Large Format Lenses Question - Shutter Attachment

[Peter S.]

Dear Camera Experts,

would it be possible to equip a lens like this one:

cgi.ebay.ch/Apo-Ronar-360-mm-auf-Sinar-Platte_W0QQitemZ330098838735QQcategoryZ8277QQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

with a shutter? I see quite some LF lenses go (or not go) away
for little money, when there is no shutter incorporated.
So I wonder, whether this were a cheap way to come to a
good lens.

I heard a corresponding side remark that seem to imply it were
easy possible - but I would like to ask, before spending money
on a lens, that might turn out as being useless for me.

Best regards
Peter

PS: I got an Arca Swiss 4c5" camera, equiped with a Schneider
Symmar 5.6/150. The first test shots imply that my Hasselblad
got more information on the 6x6cm than the LF on 12x10cm.
Well, the Zeiss Planar 2.8/80 seems to be a top notch performer.
I am not so shure on the Symmar.

[mickeyobe]

Peters,

This is my Nikkor process lens mounted on an 8" x 10" Gundlach Korona. It has no shutter.


And here is my custom made shutter/lens cap. The lid from a pickle jar and a drawer pull.


Here they are compatibly mated together. The lens now has a shutter and as a bonus, a lens cap.


With this kind of advanced technology almost any old piece of glass can be turned into a functioning lens.

Mickey

[Just Plain Curt]

Hi Mickey,
Great. I always love when someone comes up with a simple everyday solution for these things. Ok now, what kind of pickles, LOL?

[mickeyobe]

Bick's
Kosher
No garlic.
They still had that nice crisp crunch.

By the way. That hair hanging down from the camera's name plate is from my duster. I am not the only one in this house who is moulting.

Mickey

[herron]

Mickey:
I love your "print storage area" below the bellows, too!

Looks like my camera room! LOL!! ;D

[PeterW]

Many LF lenses and process lenses have the front and rear element groups separated by a tube which often carries an iris. Quite often, though not always, you find that this centre tube can be repaced by a leaf shutter, either a Compur, Compound, Prontor, Ilex and so on depending on the make of the lens.

LF lenses from most major German makers were designed to have the front and rear element groups mounted in Compur or Prontor shutters but were also sold with just a separation tube and iris for people who used them on large plate press and reflex cameras with focal plane shutters. Process lenses from the same makers usualy mounted with the same sizes to help standardisation.

What the position is with Japanese LF and process lenses I don't know, but I imagine there could be a similar situation with Seiko or Copal leaf shutters - and its possible that these are the same as the Compur/Prontor sizes to induce pro users to change over now that Compurs and Prontors are no longer made and not easy to get repaired. It might be worth trying to search out the info on the net.

New large leaf shutters are horribly expensive, but if you're not worried about flash you can sometimes pick up old non-synchro versions of these large shutters quite cheaply. The top speed is usually 1/200 or 1/250 sec, and often they need a CLA. Even then the speeds may not be terribly accurate, but at least they can mount the lens and open and shut. And, of course, you get an iris with the shutter. I did this successfully on a couple of Schneider process lenses for mounting on a Toyo camera. I think I paid about £5 ($10) each for the shutters, old non-synchro Compurs from the early 1930s.

There's a useful website at
www.sizes.com/tools/shutter_photo.htm
which gives dimensions of a number of shutters including thread sizes and TPI and thickness front to back (sometimes called separation). It also gives the size of ring you need to mount the shutter on a LF lens board.

A search for 'leaf shutter sizes' might yield more.

Of course, you need to have the lens first to measure the element threads and the length of the centre tube, and find out what size shutter will accept the two element groups, but the page might come in useful.

It's also a posibility that the lens may screw into an old large shutter which you could use as a 'behind the lens' shutter, or maybe with an adaptor ring of some sort you could mount a shutter on the front, on the filter threads. Not the most efficient places, but heck, if it works ...

BTW, Peter, the Symmar design goes back to 1920. Although it's a six-glass design it's not up to the standard of a Planar. I don't know if you knew, but the Symmar is a 'convertible' lens in that the front and rear elements can be used on their own to give different focal lengths. Definition away from the centre wasn't all that good, but using the front or rear elements on their own was popular in the 1920s and 1930s as portrait lenses to give a 'soft-focus' background to a portait. It can also produce quite a nice effect on other subjects as it concentrates attention in the centre of the picture.

There's more info about the Symmar on
www.schneideroptics.com/info/vintage_lens_data/large_format_lenses/

PeterW

[Peter S.]

Dear Peter,

Thank You very much! This is exactely the information I was looking for.
W.r.t. the Symmar: the Symmar mounted on my Arca camera is a later type (ca. 1972..74),
which were not convertible any more. Or is it a single coated Symmar-S? I don't have the
camera at hand right now.

I suspect that there are better lenses out there. The large slide contains a lot of information -
definitely more than a 35mm slide possibly could - I would have expected more resolution.
Maybe I begin to understand, why Ansel did chose 8x10"...

Best regards
Peter