bob fowler

A local camera store had a Tessina recently on consignment. I was tempted to buy it, but decided my monthly mortgage payment was a tad more important! :-)

Beer mug for a tripod... I guess you could have done worse! :-)

Shot with a Nikon F w/Photomic Tn finder on Tri-X.<div></div>

Nice Zeiss! I have an Ikonta 520/16, a similar camera to yours except no rangefinder and a 75mm f/3.5 Novar. Great little pocket 6X6...

The Pentax Spotmatic, in all its many incarnations, was the cats ass in its day. In fact, it's STILL the cats ass for manual, screw mount bodies. The Spotmatic F was my personal favorite of the series. The K-1000 was the logical extension of the Spotmatic series into the K mount.

I have a couple of old Voitlander 6X9 folders that I bought 20+ years

ago when I was living in Berlin. The bellows are shot on all of them

but oddly enough, the 13.5cm f/6.8 "Voigtlander Doppel-Anastigmat

RADIAR" lenses are in good shape and their dial set Compur shutters

still work perfectly. My question... Does anyone know what

construction the RADIAR lenses are? Are they a Tessar derived lens or

something else?<div></div>

Speaking of small Speed Graphics... I have a couple of the 1940's-ish Miniature Speed Graphics. I bought my first one back in the mid-1970's. It came with a 105mm f/3.7 Ektar - non-sync shutter though. I shot this pix on Tri-X sheet film in 1981 when I was stationed with the 298th Army Band in West Berlin. I just salvaged a 180mm f/4.5 Mamiya-Sekor TLR lens that had a bad shutter and some fungus issues. I mounted the good lens cells in a Prontor-S, put in on a board, and now use it on a Mini-Speed!<div></div>

Knowing what I know now... I'd have bought a 2X3 Pacemaker Crown Graphic and a shitload of 6X9 roll film backs. Well, at least 3 or 4 anyway.

My wife and I were out shooting in a local park with my Eastman 5X7 inch "View No.2 Improved Model of the Century View and Empire State No.2" in all of it's polished brass and mahogany glory. Three mid-20ish young ladies were absolutely facinated by my early 20th century state of the art technology, much to the annoyance of their mid-20ish boyfriends - one of whom was shooting with a Canon D60. When "D60 boy" saw his rather shapely girlfriend duck under the focus cloth with me so I could show her how the camera worked, he had a complete and total shit-fit. I really though he was going to have a stroke he was so pissed off! Now I ask you... What harm could a mid-40ish, very happily married guy like myself - whose wife was standing right there while this happened mind you - what possible harm could I cause? I think he had "extension envy" when I racked out the bellows...

I want to echo Ernest Purdum re: Polaroid MP-4 lenses. I have 2 of the 127mm f/4.7 Rodenstock Ysaron lenses, one in a Polaroid Prontor, the other in a Synchro-Compur. They do a great job at close ranges. I think I paid $35 for the one in the Compur and $30 for the one in the Prontor. Can't beat the price/performance ratio!

Buescher True-Tone saxophones from the 1920's occupy a lot of my time, especially my alto...

Hot damn, I do believe you're right! Lens boards will be easy, the back... well, time to start lookin'. Thanks!!!

Here is another angle of the mysteryu camera...<div></div>

I recently picked up a 4X5 body that needs a lens board and a back.

My problem... I have no idsea as to what make and model it is. OK, it

probably wasn't the brightest move I ever made, but I'm a sucker for

4X5 monorail cameras. From the pictures, can anyone give me a clue as

to what it is?

 

Thanks,

 

Bob Fowler<div></div>

<B>IMPORTANT UPDATE!:</B><br><br>

I measured some voltages on the S-200 power pack this morning...<br><br>

Contrary to what I was told, the 8 pin socket is NOT the way to go. I measured 370 volts DC across pins 1 and 4! YIKES!! I also experimented with a few other pins and found that pins 4 and 8 will also fire the unit, but had the same 370 volts DC. Obviously not a good situation.<br><br>

There is a funny looking coaxial connector on the top of the unit that is labeled "TRIGGER OUTLET" which several people (including the guy at Photogenic who, by his own admission, had never seen an S-200) had told me was NOT the sync connection. Well, it IS a sync connection and only has 13.7 volts DC across the terminals. The next project is to get rid of the wacky coaxial connector and replace it with a stereo 1/4" jack wired tip and ring so I can use my White Lightning sync cords.<br><br>

Damn this is fun...

Tom, now that you mention it, that's not a bad idea...

 

The guy from Photogenic had never seen nor worked on an S-200 before. He did tell me that pins 1 and 8 were the correct ones for the "newer" Studiomaster units and it would be a good place to start. My sync cord IS wired for 1 and 8 so I knew it wasn't the answer. With the power disconnected, I opened the unit up (not for the feint of heart as there is a device which discharges the main capacitors when the lid is opened resulting in a pretty loud bang) and did some looking around and figured out that the answer is pins 1 and 4.

 

My next step is to drill a hole to mount a 1/4" stereo jack on the top cover and do a little re-wire so that the S-200's can use the same sync cords as my White Lightning flashes.

 

FWIW - These old S-200 Studiomasters are very well made. Photogenic doesn't support them anymore (the tech support guy I spoke with couldn't even find a schematic), but once you see what's inside, they're pretty straight forward. I haven't measured the voltage at the sync terminal yet, but I suspect it's a bit too high for "modern" cameras, so a voltage protected sync cord from Paramount is most likely in order.

Thanks, I gave them a call and they sent me in the right direction!

I bought a pair of the S-200 powerpacks with 8080 heads via an ebay

auction. I put in new 2D21 trigger tubes and the units fired right

up. The flashes work fine using the slaves, but I can't seem to get

them to work with a sync cord. The cord I have was given to me by a

friend and it is quite possible that it is not the correct one. My

question... Can anyone tell me which of the 8 pins are used for the

sync cord connection?