Silvestri SLV

Silvestri SLV was an Italian photographic camera with a 6X7 / 6X9 format. It used a Super Angulon 5,6/47 mm lens in a focusing helical mount by Schneider. The Silvestri SLV had a shift mechanism which consisted of a control knob and two counter posed screws right/left that allowed a total rise or fall of 25 mm. It gave the camera a precise setting and locking of the shift. The attachment of the roll film back was Graflex compatible that opened the system to the application of various backs like Mamiya, Horseman, Wista, etc. The image viewing and the focusing were made on the round glass by mean of a magnifying lens in a leather bellow. The whole camera structure was made in anodized aluminium worked with CNC machineries, ensuring constructive exactness and reliability.

From a conceptual point of view the Silvestri SLV camera allowed to shift in any direction by simply placing and levelling the back horizontally or vertically and by orienting the camera body leaning it to the right or left, or upwards or up side down. Some samples of this first model were made in an almost handcraft way but meeting a good interest among the specialized photographers, Silvestri was pushed to develop a new and improved model of SLV.

The production of the Silvestri cameras began in Florence, Italy, at the beginning of the eighties by the work of Vincenzo Silvestri who designed and developed the original project. The intents were that of providing the photographers of architecture, indoor and outdoor, with a wide angle camera extremely compact and light-weight, compared to the large view cameras produced in that period, and with the essential movements for the perspective correction.