Barrel lenses

greenspun.com : LUSENET : Large format photography : One Thread

Hi, Re Barrel lenses Is there any kind of affordable device/accessory (i.e., some kind of flap, etc.) available on the market that one easily and somewhat hermetically--w/o much vibration--stop the exposure on a barrel lens. I know of the hat tricks, lens cap, possibilities, but the light loss and vibration seems to be a draw back. Relatedly, with a Packard shutter, is there a B-setting where you can close the shutter at will? Are these shutters easy to use and affordable? Other options? Thanks in advance, Mike

-- Michael Fuller (M.E.Fuller@durham.ac.uk), June 08, 1999

Answers

Oooops, found the shutter info on Packard shutters on this site, so you can disregard this portion of the question! Thanks, Mike

-- Michael Fuller (M.E.Fuller@durham.ac.uk), June 08, 1999.

Do a search for antique cameras and lenses some time, and you should come up with all kinds of weird looking gizmos that were used to do just what you describe. As far as a modern camera that will accomodate barrel mount lenses and still provide a full range of shutter speeds from Time to 1/1000, the choice has to be a Speed Graphic with its built in focal plane shutter. The only drawback is that it will not sync electronic flash except when used "open flash_ -- that is, open the shutter, fire the flash, close the shutter. It will sync focal plane type flash bulbs.

-- tony brent (ajbrent@mich.com), June 08, 1999.

A cheap source of high-quality shutters are the Polaroid oscilloscope cameras and MP-series of copy cameras, both of which are currently plentiful in junk shops and science department attics as everyone switches over to digital. These have non-standard threads so can be a pain to use with other lens cells than the supplied Polaroid (Tominon) ones, but there's no reason why you can't mount just the shutter in front of or behind an existing lens using a simple lens cap or filter-ring adaptor. People worry that if the shutter is not at the optical centre of the lens it will underexpose the outer parts of the frame, but that is only a problem for the fastest shutter speeds. The built-in iris only opens to 30 mm or so, but that's wide enough to act as a useful f-stop with all but the most exotic lenses.

A better solution in the same vein is to use one of the Sinar DB shutters which are designed to be mounted behind barrel-mount lenses on Sinar monorails cameras. These are available second hand for prices from #100 upwards depending on cond

-- Struan Gray (struan.gray@sljus.lu.se), June 11, 1999.


Moderation questions? read the FAQ