Mounting lens on old Polaroid pack cameras?

I've got an old Polaroid 250 that's in great condition, but I'm not

satisfied with my exposure control. I vaguely remember someone

mounting a manual lens on one of these old pack film cameras. I was

wondering if it would be possible to rip out the existing lens and

mount a LF lens in it's place. I see that the 180 uses a Tominon

114mm. Can I just find another 114mm lens and mount on my 250? Does

the lens need to be 114mm? Just curiuos...

I've seen Polaroids on eBay that had been converted this way. All the folding pack-film cameras in the 100-200-300-400 series have the same focal length, 114 mm, and the same layout in the shutter/lens board; I know of no reason you couldn't mount any 114 mm lens.<p>

 

The bad news is, 114 mm is a relatively rare focal length outside Polaroids in the 3x4 format. The good news is, you could probably get away with a 120 mm (especially if you find one with front-element focusing, you could use the front element to set the focus after mounting and the original RF should still work), and those are relatively common on 3x4 plate cameras and 116/616 roll film cameras. Most will come with a suitable shutter, so all you'd have to do is hack off the electronic shutter and remove the original lens, enlarge the hole in the lens board, mount the lens, set and lock the focus, and possibly cobble up some kind of recess in the plastic case/cover to accomodate the front element.<p>

 

However -- if you're just getting "dark print syndrome", which is apparently fairly common as the Polaroid automatic shutters age, you might consider simply repairing it -- <a href="http://home.comcast.net/~jrpalma/pack_repair_exposure.html">here's</a> a page with information how to go about this.

If you want a similar camera with better lens and shutter control you might look into a Model 180... i was browseing around the Land List site and saw it... looks like a really awesome camera from the same era, and apparance wise is identicle except for the much larger lens. Its a manual camera and even has a self timer... except it was apparently just a professional release and not many were made... but who knows, a cheap one might show up on eBuy... also the followup 195 which they only made 10,000 of looks pretty awesome too!

<br><br>

<a href="http://www.rwhirled.com/landlist/landdcam-pack.htm#180" target="_blank">http://www.rwhirled.com/landlist/landdcam-pack.htm#180</a>

<br><br>

<a href="http://cgi.ebay.com/Polaroid-Land-Camera-model-180_W0QQitemZ7536143891QQcategoryZ67377QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem" target="_blank">an 180 on eBuy</a><br>

This auction apparently just started.... looks like they average about $100.... who knows.<br>

I did some researching on eBay and most decent Polaroid 180 sell for well over $200... I think I could pick up a lens for much less than that and mount it on a 250... I'll see what I can find...

I've done this to a couple of 250's and it's really quite easy. I used 127mm Rodenstock lenses and Prontor shutters from a couple of beat up Polaroid 110A's. I actually wrote up some instructions a while ago, but for the life of me, I can't remember where I posted them. If I find them, I'll post them here.

 

Because the Prontor shutter mounts farther forward on the camera, infinity focusing is just about right. You may have to adjust your rangefinder slightly which actually takes as much time as the conversion itself. However, the focusing curve is going to be slightly off due to the different focal lengths, but as long as you stop down, your pictures should still be sharp.

 

Thanks,

Rachel

Rachel, I'd be very interested in how you go about adjusting the RF on a folding Polaroid -- I've got a 210 that focuses at 10 feet when it's set to 6, and the lens is sharp enough where it does focus to be worth fixing, just to have a snapshooter around. I might also need to make similar adjustments on my 350 once I get the shutter operating (gotta rewire around the corroded battery connectors).

Hi Donald,

 

The Polaroid 210 has a different rangefinder than the 250, but I believe the 350 has the same one. It's been awhile since I adjusted my 250's rangefinder, but if I remember correctly, you first remove the cover, then detach the entire rangefinder from the camera. On the underside of the rangefinder, you'll find a tiny adjusting screw for the rangefinder. It appears that the rangefinder was adjusted at the factory and then a small drop of epoxy was applied to the screw so it wouldn't move. If you use a small razor knife, you can get most of that off. Be careful when turning the adjusting screw though because it is so tiny, it can easily break if you haven't completely freed it.

 

You need to make a groundglass to compare the rangefinder against. To do that, take an old packfilm cartridge, remove the top section so you just have the part that fits against the film plane. I had an old 4x5 groundglass that I cut to fit the packfilm cartridge, but you can make your own if you want.

 

The time consuming part of adjusting the rangefinder is that you have to keep putting it back on, checking the groundglass, taking it back off making small adjustments, and continue doing that until you have it right. Once you're satisfied, be sure to add a drop of Loctite to the screw so it stays in place.

 

As I mentioned before, this only takes care of infinity focus, it doesn't do anything for the focusing curve of the different focal length lens. If you know you're going to be shooting most of the time from 8 to 20 feet, you may want to adjust your rangefinder so it's accurate at that distance rather than infinity.

 

Thanks,

Rachel

Yes, Rachel, the 210 has a fixed (non-folding) stadimeter RF instead of the superposed image variety in the slightly better models. Unfortunately, in mine the problem appears to be that the infinity focus is off by about 3 mm in lens board position, the RF is close to correct for where the lens board should be (that is, if I set the focus by scale or stadimeter and then move the lens board 3 mm further from the film, I get a good focus). The 350 does have the folding, beam splitter based RF, but there were three different true RF versions over the life of this camera family -- Zeizz-Ikon with large and small single window, and Polaroid with double window. Mine, the small-window Zeiss, has no visible adjusting screw, though there is a small plate that looks like it comes off with two screws and might hide an adjustment, and a rubber plug or cover that doesn't come off with mild persuasion. I'll wait on that until I get the shutter powered up, since I won't be able to test on ground glass until then.

 

I'll have to investigate further on the possibility that's been suggested that my 210 might have suffered bent struts from someone trying to close it without releasing the extension latch. If I can't find a way to correct it, there's always the option of deleting the entire bellows, shutter, and plastic lens, and mounting a pinhole or a simple box with front-focusing lens in shutter. Say, I wonder if a 105 mm Tessar has enough extra coverage for the not-quite 3x4 Polaroid frame? The stadimeter RF would still be somewhat useful uncoupled, if only for its parallax compensating projected frame...

I just did this a couple days ago

 

http://www.photo.net/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg?msg_id=00GBJ4

 

Took apart the lens assy and gutted it to the shell, filled it with auto body filler, and re-drilled the hole. My lens was an ancient oddball. I glued the retaining ring to the outside and the lens screws on and off. I have not taken any daytime shots yet, but tried it out on startrails, check out the shot in my folder.

 

I made a groundglass and stuck it an old filmpack, set it to infinity (or close) and left it. I will take some daytime shots soon.

Hello, I'm thinking of putting a better lens on one of the old, cheap polaroid land rangefinder cameras.

 

Eastcamtech puts 127mm Rodenstock lenses on their converted cameras:

http://eastcamtech.com/Pol250.htm

 

I was hoping to compensate for rangefinder inaccuracy with a lens with a shorter focal length instead, though.

 

Would it be possible to use a lens like one of the Polaroid / Tominon lenses used with the Polaroid MP-3 / MP-4 copy cameras?

 

There are auctions selling those lenses right now:

http://cgi.ebay.fr/Polaroid-Copal-75mm-Macro-Lens-for-4x5-Camera-UP-TO-6X_W0QQitemZ370003714738QQihZ024QQcategoryZ30076QQtcZphotoQQcmdZViewItem

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&rd=1&item=170176893617&ssPageName=STRK:MEWA:IT&ih=007

 

I suppose a lens that is not 114mm would lose infinity focus if I were to just mount it on the lens standard, but I don't mind, since I will be using this mostly for portraits.

 

Could anyone advise if this is possible? Thank you.

 

Clarence