Toyo Super Graphic Question that no one has been able to answer

[jimmmdog]

I own a 4x5 Toyo Super Graphic camera. The camera has a unique function called a flash exposure calculator on the top. In my research of the Toyo Super graphic I have found there is also a bracket on the top of the camera to hold a rangefinder. The bracket appears to look like a hot shoe type of bracket built into the exposure calculator. My camera does not have this rangefinder bracket and I have contacted Toyo, several large format camera repair stores and on-line collectors. No one has been able to tell me if the bracket was an option and my camera does not have it or if the bracket was removed prior to my ownership. I have included a link to a web location that shows the camera with the range finder attached to the calculator and a second view of the calculator without the bracket. This is a Toyo Super graphic which is different than a Super Graphic which seems to have a side mount range finder holder. I am hoping after a year of research I can find the answer to my question. Thank You Jim
http://www.cosmonet.org/camera/super_e.htm

[ic-racer]

Here is another Toyo Super Graphic with the flash mount in the middle. I'd think that if your bracket were removed there would be marks or screw holes.
http://www.ebay.com/itm/GRAFLEX-TOYO-SUPER-GRAPHIC-50-0200353-4X5-CAMERA-F4-7-127MM-LENS-/150732160002

[Kuzano]

First, the man who most likely knows about the accessory shoe you mention is Fred Lustig in Reno NV. I've had Fred work on a couple of my Super Graphics. As I recall the story, Fred worked for Graflex and bought much remaining inventory when the Graflex stopped with the Super. He also seems to know much about the Toyo brand transition.

I suspect that the accessory shoe shown on your link was not holding a rangefinder. The rangefinder equipment was "under the hood" top of the camera. It was linked to the track on the slide for the front standard, and was cammed for various lenses, meaning you had to have a cam that you interchanged inside the top of the camera, which was cut to calibrate the rangefinder to the focal length of the lens. Ie, 135mm lens required insertion of the 135 cam.

The unit in the image on the link looks to me to be simply a viewfinder. It does look as if it can be changed to give the proper angle of view for each focal length of lens, but it is not a rangefinder. It would require two window to be a range finder. You can see those two windows just below the top ridge of the camera, but above the door opening. (IF you look closely at the Toyo Super on the link.... look at the word GRAPHIC. At each end of that word, you will see the two windows for the rangefinder built into the camera. Likewise on the back there is a window next to the battery door as the rangefinder viewing window.)

That accessory shoe with the simple viewer inserted must have been a Toyo move. Graflex Supers were different in that respect.

There was a simple viewfinder on many of the Super and Super Speeds, but it was off to the side of the calculator hood. It consisted of sort of a shoe, with a locking tab. It was held on with two flat head machine screws, and a simple tapered viewfinder slid into that shoe and locked into place. That shoe was longish, running the width of the top, and again, next to the calculator.

Interestingly, not all Supers had this simple rangefinder or the shoe. I have owned Supers with and without the simple viewfinder on the side of the top of the camera. The reason for knowing that some never had them, is that if you take the shoe portion off the camera, you leave two very obious threaded holes for the machine screws.

I would not be surprised if the Toyo Super Graphic came:

1) with no accessory shoe
2) with the old style simple view finder shoe off to the side.
3) fitted with the newer accessory shoe fitted at the back center of the calculator
4) fitted also, with the more complex looking VIEW finder (option) as shown on the link.

I just ran across one of the old stlye shoes a couple of weeks ago that I took from one of my Supers.

I have never had the Toyo version.

Frank Lustig is in Reno NV and is in the telephone directory for Reno. Have not talked to him for a couple of years.

[BrianShaw]

... Interestingly, not all Supers had this simple rangefinder or the shoe. ...

(Trying not to be pedantic) I think you meant "viewfinder" rather than "rangefinder" in that sentence. According to some of the Graflex documents it was optional. Like you, mine has one and I've seen others without it. I don't know about the Toyo.

[Kuzano]

Thanks Brian. You are correct. I meant viewfinder.

I typed viewfinder and rangefinder so many time in that post, I lost track.

Also, I agree with you that the "viewfinder" was optional. I have one laying around somewhere. My use of the Supers was mainly in finding defunct or parts Supers and lightening them up for about a 4 pound metal GG viewing camera. Before the screams start, I never stripped a Super that could be restored easily. Either rangefinders in the camera's were already gone, or bellows were ripped or holey. (not as in holy cow!!).

Fred supplied me with good bellows in a couple of cases, although the ribbon wiring built into the bellows folds was usually not working. Regardless of what anyone says, and according to Fred, nobody will supply a truly functional Super Graphic bellows built new, because of the copper ribbon wiring interleaved in the bellows fold. So, if you have a Super on which the red button shutter release works, treat the bellows gingerly and nicely.

[Bill_1856]

The viewfinder of the Graflex Super Graphic was sort of Mickey-Mouse arrangement to use a version of the old viewfinders and masks from pre-TRF Graphics. It had to be repositioned by sliding forward when the rotating back was in the portrait orientation, and was totally worthless in that position. I expect that this was Toyo's adaption to fix the problem, and allow a viewfinder to be used in both landscape and portrait positions (like the viewfinder on a Technika).
IMO the Super Graphic was an awkward first generation product (after the Crown Graphic) designed by people who had little/no experience with the previous models, and could have been a fine camera in a second iteration, which it never got because the company went belly-up.

[Ernest MacMillan]

The Toyo Super Graphic had its own Toyo viewfinder. This viewfinder has a rather special mounting foot; it doesn't fit in other shoes, like that found on a Linhof for example. The viewfinder is rather nice, it takes Nikon diopters for example and covers 75-360 mm, albeit with more distortion than a Linhof finder. The special bracket may have been removed since it is unique to this viewfinder.

[al olson]

I have a Toyo Super Graphic that was produced near the end of the run, ca. '76. I also had a Graphlex Super Graphic that I purchased in '58 near the beginning of the run. Each, as I recall, had the auxiliary shoe (not hot shoe). I am able to slip the Linhof auxiliary viewfinder into the Toyo shoe, but my Vivitar 285HV will not fit.

Auxiliary shoes were becoming common in the mid-50s. My Retina IIIc has one for the viewfinders that go with the wide-angle and the long optional lenses. My strobe will not fit into that shoe either although it became common to use them to hold the flash and later wiring them as hot shoes.

A couple of years ago I replaced the bellows on my Toyo with new ones from Camera Bellows, as I wanted to continue using the electronic shutter, I located a tape produced by 3M that is conductive, it can be soldered, and if joints overlap they also conduct. I taped on the bottom of the bellows and modified the front standard contacts to match.

This worked fine for a while, but eventually the tape began to crack at the folds and break the circuit. I tried taping patches over the breaks that were near the front standard, but then there were more breaks at other folds so I gave up and now use the cable release.