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Post by nikkortorokkor on Nov 1, 2009 13:47:28 GMT -5
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Post by nikonbob on Nov 1, 2009 16:12:48 GMT -5
Oddly enough when I showed the link to my wife, she recalls using one as a teenager, that looks similar at a local small publishing company. She said she used an offset camera to make a negative and then she etched the negative on to a tin plate for printing.
Bob
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Post by herron on Nov 2, 2009 11:33:42 GMT -5
Funny, I can remember seeing these in action! Back before digital took over everything (and dinosaurs still roamed the earth), this was actually a quite sophisticated means of exposing film negatives and plates for printing. It was large, to accomodate the sheet size of offset presses. In one of my previous lives, I used to design ads and publications, and quite often had to visit the print room floor for press approvals. This wouldn't have been out on the main press floor, since it was entirely for prep work, but I had more than one occasion to wander through the rest of the print shop. I don't know if you would really want it, since it needs to be used in darkroom.  edit ----- BTW - A press plate for offset printing was usually a presensitized aluminum plate, but there were also plates using a paper substrate and a film plate using a plastic film as a substrate. |
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Post by pompiere on Nov 2, 2009 13:23:07 GMT -5
I have seen cameras like that, and even bigger. When I was a kid, my dad worked for a company that sold the equipment for making the negatives into rubber and nylon printing plates. Sometimes he would take me with him on service calls. On one call, the photographer showed me how he made the negatives. In addition to the camera like the one in the ad, they had one that you actually walked inside to load the film and set up the shot. It must have been 10 feet from the lens to the focal plane. It could make a negative big enough to print a refrigerator box.
The same company had another camera that had a lens for enlarging the image in only one direction. Instead of being spherical, it was cylindrical, like a slice off one side of a glass cylinder. If you wanted the image taller, you loaded it one way, if you wanted it wider, you rotated the negative carrier 90 degrees.
I worked for the same company as an adult for a couple years. It was really interesting to see all the manufactuing plants and learn how things are made, especially the machines that are so automated.
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Post by Deleted on Nov 2, 2009 18:44:28 GMT -5
Used for shooting page sized negatives for making plates for offset printing presses. Our company had one until about five years ago. I've got the lenses from it a home. Everything is digital now but I suspect some of these cameras are still in use.
Wayne
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Post by nikkortorokkor on Nov 3, 2009 15:17:32 GMT -5
All interesting stuff.
Wayne, I suspect that you are right about some being used. The "questions" section of the auction include some from people clearly wanting an operating unit. Although one is perhaps showing ignorance by asking about a shutter. I'm guessing from Ron's comment about the necessity of a darkroom that exposure is controlled by switching on and off a light source, not via a shutter.
As an aside, I've noticed that there is rarely a correlation between the those using the "questions" facility of our local internet auction site and those actually bidding on an item. In camera actions, a lot of people ask detailed questions about condition - fungus, light seals, etc. and never, ever bid. The serious spenders (& there are a handful who are pushing camera prices up) never bother asking. Caveat emptor!
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