Steven Michelsen

So then I should be looking ONLY for a F3HP to mount this to? I had read that the only difference between the F3HP and the F3 was the viewfinder? Yes indeed the pins are come right through the plate. By the way my first intention is to shoot kodalith (or whatever stands in for it these days) from 8.5x11 inch originals, so I will need nothing more than a macro 55mm lens, I think...

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burkphoto Loc: High Point, NC

Looks like my back… the film rails in the camera body must be drilled with matching holes. We bought the whole setup from Barry Marks at Double-M. So the body, back, film advance, and viewfinder were all modified and matched together.

Steven Michelsen

Uh oh. So then you are saying that I can't just install this back onto a stock F3HP and be good to go - the camera itself needs modification?

burkphoto Loc: High Point, NC

Correct. My F3HP has the same back, but the film rails have holes in them that the stock F3 did not. Also, most F3 bodies did NOT center the frame they exposed, exactly within 8 sprocket holes of film width. The modified F3HP does. You could probably forego the existence of the finder reticle, but the advance alignment and the film rail holes are required. The pins from the back go through the sprocket holes into the film rails, holding the film in position within 0.001" from exposure to multiple exposure. I would make up to 16 exposures on one frame of film with that camera, and never had issue with registration.

I always wanted a plain back for my pin-registered F3HP, but never could find one. It would have made it far more versatile. I did have a second F3 that I used for normal photography. The pin-registered camera sat in our copy room and did nothing but artwork copying and slide duplication. As we were a yearbook company, we had several different peg registration standards for artwork, and many different options for registering art on the copy stand. The Double-M F3 was a perfect complement to them.

Steven Michelsen

OK now I am confused. I thought the whole purpose of the Double-M back was to align the film centered over the sprocket holes. If the camera itself was modified to do that, what was the purpose of the special back? To hold it in place for multiple exposures? I would imagine that any 35mm camera would "leave the film in place" in between exposures.

burkphoto Loc: High Point, NC

You would be surprised... The F3 film advance mechanism wasn't that good at leaving the film EXACTLY in place. It took pins through the sprocket holes to lock it down for more than one exposure. One issue was the special effects in use at that time. Folks wanted glows, eclipses, and soft edge masked "two butt, center overlap" slides for wide screen projection. The film really had to be frozen in place for some of those to work.

I had a Nikkormat FTn way back in 1969. Its film advance was wonky. Sometimes I got slight frame overlaps with a gap on the other side. I'm going through 50+ year-old negatives and digitizing them now, and I notice that problem got worse and worse until I finally traded that thing out of my sight in 1979. It coincided with variations in shutter speed caused by incomplete winding. In retrospect, my 14-year-old self should have saved up for a Nikon FTn instead (I eventually got one in '72).

Steven Michelsen

Well I got lucky. The ebay seller (Roberts Camera) agreed to cancel the order, even though it was in the process of getting packed up. After buying the back, my next steps were to buy an F3 and create a stand for it.

I am going to guess that the reason these Double-M backs (there are two at the moment) on ebay are there at all because - folks that used them for multi image back in the day eventually didn't need them any more, then swapped out the back for a "regular" one, and sold the Double-M back...and they eventually landed on ebay, sold by people that are possibly not aware that that backs must work in conjunction with a modified camera. Live and learn. I can only imagine that other uninformed buyers (like me, yesterday) had plans for these things that they learned the hard way that they could not implement. THANK YOU for sharing your experience with these.

burkphoto Loc: High Point, NC

I have the whole camera. It’s been offered for sale several times, but since it has the pin registered back, it’s never had a nibble.

Steven Michelsen

I've been debating making an offer for yours. I am a bit hesitant because my intentions for using the double-M Nikon are as yet somewhat undefined, and my budget is minimal. Anyway, I figure that kodalith is a place to start. Originals out of a laser printer, then shot as many times as there are lines of text. Tape out or opaque out text to create a build, then gel as needed for color. Re-learn how to windfilm onto spools and process in a darkroom. Regarding color shots, and creating pans without a "real" rig, I am thinking of shooting a 4K monitor. Small ones (like 12") can be had. I can create pan elements in photoshop, then shoot them off the 4K screen. I have no idea how that would look, to be honest.

burkphoto Loc: High Point, NC

I'd probably part with the camera. If you define a use for it, let me know and we'll talk. It would need a CLA and batteries. It hasn't been used since the mid-1990s. We used it with a 55mm f/2.8 Micro Nikkor, which I still have, but the lens focusing ring is "frozen."

Good luck finding suitable film and mounts and such. I have no idea what is still available. I'm pretty sure all the stocks I ever used are gone. We had Ektachrome 5071, SO-366 (5071 with reciprocity characteristics suited for flash in the Bowens Illumitran IIIc), Ektachrome type B (50 or 64 ISO), Kodalith 6556, and some weird Vericolor Print Film for making slides from color negatives. It all made sense in 1985, but now? Even if you can find film, is it worth it? Maybe as a labor of love...

We had a cartoonist on staff, so we used his illustrations with peg registration animation cels. We did a lot of work on a Bencher copy stand with a light table trans-illuminated plexiglas table thing. It was great for special effects graphics and titles. This logo was made with a negative sheet of Kodalith, first copied on a big overhead graphic arts camera, then duplicated as a positive and sandwiched with gels and Rosco soft frost. It was backlit and photographed on duplicating film.

These days, this can be done much better in software, supposedly with trivial effort if you know the tricks (I don't).

Cheers!

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Steven Michelsen

When you say the focusing ring is "frozen", do you mean it's non-functional? This guy seems to think that a "tight" focusing ring is a good thing...

https://www.photrio.com/forum/threads/105mm-f-2-8-micro-nikkor-stiff-focus.15380/#post-213595

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Steven Michelsen

Here's a possibile ortho film to replace Kodalith. https://www.ultrafineonline.com/ulorlifi35x2.html

There seems to be no shortage of Ektachrome. https://www.amazon.com/s?k=ektachrome+35mm

Making my own multi image content is a possibility. Being able to shoot a 4K monitor and not have it look obvious or awful would be a giant shortcut, avoiding needing an '80s art dept and Forox compound table.

burkphoto Loc: High Point, NC

Yes, it won't move at all. It was always stiff. It's been repaired twice, but failed again about six months after the last repair. It's been in my closet ever since. You want a little stiffness for multiple exposure registration, but it's stuck well outside the macro range...

Steven Michelsen

Oh man, now there's these...
https://www.shphoto.de/canon-f-1-oxberry-pro-copy-f2.html
https://www.ebay.com/itm/373999193613
Both are interesting but are both missing major parts. The one in Germany could be talked down... And I've no idea what that 5-pin DIN does.