5x7 film holder with inserts?

[Steve Feldman]

Thought I'd seen most everything. But this is new to me. Seems like a 5x7 dcfh with inserts for smaller formats. Anyone seen/used these? Do they work well?

Thanks.

~Steve

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=7624391902&rd=1&sspagename=STRK%3AMEWA%3AIT&rd=1

[Oren Grad]

These 5x7 holders aren't film holders, they're plate holders, which is why there's room for the inserts. If you wanted to use them for 5x7 film you'd have to find some 5x7 film sheaths. I have a few 5x7->3.25x4.25 reducing inserts like these floating around, though I've never gotten around to exposing any film with them.

Although the film sheath proper is made out of metal, the reducing frame in which it sits is made out of wood, quite thin to enable it to fit within the space allowed by a plate holder but roughly finished. I'll have to go digging in my junk pile to be sure, but if I recall correctly, the film sheath is held in place not just by the rotating clips that you can see in the picture, but also on the other side by little corner brackets that will impinge on the picture area.

I have fiddled with these in the darkroom and they should work, but they'll be quite a bit fussier to load and unload than regular film holders.

[Oren Grad]

By the way, if you look at the pictures in the listing you can see that in the holder that they show opened, the film sheath is installed backward - the film side should be visible when the dark slide is pulled, not the back side.

[David A. Goldfarb]

Oren's description is accurate. I have some 5x7->4x5" plate adapters as well with 4x5" film sheaths.

On a normal 5x7" camera it is probably easier just to use a reducing back, but these are really handy if you have a 5x7" SLR like a Press Graflex or Home Portrait camera and plate holders or a plate mag, since, as far as I know, there are no reducing backs for these cameras (presumably because the reducing back usually moves the film plane, and that would make the reflex finder inaccurate, defeating the purpose of an LFSLR).