murrayatuptowngallery

I found this question trying to re-locate series VI dimensions - the battery is dead in my digital caliper!

Series IV, V and VI filters and not threaded. They drop into a an adapter or some cameras from that era had integral fittings to hold them...some are threaded, some are push-on.

For trivial completeness, I think Series VIII is also unthreaded, but for soem weird reason Series VII is, and corresponds with some metric thread size, maybe 54mm...I don't remember that part.

Does anyone have spool dimensions for either of the above film types?

Thanks

Murray

Is there an answer for the low budget bellows folks, like for Autographic 3-A folders?

(eBay seller ran out of 3-A size) :O(

The big camera...dollar bills are probably to give some perspective for scale, like sticking people in a mountainous landscape scene. And it doesn't matter whether they are $1's or $20's!

Good thing you have walls around that camera to protect it from wind shake.

There was an eBay seller (frendakfurnari)who had many many new old stock

inexpensive Kodak bellows, including what he called size 'H' that fit the

Folding Pocket 3-A.

They are gone.

Anyone have any solutions?

Thanks

Carol Flutot at Flutot's Camera Repair in California.

You'll find a web page link and some endorsements on APUG.org. I haven't used her yet but haven't seen any negative comments yet.

I think she charges roughly $45 for a 35 mm CLA, $55 for medium format + shipping. Check or money order, I believe, and no PayPal or credit card, last I heard.

I have a 6x4.5 Perle that needs minor work I may have done this summer. I hope I can remember the name as I type this...It was a Meyer or Gorlitz (not BOTH names together) 75 mm f/2.9 Trioplan lens in Compur Rapid (1/400 max) shutter.

From what I've read, and such things are totally subjective, some poepl say that lens actually works well wide open. My guess is it's a wee bit long for 6x4.5 & thus ends up with a slightly narrower field of view...supposedly a method of using more of the center of a lens with fewer aberrations.

With a fairly fast lens and shutter it should give a wide range of exposure capability, unlike a slow lens with 3 shutter speeds.

Murray

Possibly dirty shutter. I don't remember well...I wrecked the shutter on mine with a reversible version but I got double sided tape on the shutter -

I think it was NOT a self-cocking one.

Obviously it had a problem when you got it, so maybe it only half worked itself out, and the shutter spring is strong enough to overpower any friction but the cocking spring & mechanism is not free to go where it needs to.

That camera is difficult to loosen the lens/shutter retaining ring on...it's inside the film 'gate'.

I found parts of the lens easy to remove from the shutter and part not easy...I would want the glass out before I tried any kind of cleaning stuff.

Some repair people get really irked by 'street' methods of cleaning -aerosol solvents and soak in lighter fluid, but paying someone to CLA doesn't always make sense...

Does anyone have the comparable flange-to-flange distance for the 6" Metrogon? I have only seen glass-to-glass anecdotal data.

I tried to measure the shutter on my 6" and since it's a multi-step calculation, it invites tolerance stackup errors.

If this is 'known' with some degree of certainty I'd feel better confirming my measurement. I wonder if each one is different since each lens cell pair were measured & marked.

Thanks

Murray

Just for fun, if you are so inclined...

http://www.f295.org/Pinholeforum/forum/Blah.pl?b-lab/m-1132019056/

http://www.rangefinderforum.com/forums/showthread.php?t=18507

http://www.apug.org/forums/showthread.php?t=21333&highlight=tylenol

Murray

I picked up a 'mystery' 6x9 ground glass back that I would describe

as a spring back for sheet film holders.

A few searches confirmed it's for a Press Universal. I was going to

use it for a homebrew project and got some Graflex 2-1/4 x 3-1/4

wooden holders.

When I finally tried to put them together, surprise! The wooden

holders are too tall!

Did the Mamiya back use proprietary sheet film holders or was is

smaller than 2-1/4 x 3-1/4?

Thanks

I was just told in a physics class that odd vs even number of blades is also a qualitative parameter in the optical transform behavior (shows up as artifacts) because different Fourier components result from odd vs even. One produces a 'star' effect.

Knowing that odd and even blade lens designs exist makes me wonder if ther are any even number lenses are 'cult-classics'. That popular 'Hasselblad' (Zeiss?) lenses have odd (and only 5) may be a combination of economics and reliability (low number) and designer preference for visual artifact (odd number).

Not important to many people, but I consider photography part art, part science & the geek side of me is interested in the science part.

Murray

Thanks Minh.

I'll wish myself luck. If it works, price was OK, if it's just manual, I already had enough other ones (800,160,150,95B) :O)

It DOES display a variable shutter speed manually now (actually conspicuously longer than 1/12 second too), and if I dial all the way below EV10 it will stay open until the shutter is released (not how B is intended to work on this).

I had hoped to get a verbal description from someone about where the dial gets aligned relative to full CW or CCW to get me close.

I may have to recalibrate it afterward.

Murray

I think this might be discussed in Greene's Primitive Photography & also try looking on web for Cameramakers archives.

I think the concept is that you have the back box slide into the front box, so if any light does get in, it leaks toward the front of the camera. If it's well blackened flat black, it's unlikely to reflect back to the film.

If you were to build a sliding box that had the front sliding into the back where your film is, any leaks go straight back to your film.

Even with the back-into-front construction, you have to take care to have a reasonable fit. If your wood (or cardboard) working skills leae you with enough slop, line the sides of the larger box with felt or something like that.

You can make baffles inside to fix light leaks afterward. Many flat black paints really perform poorly regarding reflection.

Someone told me India Ink is really flat. I don't know about the new water washable India Inks - that doesn't sound too inspiring to me.

Oh, felt is apparently not good for surfaces that will get direct light, it's actually pretty reflective (probably depends on actual fiber content).

Cool, nice writeup, Diwan.

I bartered some books from my garage for some Silicon Carbide grit from a rock polishing guy. I got something like 220/3something blend which grinds fast but kind of coarse, and someting like 400/500 blend...I can't remember because it's not in front of me.

I also got some 5 micron Aluminum Oxide. Don't want to breath the really fine stuff - real bad for lungs. This is too soft to use by itself, hardly does anything & reveals 'waves' or ripples in glass.

Last experiment I mixed 5 micron AlOx and 400/500 SiC in an intuitive guess ratio. Seems a bit less harsh a grind than SiC alone.

I use water for easier cleanup than oil, two pieces of picture frame glass ground together on a flat surface.

I can't remember if the largest I made was 16x20 or 20x24...just to do it, don't have a camera that big (Yet, heh, heh). Sometimes I use it to see how large an image circle lens acquisitions have.

I don't shoot much film with these projects (yet)...I'm easily amused with images on glass so far.

I thought the 800 type shutter had a nice set of round apertures & a odd shape shutter blade, but the 900 really looked worse to me. Maybe Polaroid actually made sure the exposure rate was even as the shutter/aperture mechanisms traverse the lens...taking efficiency and evenness of exposure into account.

BTW, I had emailed you at your COE address a while ago. I'm a little slow - I finally figured out what COE was...I thought it was just a server name.

Murray

Are you using the camera body with lens still attached or putting the lens/shutter on something else like a view camera w/ground glass?

Murray

Thanks for the reply. I was hoping I wasn't the only one interested in such things, but that is often the case with strange pursuits I involve myself with...makes for some lonely threads.

Murray

I thought I'd share my Polaroid 900 shutter exploration in case it's

of interest to anyone and maybe someone else can answer my questions.

I got one on eBay to experiment with...might put a Universal Press 23

sheet film spring back on it...or something else.

Shutter acted very strangely, so with the help of another member here

I opened it up.

4 Phillips screws around back of lens will free up the bellows. I had

to carefully free the vinyl that was aggressively stuck to the

lens/shutter body.

3 straight slot screws accessible on the back after removing bellows.

Lens/shutter should be free from the lock at the front of the bed so

you can lean it forward. This allows removal of the front plate with

one lens element. For those interested it appears to be a slightly

negative diopter element.

I removed the screw holding the ASA/EV dial so I could see a

retaining screw underneath. Two problems here. The screw screws into

a Delrin or nylon gear. Don't lose either one. Make note of the dial

position, or better yet, rotate it to one extreme AND make note of

it's position. Apparently only screw compression holds it where it

belongs and I have to figure that out again.

There is a flex circuit from the photocell down to the battery

compartment. There is a pin that the flex circuit sits on about 1/2

way down. Lift that up & there is a screw holding the shutter plate

to the captive portion of the shutter body. I dropped the screw & it

didn't hit the floor. I think it's stuck to the magnet of, of all

things, a light meter D'Arsonval movement on the back side of the

shutter.

There are about 5 moving parts in the shutter/aperture combination

mechanism. I could see that the last piece to move wasn't closing so

my shutter would open and not close. I couldn't see any springs

broken. I was about to give up & realized that the rubber plunger

(kind of like a cylindrical bellows) Polaroid used on some old

shutters (for vacuum?) was not extending all the way. The folds were

stuck together. I carefully unstuck them and now the shutter operates

(no idea about timing).

Someone warned me I might need to replace a capacitor due to aging. I

don't see any. I also don't see an electromagnet. There is something

attched to the photocell with a 4 digit number on it I assumed was

resistance. I haven't measured yet to check. It could be a

coil/electromagnetic. With no capacitor my wild guess is that they

use an RL time constant. I will have to explore the black object with

the 4 digit number more.

I cleaned the battery corrosion with table vinegar. Mercury battery

construction shared electrolytic similarities with alkalines.

Now I have to find the missing screw & try a battery.

What I could use help with is identifying the proper position of the

EV/ASA dial at one extreme of rotation.

I thought the shutter speed range was 1/12-1/600 second. It seems to

go much slower if one dials well below EV 10. The dial will go well

below 10 and well above 23 (interesting).

It would be interesting to know if 'bokeh' fans see a difference

between the 900 and 900/160/150/95B type. The lenses are supposedly

the same, but the iris shape is not. The non-electric eye group had

round apertures except some are a little weird at EV 10, with one

flat side. The 900 iris starts out round at EV 10, ends up square at

EV17-23 and in between is an ugly jagged 4-point starlike thing.

I picked up a really cheap Harbor Freight one after borrowing a neighbors Craftsman one. The HF power cube was so weak that the NO LOAD speed was the only thing it was good for.

I then used a higher current capacity one from a scanner and it has been doing OK. The only tools it came with I found useful were cutoff wheels & I got more Dremel ones because I felt like at least I knew their origin & maybe they'd be less likely to kill me. The diamond dust bits don't do much other than polish. I'm going to try a brass brush bit to remove rust & tarnish next.

Dust mask would be a good idea. I think I've inhaled too much cutoff wheel dust.

Minh,

How do you get a 15 cm dimension in the back of a 900? Do you remove the old 'film gate'/opening frame? I measured a 95B, which I thought had the same back as 900 and it's something like 77 mm high by 104-105 mm wide.

Thanks

Murray

More 900 questions:

I just got one, pried the rotten PX-13 battery out, & attempted to operate the shutter on 'manual' with the back open. I couldn't see any light passing at EV10 (1/12 second f/8.8?).

Someone else told me "yes it will operate manually with no battery". (not a strictly electromagnetic-only shutter)...I hope.

If not, maybe a bad shutter spring? Brian, do let me know if you find your glass unsalvageable as it might make my 900 shutter live again.

I note the iris behavior is very different than the 800/150 family which had a disk with round holes. The 900 seems to sequence from a round hole fully open to an ugly jagged shape mid-aperture-range to a squarish hole stopped fully down. I suppose this would contribute to the bokeh being different than the 800. Of course, that's a moot point until it has film in it and exposes it...

Oh, the filter mount on the 900 is oddly different (some kind of bayonet?) than the other old rollfilm Polaroids.

Speaking of 3x4 vs uh, larger :O), I have something I tore apart, maybe a J66, and by the time I got down to just the metal shell and bellows, the opening in the back is considerably larger than 3x4 and smaller than 5x7, so I guess one could fit, uh, the metric size in between, or convert to Imperial if desired :O) (wink, wink).

Oh, one more thing. Long ago, a battery company told me what to clean corrosion from various battery types with. A more recent inquiry confirmed those brain cells at the battery company had died.

Carbon-zinc leakage : Alkaline solvent (baking soda paste in water).

Alkaline cell leakage: 5% acetic acid (white table vinegar)

lithium cell leakage (coin cell era: alcohol

Anyone want to guess for mercury battery? I suppose since they're all readily available, try them all until it cleans up.

I can vouch for vinegar with alkaline cells in numerous forgotten products I found batteries in.

Unfortunately the carbon-zinc ones do more damage...ruined a Pentax analog spotmeter movement :O(

Murray