Originally Posted by
Christopher Nisperos
Alice Gowland once told me that she and Peter had once sought-out an OEM manufacturer for their Gowlandflex. She could only remember that it was "some company in Holland", and that they (she & Peter) were eventually told something to the effect that 'the product couldn't be built cheaply enough to sell at a reasonable price'. I can only surmise that the company they contacted was Cambo. (I don't know this for a fact, and I don't mean to insinuate that Cambo 'stole' the idea... afterall, LF TWR's existed way before the Gowlandflex! Anyway, it's so long ago that I'm sure that no-one at Cambo today could confirm or deny the story).
Anywho, what matters is --coincidentally or not-- Cambo finally did build their own 4x5 TLR camera, and a great one, too. The TWR-54 has the usual Cambo high precision and ruggedness, yet it's lightweight enough to be easily handheld and it even accepts Cambo's easy-to-find mirror-viewfinder. On the downside, the models found on the secondhand market are often missing their spring-back, grip handles and certain lens cams. To note: These cameras were once used quite a lot by the Dutch police for ID photography.
My two cents!
Chris
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