[pure-silver] Re: Wollensack Vitax lens? Which way is up-)
- From: "Richard Knoppow" <dickburk@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: <pure-silver@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Fri, 18 May 2007 11:09:28 -0700
----- Original Message -----
From: "Nick Zentena" <zentena@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: <pure-silver@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Friday, May 18, 2007 10:50 AM
Subject: [pure-silver] Re: Wollensack Vitax lens? Which way
is up-)
On Friday 18 May 2007 05:39, Richard Knoppow wrote:
This looks more like a 100 years of dust. It was so thick
I couldn't see
anything. Better then a lenscap. I think unless I decide
to paint the inside
of the barrel I'll leave the element alone. The barrel is
big enough to fit
my whole hand so I can get to the inside of the element.
I'm not sure of the standard size for the Kodak
studio
cameras (sold under the Century name), The Agfa/Ansco
equivalents had 9x9 inch lens boards. Ilex used to make a
back shutter that fit right into this size opening and
took
a somewhat smaller lens board on the front. I have one of
these guys but the shutter blades warped. I will have to
dig
it out and try heating them in a dry mounting press to
see
if that will flatten them out again. This shutter project
is
on the back burner, so to speak, because I don't have a
camera which will take this very large size lens boards.
The opening is 9x9. The front standard is so big the
opening looks small-)
The more I look at the camera the more I wonder if it
started out being a
plate camera. The current back is an add on. A 4x5 press
camera back mounted
on some 13x13 plywood. But the side of the camera has
hinges that look like
the stock back swung out of the way like a door.
It just seems strange that at full extension it's only
21". Seems pretty
short. I was hoping on mounting my 19" Brown process lens.
This is the first
camera I've owned strong enough for the Brown. My Calumet
CC401 needed wooden
wedges to handle the weight.
Thanks
Nick
The swing out door does sound like a very old plate
camera. I suspect you have half the bellows and a center
section is missing. The Agfa/Ansco camera had two section
bellows with a center wooden section which took lensboards
inside. This allowed the camera to be used for short focal
length lenses and also could be used for copying or
enlarging negatives which were mounted on the front of the
camera in an adaptor. I don't remember if Kodak sold a
Century camera like this but they probably did. Typically,
an 8x10 studio type camera has a bellows draw on the order
of 50 inches. There are a couple of Agfa/Ansco catalogues on
the Camera Eccentric web site which show the No.5 studio
camera. He also has some Kodak catalogues there but I
haven't looked to see if any of them show the Kodak Century
studio cameras. Century was originally in independant
company founded in 1900 (hence the name) but bought by
Eastman a couple of years later. Many of Kodak's view
cameras were made by this division and many by Graflex, or
its predecessors, under contract.
---
Richard Knoppow
Los Angeles, CA, USA
dickburk@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
=============================================================================================================
To unsubscribe from this list, go to www.freelists.org and logon to your
account (the same e-mail address and password you set-up when you subscribed,)
and unsubscribe from there.
Other related posts:
