Sinar
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| Industry | photography |
|---|---|
| Headquarters | Zurich, Switzerland |
| Products | large format view cameras, lenses, digital backs, RAW Processing Software |
| Website | www |
Sinar Photography AG is a Swiss company based in Zurich manufacturing specialized high-resolution view cameras for studio, reproduction, landscape and architecture photography.
Sinar's view-cameras allow both the lens and the film back or sensor back to move in rotation or linearly in any direction (up/down, left/right, front back linearly, and pitch yaw tilt rotations), thus allowing precise image alignment corrections. The cameras are thus often used in advertising, document reproduction, product and architectural photography, where correctly vertical image lines, fine focus accuracy, and extra details are wanted.
The name SINAR is explained by the company itself as "Still, Industrial, Nature, Architectural and Reproduction photography" in the English version of the April 2011 press release. Other versions of the names were also used, with the S for studio, Sache, or science.
The business recalls its roots to Swiss photographer Carl August Koch who worked in Marseille from 1865 to 1878. In 1879 and 1892 Koch also established two family-owned photography studios in Schaffhausen. Koch worked as a portrait, landscape and alpine photographer and was considered one of the first Swiss champions of alpine photography. From 1894 until his death in 1897, Koch was also president of the Swiss Photographers Association. His son Hans-Carl, expanded the family-owned photography studios to include from 1911 photographic retailing. In 1947, the grandson of Koch senior—Carl Hans—a graduate photographer and photographic salesman, took over the family business on the early death of his father Hans-Carl, and founded the following year the Sinar company. Dissatisfied with the limited or imprecise nature of wooden view cameras (e.g. the large Kodak 3 and similar, and the popular Graphlex Graphic Graphlok series) and the limitations of technical (e.g., Linhof Technika) and field cameras of the day he developed a modular camera and received in 1947 a patent for his Sinar camera. His main aims were to produce a large format camera of high precision and simple operation, with a system of parts that were readily interchangeable. The Sinar system's versatility is based on the interchangeability of parts as well as a large number of accessories that have been produced over the years. Major components (rails, bellows, lensboards, and standards) made in the 1940s are still usable with currently manufactured Sinar equipment.
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Wikipedia