Looking for Plaubel View Camera Information

[james_driscoll2]

Hello Everyone,

 

I am the owner of a Plaubel Universal III 8x10/5x7 outfit and I am

looking to talk with other owners of Plaubel View Camera Equipment. I

am also looking to acquire originals or photo copies of original

brochures for the peco Universal, Universal II, Universal III, Supra,

Peco jr., Peco Profia Mark I, Peco Profia N.

 

Altough I use a sinar for all of my professional work, I can't help

but be intrigued by the Plaubel View Cameras. They are extremely well

made and are pretty tough to find parts, accessories, etc. for.

 

I have already started doing research and also own several items of

literature. I have talked with Arnie Duren (manager of Olden when

they where the importer in the late 1950's and early 1960's) Louis

Shu, of Photo Gizzmo who remembers selling them, and little bits and

pieces here and there.

 

There is a small intrest in writing "The Plaubel View Story...." (how

bad can I get!!!), but it would be nice to start a small user group

where we can help each other out when it comes to

repairing/modifying/trading Plaubel View equipment.

 

thanks for taking the time out

[john_alexander_dow]

I have a Plaubel Peco Supra II 4 x 5 It is old and tatty and all the foams are worn but it is still light tight with polaroid 545 and darkslides. I use it with a Symmar 150mm or Tominon 105mm for indoor work.

 

Wish List -

 

1 adaptor to take Linhof style lens panels

2 a better ground glass screen - the current one is DIRE especially for macro work

 

JD

[armin_seeholzer]

Frau Kühnel at Plaubel is a very nice person here is the website for it:http://www.plaubel.com/logo.html

[stefan_dalibor]

I second Armin - I thought about buying a Plaubel camera, and though I decided otherwise in the end found Plaubel's service (i.e. Fr. Kühnel) extremely helpful.<br>

BTW: Old Plaubels are fine tools (and Plaubel still offers a surprisingly large range of accessories for them), but I encourage everyone to have a look at Plaubels current products: IMO, the Peco Profia PL is a very well-made system, falling nicely between field monorails (e.g. Arca Swiss F-line) and the large studio cameras (e.g. Sinar P) weight- and feature-wise.

[phong]

Hi James,

 

I wonder if you got any response on a Plaubel View user group, or if you have any put together any information on these cameras that you could share. I stumbled on a Plaubel 8x10 View camera, and am very curious about it. A web search found next to nothing; this photo.net post looks the most promising. Thanks,

 

- Phong

[george3]

I bought a couple of the Plaubel view cameras back when they were being sold at distress out of Olden. I bought a Peco Jr 6x9 outfit with lens, and a 4x5 Profia. Plaubel had sort of stuck the American importer with a ton of inventory when they switched the color of the camera from gray to black, and for a short while, Olden had almost everything in the Plaubel catalog in gray.

 

I figured accessories would be a real problem in the future, so I bought everything I thought I would be likely to ever want, and a few things beyond that just for the hell of it. I did not get 8x10 components, because I did not think I'd care about those.

 

I was correct about components being hard to find .. very rarely you will see something like a lensboard or a bellows show up on Ebay.

 

The Profia series is very rugged, but they are studio cameras and pretty clumsy to take out into the field. I have no experience with the universal series, but from the components I've seen, they look a bit flimsy. The Peco Jr though, is a pure joy, at least the 6x9 model is... A whole three lens kit fits in a small case and is well under ten pounds, and the camera is light enough to use on a tripod like the gitzo reporter, also light.

 

If you read German, you might have some luck looking for accessory or component items on european websites. For some reason the camera was never a big seller in the U.S., .. probably due to lack of marketing.