Ziess Ikon 250/7 Ideal -- working at last!

Several months ago, I bought a Ziess-Ikon 250/7 Ideal. It was listed

as "for parts only" condition, and I purchased it for the f/4.5 13.5

cm Tessar lens; for the $12.50 I paid, even if the rest of the camera

was completely trashed, the lens would have been a bargain.

 

Unfortunately, on receiving the camera, I was disappointed to discover

that the dial-set Compur in which the lens was mounted had a

significantly smaller thread than the rim-set Compur on my Kawee

Camera, where I had hoped to mount the Tessar as a replacement for the

Radionar I received with that camera.

 

On examining the Ideal, however, I realized that it probably wasn't

beyond repair. The leather was coming off the body in great swatches

where the seller had used actual duct tape to attach a posterboard

cover where there was no ground glass; the bellows was detached from

the body at the back, and shutter only partially worked -- but there

was still fluid in the spirit level, the sports finder was intact, the

rise and shift worked, the latches on the bellows to prevent

vignetting at short extensions were present and functional; in short,

it wasn't nearly as bad as it looked.

 

So, the quest for a lens became a search for parts and accessories.

 

A few weeks later, I paid $50 for a "working" Ica Ideal 225, the same

9x12 cm format, which included a ground glass back and a few plate

holders. This one was cosmetically much nicer than the Zeiss, but the

sports finder wire frame was missing, and the shutter didn't work at

all. Still, it had another Tessar, and it was complete enough I

thought I could get it working with less effort than the Zeiss -- and

besides, it was at least a year older, possibly several years.

 

Well, with one thing and another, it was just a few weeks ago that I

finally got far enough in working on the Ica Ideal to test it -- the

Tessar was everything I'd hoped, but the frames were marred by ghostly

fog, in stripes and curtains, as well as vignetted all around, as

those from my Kawee Camera are if I forget to pull the bellows toward

the lens on opening the camera.

 

I bought some fabric paint and used it to patch the holes in the

(cloth) bellows, but every time I patched one set, another would crop

up; it quickly became obvious that the material grew a new set of

cracks every time I closed and opened the camera. The bellows was

completely shot. In addition, the shutter speeds were a little off;

the 1/10 was shorter than the 1/25, which I eventually decided was

because a previous owner had attempted to repair the shutter by filing

the speed selection cam, with the result that the pallet engaged when

it shouldn't. I managed to adjust things and get those speeds within

a half stop of correct (though I'm still not sure the 1/25 was

actually faster than the 1/10, they were at least both close enough to

correct for negative film). The final straw was realizing that the

vignetting was because someone (probably the same person who

"repaired" the shutter with a coarse file) had ripped out the original

bellows and replaced it with one from a smaller camera, probably a 3x4

format; not only was the bellows too small, it was glued to the

attachment plate at the front standard, instead of screwed on through

its own front stiffener as it should have been.

 

With the combination of shutter and bellows problems, obviously, there

was no way the Ica was going to be ready to use for portraits of my 99

year old grandmother when I pass through Idaho on my way to North

Carolina (a trip, by that time, less than a month away). What to do?

Sure, I could take pictures with the Kawee Camera, but between

bellows vignetting, minor light leaks in the plate holders, and the

inability to get it to sit steady on a tripod (because of the curve of

the bed/door), it didn't look like the best choice for that shoot.

 

Well, there was the Zeiss Ideal. I had all those film holders (by

this time, I had a full dozen, ten usable, and more than enough film

sheaths), two shutters, two lenses, and it shouldn't be impossible to

glue the bellows back into the body. So I did. Clean up the shutter,

and it runs like a champ, even the 1 second buzzes right along;

closing in T setting makes a distinct "clack" as the mechanism

releases. Rubber cement served to stick down the ragged edges of the

leather where the duct tape had torn it. A few small patches of black

leather covered the five pinholes I was able to find in the bellows

(and this leather bellows seems less prone to develop more every time

it's opened and closed).

 

Today, it was time to test; pull out two plate holders, put the Ideal

on my tripod, install cable release, grab my old Sixtomat, and out the

door.

 

A few hours later, the negatives are dry. No foggy ghosts, correct

exposures at both 1/10 and 1/25 (f/22 and f/16, respectively, on

Fomapan 100 at EI 160 in Diafine), the lens is incredibly sharp (in

the original 2400 ppi scans, I can see details of the moss and tiny

fungi growing on the stump in the attached frame).

 

Seventy-seven years after it was made, it's ready to use again.<div></div>

Oh, hell. I don't know how I managed to duplicate this -- Lex, can you dump this thread and leave just the original?