Originally Posted by
Drew Bedo
I have seen "pre-Owned" Littman cameras come up on e-Bay from time to time. Conversions by other makers are available there too.
There is a nine-year long train of threads on this forum devoted to the back-and-forth drama surrounding the conversion of Polaroid 110 series cameras to 4x5. It dates back to the first decade of this century; the 2K years. I doubt that Littman is active in photography at all anymore.
But that was a long time ago as has been pointed out. I came to realize that if it was a really good idea to covert these old Polaroids to 4x5, it would have been done on a commercial scale. Additionally, if there was a genuine niche in LF photography for a hand-held rangefinder coupled 4x5, then a major outfit would have designed one from the ground up.
No one revived the press camera genre or scaled that concept down to a handy grab-shot concept.. No one put together a scaled-up 4x5 based on the Bessa-II or any of the other fold-out medium format pocket cameras of the 1930-1950 era. There are reasons for that.
Before and after the Polaroid conversion movement, there were other , less elaborate approaches to hand-held LF. The Hobo design is one, the TravelWide and WillTravel were the latest. Don't see many of these hand-held LF rigs around. I'm sure that there folks who swear by theirs. I respect them and their way of doing photography. . . .its just a real small corner.
I think Polaroid conversions are essentially a dead idea.
Ok, now I'll leave town for a few days.
Bookmarks