The largest and/or heaviest 4x5" camera ever?

[Bernice Loui]

Melles Griot produced/sold Ilex shutters years ago. As an adder service Melles Griot would mount barrel lenses into their Ilex shutters per customer request. These were done up with silk screened Ilex shutter front plates resulting in a OEM as produced appearance. Melles Griot also did optical testing to assure proper lens function if requested.


Bernice

I'm thinking it was Melles Griot that made the ULF lenses for Doug Busch but my memory is not to be trusted. Maybe they made the shutters? Maybe both Rodenstock and Melles Griot made the lenses?

David

[Daniel Unkefer]

520mm 20 inch Apo Ronar Pair XTRA long 5x7 new bellows 1 by Nokton48, on Flickr

5x7 TLR Sinar Norma reduced to 4x5/9x12. With the FOBA C40 it is a beast to move around! Shown with 520mm Apo Ronar matched pair.

Bell Wire from my Father in Laws stash from Bell Labs.

[Peter Lewin]

Daniel, your twin lens Sinars are always fun to read about and look at, but presumably you assembled it (them?) to solve a problem. What was the problem?

[Daniel Unkefer]

No problem really, but to precisely frame quickly and view the subject during the actual exposure, (to see the "pop" of the strobes on the glass for a microsecond) is a distinct advantage in some situations. If I preset the camera controls using a stand-in, then bring the subject in, I am viewing through the camera the entire time, not peeking around from the back from an angle, I can see if the subject is in focus. When I ask for corrections I see them on the glass, then just that fast, I can capture it. It's just a different way of seeing through the camera without blackening everything out. Takes some getting used to, I'm getting better at it. And it's different and fun

[Rod Klukas]

The wood camera is a copy of the Deardorff studio portrait camera which was made all the way up to 16x20. This one appears to be an 8x10 with a 4x5 stepdown back.
They were named:

Deardorff Portrait Series 8x10, or whatever largest format was, Camera. One sold at auction last June, I believe. We had one in a store I worked in during the 1990's. Look at metal work very similar to the Deardorff.

Rod

[Drew Wiley]

I was given the top portion (minus the stand) of a very large even older mahogany version as part of a building salvage leftover. More of a battered conversation piece, and not really worthy of trying to functionally recondition. But they were once routine in portrait studios.