Donald Qualls
Subscriber
Well, my Speed Graphic and Zeiss Ideal are genuinely "folding" cameras, despite large format. Front standard retracts inside the body and is covered/protected by the folded bed...
Lovely pics!
So far, I have 3:
Kodak Special Six-20 with a Kodak Anastigmat Special f4.5 100mm lens & Compur Rapid shutter.
Kodak Special Six-16 with a Kodak Anastigmat Special f4.5 127mm lens & Compur Rapid shutter.
Kodak 3A Series III with a Kodak Anastigmat 170mm f6.3 lens & Kodak No. 2 Kodamatic shutter (pretty much the only lens/shutter combo/option it came with)
The 620 & 616 I sent out to get cla'ed & new bellows installed, so I haven't gotten a chance to shoot em yet. The 3A Series III I just got recently, will eventually sent it out to get cla & new bellow installed.
Kodak made some mighty fine cameras back then. As good as any German folders. I have probably six folding Super Ikontas and many folding Netter and plain Jane Ikonta cameras, and they are all very good optically. Still, I would put my trusty Kodak Monitor Six-20 w/ the red "SPECIAL" lens up against any of them. One area where the Kodak folding cameras of the late 40's early 50's suffered compared to their German counterparts was in the bellows material. The German folders certainly aged better than the Kodaks or Ansco cameras of the same period. I had to replace the bellows on my Kodak Monitor Six-20, but it was definitely worth it to me. I just wish I could get roll film for my Kodak Monitor Six-16 w/ the Special lens. You're talking getting close to 4X5 size negs out of a folder.
Kodak made some mighty fine cameras back then. As good as any German folders.
Some of the better Kodak folders effectively were German folders -- they bought out Nagel Werk in the 1930s and sold several models of the Kodak Vollenda folder in various formats (from half-frame 127 to 6x9 120), and kept a lot of the design philosophy behind the Nagel cameras even for folders made in Rochester after the War -- because Mr. Nagel was still designing those cameras.
Duo 620, also. My favorite German folder.
A lens is a lens is a lens. If it puts an image where you want it and you're happy with that image, then what else matters?...
That's not exactly on-label use, though.
design and 3D print an EF adapter that would allow me to shoot off some test frames on my 5D2
Why not just design and print a simple "box camera" while you're at it, to put the full image circle (or almost all of it) on a 4x5 sheet of film?
Mamiya Six folder
Yep, those are nice. Mine is very sharp, and the dual format with captive masks is a nice touch. With the auto frame counter (which mine doesn't have) it'd be even better.
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