I have just acquired a barrel mounted Schneider 150mm 5.6 Symmar-S for a rediculous price. Now I need a shutter for it. Would it fit into old shutters like Prontor-SVS, or a (Synchro?) Compur shutter (with top speed 1/300) from an old Linhof Technica III that currently holds a Schneider Xenar. There is even a Mamiya TLR shutter available!!

-- zaeem burq (zab@ms.unimelb.edu.au), February 18, 2001

Answers

There are a couple of issues that must be dealt with to accomplish adding a shutter to your lens. If you examine factory shuttered lenses you will notice that the shutter is between the front and rear cells of the optic. To do this after the fact with a barrel mounted lens, you need to first adapt the front and rear mounting threads of the shutter to your lens cells. This is not enough though. You also need to make certain that the cells are going to be spaced exactly as they were when they were screwed together in barrel form. If this weren't enough, you also need to create a calibrated scale for the aperture as it pertains to your particular lens. All of this can be done for you by Steve Grimes and a wonderful job he will do indeed! Another approach is to utilize the iris in the barrel which is already calibrated. What you can do is mount the lens in FRONT of a shutter and use the shutter function only, relegating aperture control to the lens. In this instance, you need to first make certain the shutter is big enough to allow the lens projection to reach the film without vignetting. You must then find a way to attach the barrel lens to the front of the shutter. I've temporarily done this with the use of the barrel lens' flange and, of all things, black photographic tape! I also taped the aperture control lever of the shutter in the OPEN position so as to not accidently create a second iris opening, messing up my exposure. I since had an adapter ring machined for a couple of different lenses which I use in the same shutter. This works very well with my lenses and shutter. Steve Grimes will also front mount a barrel lens for you and if you go to his web site, you can look a diagrams of how all this is done and also examine a chart of lens/shutter suitablity. http:// www.skgrimes.com/ will get you there. Hope this helps.

-- Robert A. Zeichner (info@razeichner.com), February 18, 2001.

After much research, I came to the following realizations: Must reasonably new schneider barrel mounted and enlarging lenses fit straight into standard shutters. The Symmar-S above fitted straight into a #0 Copal press shutter. Later on, I acquired a barrel mounted Schneider 2.8/100 Xenotar, which fitted directly into a #1 Compur shutter without any modifications. Then, I bought a barrel mounted 9/ 150 G-Claron, which fits directly into another #0 Copal press shutter. I have found it is a cheap way of getting lenses for large format work.

One thing to watch out for is that enlarging lenses are usually optimized for close-up work. But sometimes photo lenses like the Symmar-S and the Xenotar are available in barrels, and at a fraction of the new price.

Zaeem Burq zab@ms.unimelb.edu.au

-- zaeem burq (zab@ms.unimelb.edu.au), April 16, 2002.