rim of a real Sinar board is well reinforced by the ribbing.

[Greg]

Sinar Norma made a camera standard, larger by one size than the normal Norma front standard. I have never found one in over thirty years, it's in the catalog. My guess is that it was the 5x7 rear standard, with some additional specially made parts. I'd like to have one. I believe the "special bellows" was the designation, probably 8x10 to 5x7 standard front. Also never seen one of those. Reinhart Wolfe had a 1000mm Zeiss dialyte that required two Norma standards to stabilize. The rear mount of that lens was/is truly impressive in size.

Have also seen listed in some old Sinar Norma literature? reference to a larger front standard. I believe it was not a modified 5x7 rear standard but a square (7x7 inch?) standard. Will try to find it in my collection of old Sinar literature. Back in the Sinar Standard/Norma era, I remember Sinar offering some unique special order pieces of equipment. One was an 8x10 reflex finder which I'd seriously like to acquire... but don't know if it ever made it out of the prototype stage to a special order item. In the rear equipment section of Linhof's Technika magazine, quite a few products were listed that never made it into production, maybe that's where I saw reference to a larger front standard?

[neil poulsen]

I have a Sinar lensboard with an 84mm opening. It's ideal for my Schneider 610mm f9 Repro-Claron lens.

Given the (large) size of this lens, an 84mm opening is about as large as I'm ever going to need.

[Armin Seeholzer]

Yes it was a special order item if I remember correctly. The bellows has the No. 453.58 which is for the P2 from 5x7-8x10 and the older one is No. 453.18 for the P!

[Greg]

Yes it was a special order item if I remember correctly. The bellows has the No. 453.58 which is for the P2 from 5x7-8x10 and the older one is No. 453.18 for the P!

Attached is an image of the Sinar 5x7 standard 433.67 (4x5 for comparison on the right) which was used with the 453.58 (or 453.18) special bellows. Never remember seeing a 5x7 lensboard offered from Sinar to use on it, but I'm sure one could easily be machined for it. Getting the correct grade? or hardness? of the aluminum might be the challenge to a non-machinist person like me.

[asf]

I used to have the 8x10 reflex viewer in the 90s, they weren't that hard to find ... saw one on ebay within the last 5 years


Have also seen listed in some old Sinar Norma literature? reference to a larger front standard. I believe it was not a modified 5x7 rear standard but a square (7x7 inch?) standard. Will try to find it in my collection of old Sinar literature. Back in the Sinar Standard/Norma era, I remember Sinar offering some unique special order pieces of equipment. One was an 8x10 reflex finder which I'd seriously like to acquire... but don't know if it ever made it out of the prototype stage to a special order item. In the rear equipment section of Linhof's Technika magazine, quite a few products were listed that never made it into production, maybe that's where I saw reference to a larger front standard?

[Jimi]

Quote from the Sinar manual, available at Butkus, just for the sake of completeness.

“Specially large lens panels:

(Fig. 29) The SINAR lens panels normally supplied are big enough for all standard lenses for professional cameras. Yet it may happen in very rare special cases that an even larger lens panel is required. This combination is possible through using the rear carrier 5// - 13/18, No. 1610, together with joint block No. x310V as front lens carrier. Here too it is neccesary to use the special bellows No. 2075 from 5/7 - 13/18 to 8/10 - 18/24, as well as a special lens panel No. 810.”

There is an accompanying photo, but the quality of the scan and the original printing is less than stellar. What it shows is an 8x10 back with a reversed 5x7 standard and the above-mentioned bellows. If one would like to use large lenses on a 5x7 with this configuration, I guess one would have to make a new bellows.