Sinar Norma and Sinar Mechanical shutter

[Bernice Loui]

"Top Hat" lens mountings on Sinar lens boards are usually made to a specific lens and made by a machinist as needed. Have a number of lenses for Sinar mounted this way. There was a LFF post on how this is typically done:
https://www.largeformatphotography.i...ht=360mm+xenar


Bernice

"Top Hat" Sinar lens boards do exist. This one I used to mount 2 different Petzval lenses in front of a Sinar shutter. The extension part is fastened to the lens board with 4 screws. I have owned 2 of them and neither was OEM. I. believe that they were offered by Horseman but have never been able to confirm that. The recessed Sinar lens boards that I have owned on the other hand are stamped? from one piece of metal and unfortunately the extension is not reversible.

[Daniel Unkefer]

8x10 to 5x7 Norma Special Bellows 1 by Nokton48, on Flickr

Norma Special Bellows arrived from the UK, Camera Bellows Ltd made the original bellows for Sinar Norma and Keith still has all the the original bellows drawings. Pretty kewl you can still get these from the original manufacturer of Sinar Norma. This one goes 8x10 to 5x7, then the regular 5x7 to 4x5. Very Very stable. This combo is in the original Norma catalog. Shown with my 360 chrome Componon enlarging lens. Mounted to the Norma board with a Durst enlarger "mounting cup" on the back. Repair Guru Ken Ruth "Photography on Bald Mountain" suggested to me that I get all the chrome Componons, that was a really great idea. They were quite cheap at the time and quite usuable, this one very similar in use to my Sinar Norma chrome 360mm Symmar. The tripod is a FOBA C40 which is also in the original Norma catalog for use with the 8x10 Norma. You could fire a howitzer off of this tripod, but I wouldn't take it mountain climbing. With a closely parked car and an able assistant, I will be taking two of these out perhaps this shooting season

This particular 360 Comp has a Durst heavy metal cone threaded onto the back of it, so it's already forward mounted on a flat Norma board. All I had to do was cut the hole to fit the Durst cone, and secure it to the flat board with heavy mounting screws. Whole thing took a couple of hours to make in my workshop.

[kl2081]

Hi Bernice,
How about this shutter? It has only B and M setting, nothing else.
See photo:
Is the M=1/32?

[Bernice Loui]

Possible, never seen this version. Are the shutter speed numbers on the other side of this dial?
Does not appear to have a aperture dial on the side noting this is a pre DB shutter. Could be from the end of the Norma era before the DB era due to color. Norma era shutters are typically Sinar olive green, this one is black.

Historically, M flash sync is for flash bulbs, about 20 millisecond delay to allow for the bulb burn to reach peak intensity.
During the era when the Sinar Norma was a current production offering flash bulbs with LF was VERY common due to the
intensity of light they can produce which is remarkable for their physical size.


Bernice

Hi Bernice,
How about this shutter? It has only B and M setting, nothing else.
See photo:
Is the M=1/32?

[Daniel Unkefer]

This is also for me the first time I have seen this vintage of shutter. Just aren't many around. I do know for sure that very early Sinar Normas (prototypes and such) were all black, and I don't see those hardly ever, either. But Catlabs has a black early Norma standard frame right now so a few are around I guess. Production Normas were grey green

Why don't you put it on shutter tester, if the springs and/or escapements are tired it could be kinda off anyway. Dosen't matter as long as it is consistent

[kl2081]

Hi Bernice,
Thank you for your reply, really appreciate.
See the other side of the shutter attached.

[interneg]

How about this shutter? It has only B and M setting, nothing else.
See photo:
Is the M=1/32?

Resurrecting this thread as this is an example of the 'Simple Shutter' that Sinar made for the Norma, along with the more common one with full speed range.

'M' = 1/25

It's effectively a Sinar system compatible version of a Packard/ Studio shutter. I'd hope the M mode is a bit quieter than a regular Sinar shutter's attempt at making a Pentax 6x7's mirror return seem quiet and gentle. If it is, then I fear it's something I'll need to start looking for.

[Daniel Unkefer]

I suspect because it's black, it's a very early (possibly prototype) shutter. First Norma cameras -were- all black, then became Olive Green when put into production. Arca Swiss made a lot of the parts. Maybe something just available in the showroom. A few of my Normas have been repainted, they look good. 95% original good enough.

Hmmm None of my catalogs show the Simple Shutter. Interesting. Kind of limiting, though.

Some of my Norma Shutters are louder and some more gentle than others, none of them vibrate at all. A few have escapements that have had a hard life, George Brown says "change speeds slowly and gently" with those. Mac at Camtronics has helped me a lot getting the bugs out of these units. The sync cords into the shutter frequently break off, I have all kinds of repairs in my collection.

[interneg]

I suspect because it's black, it's a very early (possibly prototype) shutter. First Norma cameras -were- all black, then became Olive Green when put into production. Arca Swiss made a lot of the parts. Maybe something just available in the showroom. A few of my Normas have been repainted, they look good. 95% original good enough.

Hmmm None of my catalogs show the Simple Shutter. Interesting. Kind of limiting, though.

Some of my Norma Shutters are louder and some more gentle than others, none of them vibrate at all. A few have escapements that have had a hard life, George Brown says "change speeds slowly and gently" with those. Mac at Camtronics has helped me a lot getting the bugs out of these units. The sync cords into the shutter frequently break off, I have all kinds of repairs in my collection.

I really doubt it's a prototype, the thing that's slightly puzzling is that the paint texture almost looks more like the later black paint than the Norma paint texture.

More importantly however, most of the Sinar Norma catalogues that can be found easily are from at least the end of the 1950s if not later, by which point the escapement had been stuck into the shutter unit that had initially been innovated by one of the Oschwalds (interesting that Arca never seem to have done their own shutter unit) for Koch in 1951. What is unclear is when the escapement etc was first added to the basic shutter - the 1/25 speed 'M' is not incidental, it's the correct sync for the most powerful class of flashbulbs of the era - which when the standard colour film of the early 1950s was E1 Ektachrome (ASA 10 +/- 1/3 stop) was probably seen as essential (and we must not forget that quite a lot of the original target market also probably had barrel lenses or older non synchro shutters, each of which would have needed its own solenoid - we forget that the Synchro Compur was bleeding edge tech at that point in time), but by the advent of E3 Ektachrome at the end of the decade (never mind the huge changes in B&W emulsions) will have been seen as hopelessly archaic - by which point Sinar was really starting to become a truly major force in the world of commercial photography. Some of the old Linhof manuals (sales propaganda if you want to be unkind) go into considerable detail about how to light vast industrial spaces with truly voluminous amounts of seriously large flashbulbs to impersonate 'natural' lighting (never mind the often significant amount of retouching done).

Either way, the common Sinar shutter is pretty loud - and if you've ever been inside one, you can see why. On the other hand, I wonder if you can get the pin mechanism in the camera backs to talk to Prontor Professional or Copal Press shutters...