"Modern" Fidelity Elite holders, (a look at personal bias and whether there is truth in it)

Ardpatrick

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Sep 7, 2023
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121
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Ireland
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Med. Format RF

I have a few of those 4x5 holders with the white button latch instead of the wire. They worked well in a Sinar F I had, but don’t work well in my Canham DLC. When I put the film holder into the camera back, it doesn’t align to unlatch the dark slide. So I have to manually depress the latch and nudge the dark slide 1-2mm before placing into the camera back.

As I say, it worked with the Sinar. But not with the Canham.
 
OP
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Sep 7, 2002
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629
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Sacramento
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mabe extremely lucku but ,I never had any trouble with 2nd-hand holdersof any brand. the only issue I had with most was that people¬ikedto glue tape on them to mark them up. That was always aa PITA to remove them.

Yes, that's seems common, but the odd thing I've seen if you look on Ebay at the listings, for example (and there are hundreds of film holder listings on there) is that there seem to be a lot of people who put the tape ON THE REGISTRATION SURFACE OF THE HOLDER... So they are shimming one side of the holder out from the proper T-depth by the thickness of the tape and adhesive.

I've even seen holders where they put "embossing" tape on there. Not only is the tape pretty thick, but the embossed letters really increases the thickness of the shim they are putting on the holder.
 
OP
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Other than Linhof cameras, that is the first I've heard of other brands that don't work well with the button-style DS locks. Thanks for posting about that.
 

Vieri Bottazzini

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May 6, 2008
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San Quirico
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Thank you for the info - which brand are those? My Chamonix all have a red button, and they work perfectly in the three cameras I tried them with, Chamonix, Toyo and Arca-Swiss.

Best,

Vieri
 

Ardpatrick

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Joined
Sep 7, 2023
Messages
121
Location
Ireland
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Med. Format RF
Thank you for the info - which brand are those? My Chamonix all have a red button, and they work perfectly in the three cameras I tried them with, Chamonix, Toyo and Arca-Swiss.

Best,

Vieri

They are Lisco Mark II holders.

I still use them but rather than being more convenient and safer than my Fidelity holders, they are slightly less convenient and less safe.
 

Vaughn

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Dec 13, 2006
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10,079
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Humboldt Co.
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Large Format

I use the one gallon zip-lock bags to hold two 5x7 film holders...pretty handy. Unfortunately, an 8x10 holder fits in but will not close. The bags are nice for both wet and for dry/dusty situations.

If my holders all lost their locks mysteriously overnight, I would not miss them.
 
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