[pure-silver] [OT] Filmholders, Septums, Total-Disasters

  • From: "Michael Healy" <emjayhealy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • To: pure-silver@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
  • Date: Wed, 23 Nov 2005 08:04:21 -0700

So I'm trolling for a darkslide replacement the other day, and the house guru 
of the LF 
department says, "Ho jees, not a Riteway, I absolutely refuse to carry those." 
Awhile 
back, he says, he sat down with his buddy (who happens to be one of the 
big-time LF 
camera makers, and happens to live-work-manufacture in this neck of the woods). 
They 
made  measurements, and every one of fhe film holders they measured, every one, 
had 
the septum ever so much off center. I think he told me that the Riteways are 
the worst 
culprits, but Liscos and Fidelities didn't escape him either. Very little 
tolerance for the 
placement of that septum, you know, and all these manufacturers are cranking 
out 
shoddy septums. He had one guy who could never get pictures in focus. First he 
replaced his camera. (This is a sales guy talking...) Next all the lenses. 
Finally there was 
only one thing it could be: those holders. And that, presumably thousands of 
dollars 
later, probably spent in this sales guy's shop, THAT turned out to be the 
problem! 

He isn't finshed yet. The real problem, he says, is that you can't always even 
tell. It won't 
be the whole image that's out of focus. It'll be out of focus here or there 
only. So here's 
what I gotta do: I gotta throw away my two dozen 4x5 Liscos and Fidelities, and 
of 
coursre those Riteways, too, those things belong in hell's Nineth Circle. Throw 
out every 
one of them and get myself a bunch of Toyo holders. And mirabile dictu! He just 
happens to stock those. (He didn't say what I'm supposed to do about my 
pre-WWII 
8x10 holders. Those seem to be working fine, too, but who we gonna believe, my 
lying 
eyes?)

I've been needing to get myself a feeler gauge anyhow, because I need to check 
a 
couple of my spark plugs. So when I do, I'm going to check all of mine just to 
spite this 
guy. Trouble is, I have never, but never, heard of any rampant problem with 
maladjusted 
septums. Nor have I ever experienced any noticable problems with spotty focus. 
Well, 
none at least that I wouldn't attribute to a maladjusted back standard or maybe 
a 
maladjusted lensboard. 

Is there legitimacy to this guy's claim? Have I been ignorant all these years 
about 
something known to everybody else? Are all of my images secretly out of focus?

Mike Healy




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