Focal Plane Shutter for LF?

[Drew Bedo]

Over tyhe years, I have seen two accessory or add-on focal plane shutters designed for an 8x10 view cameras. These were roller blind type muchn like the later press cameras. I think Folmer and Schwing did that around 1900 or so.

Has anyone here ever don a DIY project to create something like that for a 4x5 using a Speed Graphic as a donor?

Maybe adapting/creating something as a reducing back on a 5x7 would work.

Would give exposure flexibility when working with antique Petzval or other barrel lenses over using a Packard or Tthornton shutter while preserving a period look.

Parts cameras come up from time to time.

[Jody_S]

I've thought of it just as a design challenge. It's a relatively easy build, I think. You can use the dual curtain Barnack design except it doesn't need to be self-capping so they can be wound individually, and timing/release can be done with solenoids and an Arduino or equivalent controller. Any competent maker should be able to pull it off, that doesn't mean there won't be other design challenges like vibration damping.

And I still regret not buying the Lizzar's 8x10 focal plane shutter I saw in Toronto 7 or 9 years ago, even if it was +3" thick.

[Tin Can]

Yes several and they posted pictures of it and taken with it. Look them up.

I am not as I remember.

Over tyhe years, I have seen two accessory or add-on focal plane shutters designed for an 8x10 view cameras. These were roller blind type muchn like the later press cameras. I think Folmer and Schwing did that around 1900 or so.

Has anyone here ever don a DIY project to create something like that for a 4x5 using a Speed Graphic as a donor?

Maybe adapting/creating something as a reducing back on a 5x7 would work.

Would give exposure flexibility when working with antique Petzval or other barrel lenses over using a Packard or Tthornton shutter while preserving a period look.

Parts cameras come up from time to time.

[Drew Bedo]

My first thought was to take a mostly gutted pre-anniversary Speed and adapt what is left to clip onto the back of a camera like a GG back.

The next thought was to use the Speeed Grasphic's shutter parts and build that into an existing back for a 5x7 2D with a 4x5 reducing back.

I am sure that there are either easier ways or more elegant ways to do something like this.

Heck, I'd bet that there are folks who would pay what it would cost for a newly engineered and newly mfg add-on shutter for their existing high-end 4x5 or 8x10. . . .I am guessing several thousand.

[Tin Can]

I think we should wait for better technology to produce better printed shutters. It will happen one day.

I have 9 focal plane cameras, 3 still work and I use them very rarely as I hate the sound of 'flap flap flap...'

The 3 that work are the 3 sizes of normal Speeds.

Speeds with 1/1000 flappers are often flapped out as people love the sound when it works!

Repair is hard to find and very expensive, not my game.

The 1/1000 was made to beat any leaf shutter, probably for WWII.

Yesterday I saw a ZOOM for what is cutting edge now.

10 MP at 500 FPS, it can capture brain lightning. Teledyne

[Dan Fromm]

Drew, have you considered putting a roller blind shutter behind or even in front of the lens. Something like a Thornton-Pickard or similar. A behind-the-lens shutter doesn't have be anywhere near as large as a focal plane shutter. See https://web.archive.org/web/20210324...I/384006317593 for a relatively modern example.

[Drew Bedo]

Thanks for that Dan. You are right on every count there.

I have a new Packard Ideal on order with Jon there. It will be mounted behind a nice board with a nice little no-name Rectilinear on the front.

The Thornton shutters seem both complex and fragile considering their age.

Both have a very limited range of speeds from "Time" all the way up to slow.

A Speed Graphic based focal plane shutter project might be a fun thing to do and would give a range of speeds while retaining a period look.

In any case, I am incapable or bringing this idea forward myself, lacking the skill set, tools or work space. I am just not maker at this stsge in my life.

[Drew Bedo]

Tin Can:

Tech today is indeed awesome. The Smarter Every Day channel on YouTube has some incredible super slo-mo. Schelren slow motion of super sonic shock waves and other things.

Another interesting slo-mo channel is The Slow-Mo Guys.

[jp]

I have

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pAjyYixKXm8&t=153s

[jp]

Heck, I'd bet that there are folks who would pay what it would cost for a newly engineered and newly mfg add-on shutter for their existing high-end 4x5 or 8x10. . . .I am guessing several thousand.

Yes... Under $2000 would be successful. If it were light and reliable and had many shutter speeds.