kuzano
Veteran
batteries, covers, and such
batteries, covers, and such
I've had two supers and one super speed that worked properly. The batteries are 22.5 volts each, and I last heard they were still available at Midwest Photo Exchange. I seem to recall that I once bought a battery cover from MPEX. I did also have one camera with a homemade battery cover. Not a difficult feat once you know how they attach.
The difference between a Super and a Super Speed is the special shutter on the front of the Super Speed with a big chrome cocking (charging) ring and rodenstock 135mm lens. These shutters were rated up to 1/1000, but it was often said that the highest real-time speed was very likely 1/800th on a properly serviced shutter. The shutter blades, according to some, are too large to reallly attain 1/1000.
The Super (not speed) usually had an Ektar 127 or an Optar 135 in a Graphex shutter rated up to 1/400th /4.7.
A proper front lens/board/cam arrangement would be a lens/shutter in one of the variations above. A special lens board would contain a tripping lever for the shutter. This board would have a silver trip at the bottom left, not seen from the front. The solenoid lay sideways in the bottom of the front standard. In addtion, each lens/board combination would come with it's own rangefinder cam for the proper focal length of the combo.
I only have one complete lens setup. It is a 105 lens with board and cam. Moderately wide angle for 4X5.
Again, great camera, but the one I have now had been stripped of many critical rangefinder and electronic parts. So, I stripped it on down, taking almost a pound off the weight. It still makes an excellent view (ground glass) camera, since the Super had more movements than previous Graflex Press cameras.
Fred Lustig indicated to me that when Toyo bought the tooling and rights to the Super Graphic from Graflex, they changed a lot of the mechanism switching to metric and debased the camera a bit.
You don't often see the Toyo variation and Toyo has no parts inventory that I was able to find.
As I said, my camera is stripped down since it was already beyond reasonable refitting and that makes it imminently more packable. I would be reluctant to modify a working example as they don't come up often in full working mode.
I'm not likely to handhold any 4X5 and I have great respect for those journalists who did pack these camera's around all day and in the field. They are real tanks, and highly efficient for the purpose for which they are intended.
batteries, covers, and such
I have heard that the releases are mostly non-functional, but I have had 2 Supers and both worked just fine. But they take two fairly obscure batteries and the battery door is held on by the tension of the batteries against inner spring contacts. So if the batteries are removed, the cover cannot be in place - thus a lot of the cameras have lost their covers.
I've had two supers and one super speed that worked properly. The batteries are 22.5 volts each, and I last heard they were still available at Midwest Photo Exchange. I seem to recall that I once bought a battery cover from MPEX. I did also have one camera with a homemade battery cover. Not a difficult feat once you know how they attach.
The difference between a Super and a Super Speed is the special shutter on the front of the Super Speed with a big chrome cocking (charging) ring and rodenstock 135mm lens. These shutters were rated up to 1/1000, but it was often said that the highest real-time speed was very likely 1/800th on a properly serviced shutter. The shutter blades, according to some, are too large to reallly attain 1/1000.
The Super (not speed) usually had an Ektar 127 or an Optar 135 in a Graphex shutter rated up to 1/400th /4.7.
A proper front lens/board/cam arrangement would be a lens/shutter in one of the variations above. A special lens board would contain a tripping lever for the shutter. This board would have a silver trip at the bottom left, not seen from the front. The solenoid lay sideways in the bottom of the front standard. In addtion, each lens/board combination would come with it's own rangefinder cam for the proper focal length of the combo.
I only have one complete lens setup. It is a 105 lens with board and cam. Moderately wide angle for 4X5.
Again, great camera, but the one I have now had been stripped of many critical rangefinder and electronic parts. So, I stripped it on down, taking almost a pound off the weight. It still makes an excellent view (ground glass) camera, since the Super had more movements than previous Graflex Press cameras.
Fred Lustig indicated to me that when Toyo bought the tooling and rights to the Super Graphic from Graflex, they changed a lot of the mechanism switching to metric and debased the camera a bit.
You don't often see the Toyo variation and Toyo has no parts inventory that I was able to find.
As I said, my camera is stripped down since it was already beyond reasonable refitting and that makes it imminently more packable. I would be reluctant to modify a working example as they don't come up often in full working mode.
I'm not likely to handhold any 4X5 and I have great respect for those journalists who did pack these camera's around all day and in the field. They are real tanks, and highly efficient for the purpose for which they are intended.
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