Nokton48
Veteran
FYI from Apug.org
I’m happy to announce that I’ve just begun testing of a dry plate holder prototype which Chroma Camera and Pictoriographica have partnered to create! This holder is an affordable, quality solution to the problem dry plate photographers face in that this critical piece of equipment hasn’t been made in decades! There are high quality wet plate holders available that work, but honestly I’d prefer to carry two plates per holder just like I carry sheet film.
Leveraging our engineering backgrounds and our uniquely suited familiarity with dry plates and large format cameras, we have a design for a modern dry plate holder which meets the requirements that we as photographers ourselves would expect for quality, practicality, and — most importantly — affordability.
We currently plan to offer plate holders in the most common sizes of 4x5, 5x7, and 8x10 thru the Kickstarter.
Pic is of the two 4x5 prototype designs that I am testing, from which we will downselect to the final design in time for the campaign launch.
Campaign start is ~2 months out (depending on our dayjob workload).
If you’re not familiar with Chroma Camera, I encourage you to check their stuff out at http://chroma.camera/
Cheers,
Jason
J Lane Chroma Dry Plate Holder by Nokton48, on Flickr
Ah ha... now these would fit standard 4x5 camera's, like the speed graphic, correct?
Yes absolutely. That’s my workhorse camera so I’ve already verified that they fit in the Speed Graphic. Since then I’ve basically been shoving the prototypes into every camera I come across to verify we properly sized it. So far so good. One slight twist: the antique film sheaths out there should fit as well so you can also run film in these...I’m testing that tonight to verify.
One thing we did know going into this is that film holder dimensions were standardized long ago, so that all the film holders out there would fit into all the cameras out there. Sort of like how film sizes are standardized. If I remember correctly, there’s a thread in the photrio archives on the topic.
We used the dimensions in that standard for establishing the basic critical “interfacing to the camera” dimensions in this holder. Making sure it fits into cameras as well as any other film holder was one of the key requirements. The current prototype testing will tell us whether we did our homework right, and gives us a chance to iron out the kinks even before the campaign launches. So yeah bottom line is I’m confident we have that nailed down.
These initial Kickstarter offerings are intended to fit 4x5, 5x7, and 8x10 "standard backs" you could say, so in general use the rule of thumb that they will fit a camera that a "modern" sheet film holder will fit. This was an intentional decision to limit the scope of the Kickstarter to balance our available time since we both work day jobs. However, we also intentionally made this a scalable design, because after that I wanted to ensure we could supply plate holders in any size people would need. That's the same philosophy as for my dry plates so it should come as no surprise. If older Graflox backs require something slightly different, then I expect to be able to provide that... just not until after the KS.
Cheers,
Jason
I’m happy to announce that I’ve just begun testing of a dry plate holder prototype which Chroma Camera and Pictoriographica have partnered to create! This holder is an affordable, quality solution to the problem dry plate photographers face in that this critical piece of equipment hasn’t been made in decades! There are high quality wet plate holders available that work, but honestly I’d prefer to carry two plates per holder just like I carry sheet film.
Leveraging our engineering backgrounds and our uniquely suited familiarity with dry plates and large format cameras, we have a design for a modern dry plate holder which meets the requirements that we as photographers ourselves would expect for quality, practicality, and — most importantly — affordability.
We currently plan to offer plate holders in the most common sizes of 4x5, 5x7, and 8x10 thru the Kickstarter.
Pic is of the two 4x5 prototype designs that I am testing, from which we will downselect to the final design in time for the campaign launch.
Campaign start is ~2 months out (depending on our dayjob workload).
If you’re not familiar with Chroma Camera, I encourage you to check their stuff out at http://chroma.camera/
Cheers,
Jason
J Lane Chroma Dry Plate Holder by Nokton48, on FlickrAh ha... now these would fit standard 4x5 camera's, like the speed graphic, correct?
Yes absolutely. That’s my workhorse camera so I’ve already verified that they fit in the Speed Graphic. Since then I’ve basically been shoving the prototypes into every camera I come across to verify we properly sized it. So far so good. One slight twist: the antique film sheaths out there should fit as well so you can also run film in these...I’m testing that tonight to verify.
One thing we did know going into this is that film holder dimensions were standardized long ago, so that all the film holders out there would fit into all the cameras out there. Sort of like how film sizes are standardized. If I remember correctly, there’s a thread in the photrio archives on the topic.
We used the dimensions in that standard for establishing the basic critical “interfacing to the camera” dimensions in this holder. Making sure it fits into cameras as well as any other film holder was one of the key requirements. The current prototype testing will tell us whether we did our homework right, and gives us a chance to iron out the kinks even before the campaign launches. So yeah bottom line is I’m confident we have that nailed down.
These initial Kickstarter offerings are intended to fit 4x5, 5x7, and 8x10 "standard backs" you could say, so in general use the rule of thumb that they will fit a camera that a "modern" sheet film holder will fit. This was an intentional decision to limit the scope of the Kickstarter to balance our available time since we both work day jobs. However, we also intentionally made this a scalable design, because after that I wanted to ensure we could supply plate holders in any size people would need. That's the same philosophy as for my dry plates so it should come as no surprise. If older Graflox backs require something slightly different, then I expect to be able to provide that... just not until after the KS.
Cheers,
Jason
