Hosemaster shutters for lf lenses?

[Mark Sawyer]

I noticed Calumet has been dumping shutters from its hosemaster light-painting systems on the auction site:

http://cgi.ebay.com/Hosemaster-5-Shutter-with-Filter-Assembly_W0QQitemZ280236673043QQihZ018QQcategoryZ79010QQtcZphotoQQcmdZViewItemQQ_trksidZp1742.m153.l1262

A quick search of completed sales showed a number of them already gone at well under $100, The question is, would these be an alternative to a packard shutter for large barrel lenses. I've never seen on in the flesh, and don't know whether that would be a practical application or not. I'm sure they're big and heavy...

Anybody here familiar with them?

[Gene McCluney]

I've got one of those light painting Hosemaster outfits. I got the large shutter, which is extremely large. The whole shutter is about 10 inches square with about a 6 inch opening, or so. Way too big to mount on a lensboard. It is used in front of the lens attached to a lightstand. Basically it is an electrically operated Packard-type shutter, with an additional motorized filter holder that can be rotated in for diffusion effects, or such. To use with the Hosemaster, you put the in-camera, or inter-lens shutter on "open" or "focus" or whatever to keep it open, set the lens aperture, make sure the room light is very very dim, load holder, remove darkslide, then walk onto the set and on the light wand is a push-button for opening and closing the shutter and another push button for swinging in the filter. You open and close shutter for each "plane" you paint with light from the wand, and count beeps which indicate seconds of exposure. While I have done some very fine product shots with the Hosemaster system, I think using the shutter by itself would be way to cumbersome for conventional photography, and in any case only useable in a studio situation where you can control the room light. Besides, you would have to provide the specific voltage requirements needed for the little "servo" motors on the shutter.

[Mark Sawyer]

Thanks, Gene! Sounds like it's not quite what I'm looking for. Big old Packards and ND filters are still the way to go...