Stephen
Lifetime Member
Still collecting.......
Posts: 2,718
|
Post by Stephen on May 21, 2015 8:23:39 GMT -5
Like London red Buses, you wait at the bus stop and nothing turns up, then a haggle of buses turns up all together..... I had wanted a Bolsey camera for a long time, they are not common in the United Kingdom, having never been imported regularly during it's relatively short production period. Three at once on Ebay UK, and this one Buy it now, £17.50, mainly due to poor appearance, but said to be fully working. It needs attention to cosmetics and leather in the main, and a small dent to the filter ring. I well remember during the first weeks in the photographic trade in the early 1970's a customer bringing in one of these cameras and being put off trading it in, by the then manager, who explained afterwards that it was a cheap US made camera, not of any quality at all........ I did then point out it was designed by Jacques Bogopolsky, the Ukranian born, but later French citizen, who worked in Switzerland and founded Bolex Cine Cameras and later designed the Alpa cameras by Pignons. He changed his name in the US to Jacques Bolsey.... Just before the war he moved to the USA, setting up the Bolsey Corporation, and designed the series of Bolsey models that were made from 1940 to his death in 1962. They certainly were not in the quality league of Alpa, but were a main stream popular product, using bought in shutters and lenses from US lens maker Wollensak. The bodies were solid cast aluminium, with a small sized look, due to the thick body and fitting a 44mm standard lens, so not needing a bellows or tube front around the lens. The design was basic, by the B2 it had gained double exposure prevention, but had a rangefinder, and also had a TLR version, almost unique in design. They made neat plain versions in painted finish for the US military in the war and into the 1950's. The Wollensak lenses are reasonable, but do vary more in quality than equivalent German made lenses, and bad ones do turn up occasionally. The example will need new leather on the bottom, said to be inside the camera, and a really good polish of all the castings. The shutters are servicable, but a bit difficult to open up according to experts. The B2 also had flash contacts, which early models did not have as standard. Stephen.
|
|
|
Post by paulhofseth on May 21, 2015 13:29:19 GMT -5
And later, they also made a tiny TLR plus a 2x8 camera doubling up as a thousands-of-exposures still camera for those who had a suitable enlarger and a need for thousands of stills before developing each film.
p.
|
|
Stephen
Lifetime Member
Still collecting.......
Posts: 2,718
|
Post by Stephen on May 21, 2015 13:48:25 GMT -5
The Cine Bolsey was the smallest double eight cine ever built, but it depended on a special small reeled film cassette, not the usual Kodak standard 8 reels, and the film was only made by Agfa in Holland, fatal to the designs sales. They work with Standard eight film though, if re-loaded, and could take stills as the shutter was variable speeded, unusual for a cine camera.
The TLR was a standard style Bolsey with the addition of a Ful Vue style clear viewfinder on the top. The castings were different, and again added to costs. Despite the issues with the Bolsey Cameras generally, they were sucessful, only disappearing after Jacques Bolseys death, and closure of the Bolsey Corporation.
They also made 120 film psuedo TLR cameras, much the same as the Ensign Full vue de-luxe models, but better made. Some were sold under other makers names, as were the original Bolsey cameras at times.
As there does no seem to have been a full time importer in the UK, all the Bolsey products were rare here. I suspect most here these days were sold by US tourists or service personnel.
Stephen.
|
|
Stephen
Lifetime Member
Still collecting.......
Posts: 2,718
|
Post by Stephen on May 21, 2015 13:59:32 GMT -5
|
|
mickeyobe
Lifetime Member
Resident President
Posts: 7,280
|
Post by mickeyobe on May 21, 2015 14:05:43 GMT -5
My three Bolseys. Bolsey *** Bolsey B2 *** Bolsey B2 Set-O-Matic. All have shutter speeds of 10 to 200 sec & T & B and 44mm Wollensak lenses. The Bolsey has self cocking shutter. The other two require depressing a pin just above the shutter release. All have excellent split Image rangefinders. The entire frame is visible through the viewfinder even when wearing glasses. The Set-O-Matic has four automatic settings for flash. The aperture changes as the camera focuses. They are full frame 35mm. Mickey
|
|
Stephen
Lifetime Member
Still collecting.......
Posts: 2,718
|
Post by Stephen on May 21, 2015 14:34:01 GMT -5
I hope mine polish up as well as yours, this one is coming with a case as well, in the light tan finish. The instruction sheet is available on the net for most models, the Bolsey coming is the B2.
There is a small mystery about the Bolsey, it's connection with Finetta, who assembled the Bolsey cine camera at first, before production started in the States. It seems Peter Saraber, Finettas owner had worked with Bolsey on the designs of the still cameras along with Helmut Finke, who had worked for Voightlander, and liked small camera designs. It must have been the closure of Finetta that forced the movie cameras to be made in the US.
The 120 TLR cameras were, it seems, assembled in Germany, which was the intended market.
Stephen.
|
|
Stephen
Lifetime Member
Still collecting.......
Posts: 2,718
|
Post by Stephen on May 22, 2015 14:24:56 GMT -5
As I said, they come along like London Buses, a Bolsey Model B is on it's way from Ebay as well, complete with case and two filters, (but not the four filter, plus shade, in leather cone type). Basically the same Bolsey camera, but without double exposure prevention, but with the rangefinder. Same Wollensak lens and Shutter as the B2 Model. This one has a script on the leather top as to the type, presumably original, and needs a new red button Bolsey badge for the top. The filters are a mystery as they look at first glance to be too big. Stephen.
|
|
|
Post by paulhofseth on May 25, 2015 2:10:53 GMT -5
The made-in-US cine Bolsey had a fixed Navitar 10mm f 1.8. lens
p.
|
|
Stephen
Lifetime Member
Still collecting.......
Posts: 2,718
|
Post by Stephen on May 25, 2015 6:42:21 GMT -5
The Navitar lens was quoted as pretty useless at any aperture less than F4. It is very easy to design a lens of fast aperture for cine uses, with short focal lenght. However, Bolsey, or Wollensak, tried to have apertures go down to F22,(one reference says F32), which caused awful loss of definition due to diffraction at F5.6 or smaller. Bolsey never actually made any lenses, he was an engineer, and I suspect that he specified the lens without knowing about the problems. Many other cine cameras stopped down too far as well, ruining the sharpness in good light conditions. Why Wollensak made the lens in that form is unknown. My gues it went ahead to provide a lens that matched other makes in features.
Stephen
|
|
|
Post by paulhofseth on May 26, 2015 13:48:24 GMT -5
Mr. Bogopolsky seems to have continued his predilection for stainless steel- as used in the early Alpas. My cine version goes down no further than f.22 AND it has "Waterhouse stops", not an iris aperture.
p.
|
|
Stephen
Lifetime Member
Still collecting.......
Posts: 2,718
|
Post by Stephen on May 26, 2015 15:53:47 GMT -5
Small apertures only work with plain waterhouse stop, as it is esaier to drill a hole in thin material, and countersink the hole to get an edge of a few microns. You cannot do this with blades, as the small aperture hole is tiny, but the blades form a tube around the hole, causing reflections, and stopping a direct line through the hole for light that is from the edge of the field, getting diffraction that is low in the centre, but high at the edge.
Specialist lenses of longer focal length can have minute stops made in 1 thou stainless steel, with chamfering the hole edge to about 3 micron. I have 135mm with an approx F180 stop used for model rail photography that requires great apparent depth of focus.
Because the light come is longer there is little fall off, but with a 10 mm lens the angles are far steeper, and if blades are used the performance is dreadful.
The only cure was adopted by Bolex, the Kern 5mm wide angle, which was a retrofocus design, and could have a larger physical stop, which acted as a smaller one. But I suspect one Kern lens cost about the cost of the entire Bolsey cine.
Most of the Bolsey designs were meant to be cost effective, except the Alpa, the Bolex was competative for its high quality, but the Bolsey was not in that league, designed for the popular market.
Quite who the Cine Bolsey was designed for is a bit open to question!
Stephen.
|
|
|
Post by paulhofseth on May 27, 2015 13:39:08 GMT -5
Interesting info on Waterhouse.
I suppose a tunnel instead of a knife edge will confuse the diffraction-prone photons so that they will not just be in two minds about where to land, but in several.
One supplementing piece of info, (for 2x8 at least) my Kern Switar is 0,5mm longer, 5,5. I may have the price list in my library, but no time to fish it out right now.
I do not think Bogopolsky had much influence after the first Viteflex\Alpas.
I believe that it was the need that Pignons had for an outlet for their cogwheels and the Swiss patriotism and fear of overdependence on Leitz that drove development. Remember that Alos, Telefonbau und Normalzeit bought the main output from the factory and kept them afloat.
In their final years mr. Bourgeois seemed to chase any avenue for income. When I had one of my Alpas in for service he once showed me round at their Ballaguies plant (lots of spare parts, an impressive test photo rooom, but few workers). Besides highlighting the Roman road behind the factory, his main interest lay in promoting their new underwater devices.
p.
p.
|
|
Stephen
Lifetime Member
Still collecting.......
Posts: 2,718
|
Post by Stephen on May 27, 2015 15:25:03 GMT -5
You are right about the Switar, is was 5.5mm I just could not remember that exactly. I am only taking others imformation that Bolsey was the designer. There are more similarities with the 35mm Bolsey and Bolex than Alpa, mainly Bolsey's love of die cast aluminium, dropped on the cine 8 Bolsey due to the size forcing the use of steel, and it was stainless steel.
Stephen.
|
|
Stephen
Lifetime Member
Still collecting.......
Posts: 2,718
|
Post by Stephen on May 30, 2015 15:27:21 GMT -5
The Bolsey cameras have arrived, they are both in far better condition than the ebay photos and the sellers descriptions implied. Both work, although the B is sticky, and the shutter will need a clean up internally.
The B2 shutter works fine and is accurate, and both lens are in quite good condition, bar a good clean. The Wollensak lenses have different markings as to the name, Wollensak Velostigmat and Anastigmat, but I would presume they are the same Wollensak Triplet F3.4 44mm type lens fitted throughout the Bolsey range.
The Bolsey B has the name and model impressed in to the leather on the top plate, a bit unusual from net sources and pictures. The B2 has the leather off on the bottom, but it was inside the camera!
The Bolsey B2 has the syncro-mat flash contacts on the left top back of the camera. Also the B2 has a depth of field scale calculator on the back of the camera.
The B had an old Kodak Kodachrome film in place, marked made in UK, I assume the 25 ASA film speed rating.
There is a leather case with one, a bit of re-stitching is needed on the front, came with Two Series 5 filters in the leather strap filter case, but there is no adaptor to fit them onto the cameras smaller filter mount.
Both of the Aluminium Bodies need a bit of polishing and removing minors marks etc. They are totally sound though , unlike many cameras with Mazak Zinc castings, which can rot.
I will give them an initial clean and take some photographs.
Stephen.
|
|
Stephen
Lifetime Member
Still collecting.......
Posts: 2,718
|
Post by Stephen on May 31, 2015 10:21:46 GMT -5
The Bolsey B has a small query, is it the same lens as the other models? It is marked as a Velostigmat, instead of Anastigmat, which are usually a Cooke triplet formula. One or two web references seem to imply that a Tessar was used on the B at some point, but the lens has the same reflections as the Triplet on the B2.
Some shots on the net show the B with the Anastigmat name
One reference for the Military versions of the Bolsey mentioned a 4 element Tessar lens, but net shots show the same anastigmat name on the Wollensak lens front ring.
Were there any variants fitted, all seem to be the 44mm F3.2 lens markings?
Stephen.
|
|