6x9 camera with Pre-Tessar lens?

RalphLambrecht said:

I wanted to know why you excluded 6x6 folders.

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I haven't completely excluded 6x6 folders from consideration, but...
a. I already have a Rolleicord V for 6x6 (I might try putting something over the taking lens to see what it looks like)

b. I've never had 6x9 negatives, so wanted to try out that format. I would probably not ever consider contact printing 6x6, but I might consider contact printing 6x9. Also, most of the old family photos I've seen are rectangular and not square, so I think the shape is part of the old time look.

c. The more recently made folders (early-mid 1950) are probably going to have more modern lenses, and make negatives that don't look much different from my Rolleiocrd V (1954-1957). And the older folders (1920-1940) which are more likely to have a pre-tessar lens designs, I think might be more likely to have damaged bellows or mechanical problems, but I don't really know?

loccdor said:

Ensign box camera had models for 6x9. Might still be too sharp for him. The corners are definitely blurry though.

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Thanks for that. I've just been looking at Ensign's 1930 catalog of camera models. Fascinating! They had some very innovative design features, and so many models!

runswithsizzers said:

Thanks for that. I've just been looking at Ensign's 1930 catalog of camera models. Fascinating! They had some very innovative design features, and so many models!

https://www.pacificrimcamera.com/rl/00704/00704.pdf

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Great catalog! Thank you, had not seen it.

runswithsizzers said:

Thanks for that. I've just been looking at Ensign's 1930 catalog of camera models. Fascinating! They had some very innovative design features, and so many models!

https://www.pacificrimcamera.com/rl/00704/00704.pdf

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That catalogue is a great find!

For non-UK folks (or younger UK ones!), the currency of the time was pounds, shillings and pence (£,s,d) with 20 shillings to one pound and 12 pence to 1 shilling. And inflation since 1930 means that one pound £1 in 1930 is around £85 today. So the All Distance Pocket Ensign No 1 ("extremely attractive for ladies" ... how language has changed!) on page 8 at £2 is about £170 now, or about US$230.

I think I have a few pound notes in a cigar box somewhere, unused after returning from a visit in 1977. Do you think I can still get an Ensign for £2 ?

runswithsizzers said:

I think I have a few pound notes in a cigar box somewhere, unused after returning from a visit in 1977. Do you think I can still get an Ensign for £2 ?

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Never know, you might get lucky in a charity shop.

blee1996 said:

I have a Kodak Brownie Special 616 box camera with uncoated 105mm f/13 meniscus lens, and the results are plenty sharp. You have to look for worse lenses to get those dreamy effects...

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It appears that the thread has reached the totally useless conclusion that there are no lens designs, however primitive, that are not sharp enough for somebody.

We’ve achieved peak forum.

_T_ said:

It appears that the thread has reached the totally useless conclusion that there are no lens designs, however primitive, that are not sharp enough for somebody.

We’ve achieved peak forum.

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I guess you speak from philosophy, while I speak from experience. This one is actually from the primitive lens of Brownie Special Six-16, Ilford Pan F+. I don't know if it is not sharp. We can agree to disagree.

One way of reducing aberrations is to make the lens very slow by modern standards, like f/11 to f/13. The designers of Brownies knew what they were doing. I don't know exactly what each person means by "dreamy," but often some kind of subject isolation from a combination of limited depth of field, spherical aberration halo effects, and soft corners. These are going to push you to wider apertures.

It is possible, not very hard, to write down a list of demanded features in a camera+lens that is exclusive enough to have no clear-cut answer. I'm not singling out the OP, this happens all the time on Photrio and elsewhere. Then one has to decide whether to relax some of the specifications, to take up experimenting with possible solutions, or to turn away an ever longer list of proposed suggestions. Like, if one wants a simple lens, one could get the cheapest Kodak Tourist, but then it's not a fast or highly aberrated lens. One could mount an meniscus lens on a shutter and use it on a Baby Graphic to set the focus, but then it's not very compact. And so on.

You could always try something like this;

blee1996 said:

I guess you speak from philosophy, while I speak from experience. This one is actually from the primitive lens of Brownie Special Six-16, Ilford Pan F+. I don't know if it is not sharp. We can agree to disagree.

View attachment 417185

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It is a great snap indeed. I guess the sun helped a lot; I found that vintage lenses (in my case: 90 and 135mm Elmar M Leica chrome lenses from 1960s) perform very well when the sun is up.

I am still trying to make up my mind about where, exactly, on the spectrum from really bad to really good image quality I want.

I am a little reluctant to grab examples of photos that have the look I like from other photographers, either Photrio members or from the internet at large. Not sure if that that is ethical or legal?

Most of the images from my Rolleicord V are more normal looking that what I have in mind -- except, I did make a few shots with pantyhose stretched over the lens that do get more interesting. I discovered that stretching the hose material more tightly reduces the effect, so I had some control of the degree of softness.

Below are a couple of examples from the Rolleicord with pantyhose "filter" effect. I think the effect would be more to my liking if it were less uniform -- that is, a bit sharper in the center, and maybe less sharp in the corners. So I am going to try to make some custom filters, but first I need to find a Bay 1 adaptor that converts to 49mm filter threads.

So I may decide that using some kind of filter to modify a relatively modern lens from a 6x9 folder may be a more reasonable option compared to trying to find a camera with a meniscus lens that also offers more than one or two shutter speeds and/or apertures.




I might like a little stronger effect than what this second one shows, especially around the edges?

Maybe its my aging eyes...I dont see any "effect".

RezaLoghme said:

Maybe its my aging eyes...I dont see any "effect".

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Are you viewing on a phone or a desktop monitor?

The effect is more subtle on the second photo, but I think it should be noticible on the first one if viewed on a decent sized monitor?

It's easier to see when zoomed in (click thumbnail to enlarge)

runswithsizzers said:

I am a little reluctant to grab examples of photos that have the look I like from other photographers, either Photrio members or from the internet at large. Not sure if that that is ethical or legal?

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Just credit them, and we generally won't have a problem. If you can provide a link as well, that should meet any legal concerns, although in most cases internet distribution means people are welcome to share credited work on the internet.

If it wasn't for the fact that it's a folder without any aid to focussing other than a scale with a red mark that I take to be a hyper-focal aid, my 1934 Lumière Lumirex might well be close to what you might like. Soft lens probably a triplet, 105mm f6.3-22, 3 speeds 25-100 +B and T. The bellows doesn't leak and it takes 120 film. Of course the softness might be fungal growth or my bad focussing. It does take 120 film (mine also scratches it!) and is 6x9 format. I like it very much, apart from the dirty lens and the scratches (both of which I hope to get fixed before too much longer).

Try a skylight filter smeared with Vaseline.
A technique that is even older than the cameras you are considering!
It looks to me like it isn't lousy lens you are looking for, but rather images that have controllable amounts of aberrations added to them.
You could probably achieve most of what you want by just framing your shots in a way that encourages flare.
Something like this:



Which was taken with the same lens and camera as this one: