What Leaf Shutters still being manufactured?

CameraQuest

CameraQuest

Head Bartender
Staff member
Local time
8:48 AM
Joined
Mar 1, 2005
Messages
6,605
Curious,

What leaf shutter manufacturers are still in business?

What fixed lens leaf shutter cameras are still being made ?

Surely they are not all gone.

Stephen
 
Well, I was ready to say the Hasselblads are all leaf shutter, but they aren't fixed lens. Of course recently, the Bessa III and GF670/w were leaf shutter fixed lens.

Ah yea, the x100f
 
Obviously the manufacturers of digital cameras (and leaf-shutter lenses in mounts for digital cameras) need to be getting their shutters from somewhere.

Nidec Copal remains a major supplier of both focal plane and between-lens shutters:

http://www.nidec-copal.com/en-Global/product/optical/shutterdigitalcamera/

http://www.nidec-copal.com/en-Global/product/optical/shutterstabilizationsystem/

However, what I suspect you were really getting at: I am not aware of anybody who is making mechanically-governed leaf shutters now.
 
My favorite: Sony RX1RmII has a leaf shutter, marrying a Zeiss 35mm F2 Sonnar with a 42mp sensor.
 
Chriscrawfordphoto said:
New lenses are still being made for large format cameras, and most come with a new Copal mechanical leaf shutter.
Click to expand...
Are you sure? I cannot find anybody selling new large format lenses for film. Check out the Schneider page and while lenses are listed they are all discontinued. Nikon and Fuji no longer list any. Who's left?
 
I remember, but can't name the source, that some discussion of the Cooke XVa, which is in current limited manufacture, indicated that they had bought a supply of Copal shutters sufficient to their projected needs, and that was the end of them. I wonder if the very few makers of new LF lenses have all done the same--it wouldn't have cost much for them to stockpile a lifetime supply.
 
Schneider and Rodenstock still manufacture highly corrected lenses for digital view cameras such as Linhof and Sinar manufacture. They're also used on Cambo, Arca and Alpa technical cameras. I believe they're mounted in Copal shutters still and from a recent call I made to Schneider Century in California, Schneider is the US distributor for Copal. Copal shutters are still available new per my conversation with Schneider. Sizes available are 0,1 and 3.
 
Beemermark said:
Are you sure? I cannot find anybody selling new large format lenses for film. Check out the Schneider page and while lenses are listed they are all discontinued. Nikon and Fuji no longer list any. Who's left?
Click to expand...


Damn, you're right. I looked at B&H, and they list nothing but some rodenstock lenses that are all marked "special order." I bet ordering one would be a waste of time.
 
x-ray said:
Schneider and Rodenstock still manufacture highly corrected lenses for digital view cameras such as Linhof and Sinar manufacture. They're also used on Cambo, Arca and Alpa technical cameras. I believe they're mounted in Copal shutters still and from a recent call I made to Schneider Century in California, Schneider is the US distributor for Copal. Copal shutters are still available new per my conversation with Schneider. Sizes available are 0,1 and 3.
Click to expand...

Schneider has discontinued its "digital" view camera lens business too; anything still on sale new is old stock. Only Rodenstock is still playing.

If I've understood Bob Salomon correctly, these shutters are effectively old stock - the various vendors who still use them had a chance to place orders for the final production run at Nidec-Copal when the decision was made to shut down. Sales of new lenses using these shutters, and of empty shutters for replacement purposes, are low enough that they should last a while. After that, though, if people are still buying these digital lenses for view cameras and technical cameras they will likely have to go to electronic shutters.
 
Thanks Oren, wasn't aware of that. The tech I spoke to at Schneider led me to believe evrything was still in production.

Now that Schneider isn't making digital view lenses, what are they making. I know they're making, or did make, a few high performance digital lenses.

Edit:it does appear Schneider is making high performance digital lenses in Nikon mount and probably a few other mounts.
 
x-ray said:
Thanks Oren, wasn't aware of that. The tech I spoke to at Schneider led me to believe evrything was still in production.

Now that Schneider isn't making digital view lenses, what are they making. I know they're making, or did make, a few high performance digital lenses.
Click to expand...

If you go to the Schneider-Kreuznach website, the only lenses they even list for still photography at this point are the co-branded lenses offered by Phase One for their medium format digital cameras.* But Schneider still has the B+W filter business as well as other businesses in cine optics, industrial optics, servo hydraulics and precision plastics.

The website of their US distributor, Schneider Optics, still lists many LF and digital view camera lenses, but if you click through to the individual lens pages you'll see that they're tagged as discontinued.

*EDIT: I don't know whether Schneider even manufactures these, as opposed to just designing them - actual production may still be done in the old Mamiya factory in Japan that Phase One bought along with the rest of Mamiya.
 
Well while on the topic what's the pro's and con's of a leaf shutter? Don't know much about the topic.
 
kshapero said:
Well while on the topic what's the pro's and con's of a leaf shutter? Don't know much about the topic.
Click to expand...

Leaf shutters sync with electronic flash up to their maximum speed. That's the main advantage.

The downside, leaf shutters generally aren't very accurate at higher speeds unless electronically controlled. Also shooting at higher speeds and larger apertures, the exposure at the outer 1/3 or so will have less exposure than in the center sometimes by a significant amount. The reason is the shutter takes time to open. If the aperture is wide open or close then the center of the shutter blades are open longer than when they reach the full open position and close again.
 
Up until a few years ago, K. Yamasaki was still making large-format lenses, but it seems they are now making fiber optics.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom