Graflex Crown Graphic camera

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Photos: (of the camera; last 3 are from the camera via Kodak Professional Photo CD scanning)

START (click here)

GALLERY (click here)

Movies:

Disassembly Wollensak Rapax syncro shutter 1080p, 30 fps, 16 megabits.
Reassembly Wollensak Rapax syncro shutter 1080p, 30 fps, 16 megabits. Simply the above video reversed.
Testing the shutter after servicing 1080p, 30 fps, 16 megabit, 1 minute duration. Fluke 123 Scopemeter used to reveal actual shutter speeds and also shows how quickly the shutter leaves actually open and close.

It is interesting that in testing this shutter I discovered you can go between speeds. The cam is continuous so you get more or less a continous range of shutter speeds.

NOTE: The testing was done with shutter synchronizer in "M" and that creates about 20 milliseconds delay to permit a flashbulb to fire. It also seems to set a limit of about 1/50th of a second on the shutter. Using the "X" sync, I get 8 milliseconds at 1/200th (corresponds to 1/125th) and 16 milliseconds at 1/100th (corresponds to 1/62th second). Maybe I just turn sync OFF. No change.

The printed instructions (< click to view> were for a Grafex shutter type 1 2 and 3; this shutter is almost identical to the Type 3 shutter and is good enough. It took 2 hours to disassemble once I had ground down a tiny screwdriver to make the blade thinner. These screws have very thin slots. Most of them I used a 2 millimeter screwdriver. It was fortunate to be making video of the disassembly since the alignment of the plates over the iris and over the shutter is not obvious and the instructions do not make much sense at this point. I used a small plastic box with many little compartment such as you might use for fishing to keep flies. Each component and its screws and springs go into a new compartment.


Purchased in Honolulu about 1974 at a camera store one or two blocks mauka (northeast) of Hotel Street at the canal. It was a small dark camera store but had excellent prices and plenty of supplies for 4x5 camera (film holders, light meters, developing equipment).

My mentor in high school, Arthur Bohman, had a Crown Graphic which is where I was introduced to such things.