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View Full Version : I know 5x7 holders are getting harder to find...



Nate Battles
7-Nov-2007, 17:17
...but damn!!!

http://cgi.ebay.com/New-Fidelity-Deluxe-5X7-Film-Holders_W0QQitemZ130169273154QQihZ003QQcategoryZ29979QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

janepaints
7-Nov-2007, 19:46
You'd think that someone--perhaps a chinese manufacturer?--will notice this trend and start making/offering 5x7 holders for a reasonable price--there's obviously a niche market for the 5x7s".

I ain't fussy. Older wooden holders are A-OK by me as long as they work--plus, they're user-repairable/maintainable, within reasonable limits.

I bought 6 older wooden 5x7's on ebay last weekend for $62. Have my black tape, clamps & wood glue at the ready, just in case. But at $10-and-change a holder, I'm thrilled.

Left me more $$$ to spend on film....

....knock on wood :)

rob
7-Nov-2007, 20:39
I got my 8 5x7 holders a year ago. The first 2 from ebay, mint, both for $20. The other 6 from azo forum, they were new-old-stock fidelity in boxes, all for $150. They are all still very clean, I guess I could make money of them in the $bay, but no, I still like shooting with my horseman 5x7 LX.

jetcode
7-Nov-2007, 20:55
I just bought 4 Shen-Hao 5x7 holders after watching this auction. Another earlier auction had 4 Fidelity's going for $167.50. This borders on ridiculous.

Michael Kadillak
7-Nov-2007, 21:53
I absolutely LOVE it. About seven years ago I made the statement on the old forum that 5x7 was about to make a serious comeback and was met with stiff opposition that it would fade to black because there would never be enough users to justify any company cutting sheet film for it. My goodness how things have changed and for the better I might add.

Fortunately, the one thing that was in abundant supply at that time were brand new sheet film holders. And I decided that I would stock up and take this variable out of the equation.

Unfortunately now that the demand has exceeded supply I expect that it will be a while before this situation gets rectified. But it just takes one entrepreunerial individual to see the light for the whole problem to go away.

5x7 is a marvelous format so continue to express your interest in holders, cameras and sheet film and all will eventually be well again. Keep the faith. The alternative is simply unacceptable.

Cheers!

janepaints
7-Nov-2007, 23:28
5x7 is a marvelous format so continue to express your interest in holders, cameras and sheet film and all will eventually be well again. Keep the faith. The alternative is simply unacceptable.

Cheers!

I second that emotion! Only recently I've resumed photography, turned-on after seeing LF (and med. format) B&W negs printed via scanning & inket--or contact-printed on POP.

Going through my prints from the 1980's I noticed this: The highest percentage of good images tended to've been done on either 5x7 or medium format cameras. Tho I dearly loved my old 8x10" Agfa, only a handful of good stuff came from it. I shot more 4x5" than any other format, but little of it seems good now.

Yet I'd shot so many good negs using a rickety 5x7" Eastman 2-D using a funky 8" Dagor or a 177mm "Annie Got A Stigma, Matt!" Kodak lens salvaged from some jazz-age folder.

But when the Agfa appeared I HAD to buy it and so my homely old Eastman was forsaken--probably sold or traded-off. After all, the 2-D wasn't gleamy, fewer movements, no extension rail etc. The 2D's black paint was flaking off, while the Agfa's fine woodworking & lovely metalwork glowed.

I was so smitten with the larger & fancier camera that I never noticed how uninspired were the images I made with it. Til' now.

Can't ya hear Joni Mitchell singing "don't know what ya got 'til it's gone"? :)

5x7": it's got that big ground-glass thing going on, big-enough contact-print thing too...lighter & cheaper than 8x10...not much $$$/bulkier than 4x5. My Seneca 5x7" Chataugua camera feels almost weightless.

Perhaps my eye & brain just 'gets' or 'feels' the elongated 5x7" rectangle better than the more square-ish 8x10/4x5 rectangle. (Tho the square of TLR viewing screens ALWAYS gets me all hopped-up. Go figure.)

Turner Reich
7-Nov-2007, 23:36
I collected over 25 over a couple of years, the good ones, I got lucky once and got a load of 4x's, 5x's, and 8x's in a huge box that was too heavy to carry. I had to clean the dust off but under it all were unused holders that had been sitting in an attic. Almost all of mine are the newer ones but I do have some wooden holders too.

I love 5X7 photography, cameras, holders, the size of the negative and print, the ability to carry it all and the lenses that make it possible.

Capocheny
8-Nov-2007, 03:57
You'd think that someone--perhaps a chinese manufacturer?--will notice this trend and start making/offering 5x7 holders for a reasonable price--there's obviously a niche market for the 5x7s".

Hi Jane,

There IS a Chinese company who makes beautiful holders but they're certainly not cheap by any stretch of the imagination. However, that said, they really are beautifully made and they use first class materials.

And, I agree... 5x7 is a wonderful format to use. :)

Cheers

PS: The company name is Chamonix. :)

jetcode
8-Nov-2007, 04:58
You can get wood Shen-Hau holders at Badger now for $67 each, fotoman is rumored to supply plastic holders at some point for $75 each. I am not aware of 5x7 holders from Chamonix.

Paul Droluk
8-Nov-2007, 05:27
For those interested, here's a Fotoman update... the first pre-production run of 5x7 and Whole Plate (6.5 x 8.5) film holders is scheduled for next week. Assuming that additional tweaking of the molds will be required, we anticipate product being available around the end of December.

Ted Harris
8-Nov-2007, 05:56
Chamonix also has a 5x7 holder priced at around $130.

Robbie Shymanski
8-Nov-2007, 13:05
I was graced with 10 holders that were divined to me by a professional. I initially was more excited by the 4x5s he gave me, 5x7 is jaw dropping. It actually has a definition in vertical that is lost in 4x5. So my suggestion is to wise up to older photogs.

Nate Battles
8-Nov-2007, 13:47
good advice!

Nick_3536
8-Nov-2007, 23:40
August or Sept I bought six older ones from KEH for $29. I've bought others in the last year for similar prices per.

Robbie Shymanski
9-Nov-2007, 12:16
I think it begs the question, has anyone built their own? Mine are old wooden Eastman units. The joinery and metal are not terribly complex. I know I am setting myself up here, but how many are building their own? "...teach a man to fish..."

Gene McCluney
9-Nov-2007, 15:12
Used, repairable 5x7 film holders are NOT that hard to find. I purchased about 60 in the last month, from various sales. Lots of repair work, but it's fun.

Nate Battles
9-Nov-2007, 15:47
Used, repairable 5x7 film holders are NOT that hard to find. I purchased about 60 in the last month, from various sales. Lots of repair work, but it's fun.

Hmmm...okay. Well, I guess I am referring to holders that do not require repair. Regardless, the post was about an eBay auction that indicates the high demand and relative short supply of these puppies.

janepaints
9-Nov-2007, 16:36
I think it begs the question, has anyone built their own? Mine are old wooden Eastman units. The joinery and metal are not terribly complex. I know I am setting myself up here, but how many are building their own? "...teach a man to fish..."

Single-sided holders seem fairly easy to devise, double-sided a bit trickier but still achievable.

I can imagine making them using:

1. modeler's/hobby woods, sold by craft & hobby suppliers, or:

2. Woods for musical instrument making, available from luthiery suppliers.

Such resources offer strips & mini 'planks' of good hardwoods, some of whose dimensions which might be close or right-on to those needed for standard film holders.

The ridges under which the film sits could be devised from sheet plastic/metal sold for model train hobbyists and modeling purposes. Darkslides might also be made from those materials. Or salvaged from, DUH, older-orphaned darkslides. Lutherie suppliers also sell sheet-plastics for guitar pickguards which might make good darkslide material.

Light-trapping material? Dense velvets or the 'craft foam' sold at craft supply shops.

I've found many camera/photo uses for black craft foam--such as light-trapping around lensboards & bellows ends. (I've also used the foam for instant lens-hoods--roll some into a cone around a lens, tape it to hold the shape.) I use water-based contact cements to glue craft foam--solvent-based glues can melt foam materials into unpleasant ooey gooey.

As long as the film is held at the same plane as the ground glass, should be very do-able. Simple materials: Razor saw, right-angle clamps, a small modeler's mitre box for razor saws, wood glue, scraper or VERY fine sandpapers, maybe small screws for reinforcement.

1. A small 5-sided box with a very flat & stable bottom material.
2. ridges or system therein which holds the film flat, stable and at the proper plane.
3. A light-trap system for the darkslide's entrance & exit & when no slide is in the holder.
4. darkslide.
5. Protruding exterior ridge to fit into in the corresponding groove on the camera.
6. Flat black non-reflective finish for interior of holder.

So, essentially, five pieces to the whole of the puzzle.

Wood must be stable & well-cured, preferably air-dried & quarter-sawn.

I've built three violins and repaired/modified many guitars, mandolins, cellos, basses etc. Compared to making instruments, film holders seem easier, though I could be VERY wrong.

Funny how ideas which seem easy in the mind's-eye often end up TEDIOUS HASSLES in 3-D. Like carving fiddle tops.

Give a man a fish and you've fed him for a day, teach him to fish and he's gone all weekend guzzling beer in a rowboat.

Nate Battles
9-Nov-2007, 17:14
You are a Jane of all trades!!

janepaints
9-Nov-2007, 21:02
You are a Jane of all trades!!

Tho not necessarily adept or expert at any of 'em :)

'Tis amazing how Perpetually Low Funds can result in learning various crafts & skills. 'Necessity is the mother of invention' etc.

I bet plenty of folks here have done all kinds of mods, cobbled all sorts of photo gizmos together. Especially in LF, where much of the gear hasn't changed too much, in a fundamental-design sense, since the 1800's...and plenty of it is made of wood & utilizes relatively simple hardware. (gears, knobs, hinges, struts etc.) New Maxim: Photography Is The Portal To Tinkerdom.

There is something in the nature of wooden LF cameras--you look at them and the brain starts rambling & plotting. "Ya know, if I just cut this about there and bolt that thingamajig there and then find one of them old Autographics to steal some struts from....."

Next thing ya know, you've ruined a perfectly good Speed Graphic by epoxying a homemade tilt-n-shift-n-swing dual Instamatic film/Time Zero Supercolor adaptor back unto it.*

*I exaggerate by including Instamatic film, but I do plead guilty to having once made an SX-70 back for a 4x5 camera. Ya know what I learned? I learned that it was an idea to be filed under 'Mediocre Gizmos Not Worth The Effort.' So then I turned it into an SX-70 enlarging easel. Now that was pretty cool. Burn slides unto SX-70 film.

Like Porter's and Spiratone catalogs. (Is Spiratone still in business?) The J.C. Whitney Car Doo-Dad catalogs of the photo world. 800 pages of things you don't need but they all look swell and so you spend hours reading & daydreaming. YES! I've always wanted a macro-bellows close-up soft-focus prismatic 3-D star filter adaptor. Just the thing to give my photos that elusive zing.'

Tired of the tedious, tiring process of manually pushing your shutter release? NO MORE!! Spiratone's Telepathic-Wireless Cable Release sends you to Pro-Look Photo Heaven! Simply attach the electrode helmet (not included) to your (partially shaved) skull, dial-in a non-Aviation Navigation radio frequency and VOILA! Your shutter fires via THOUGHT COMMAND! No more weary fingertips. Great for parties and Espionage Work. Please specify Pentax or Nikon mount. $59.95 Electrode Helmet (package of 3) additional $18.85. Offer void in Nebraska.

Gene McCluney
10-Nov-2007, 03:10
Hmmm...okay. Well, I guess I am referring to holders that do not require repair. Regardless, the post was about an eBay auction that indicates the high demand and relative short supply of these puppies.

Yes, if you want pristine "new" condition holders, the supply may be thin, but most old holders can be put in working condition for very little effort. The effort comes when you are doing a large volume of them. Even "good" condition holders should be cleaned thoroughly, and possibly the film-loading flaps retaped.

Rafael Garcia
10-Nov-2007, 06:00
Less than two years ago I was able to buy 21, six of them modern plastic, for less than $100.00. All are in usable condition (and have been used). It is sad to see the prices now.

Rob Vinnedge
11-Nov-2007, 12:08
5X7 is, indeed, a wonderful format. Luckily, I purchased a large supply of new Fidelity Elite holders a couple of years ago for relatively little money, not knowing that they would become scarce.

Now that I'm involved with larger formats, I find myself still cropping to the 5X7 proportion (14X20 and 12X17 from the 16X20 and 14X17 formats). Cropping is certainly an inexpensive way to solve the film holder shortage problem, in spite of the slight waste of film.