Baby Bessa Lens

thuggins · Oct 17, 2018

The second element in the lens on the Baby Bessa appears to have no notches for a spanner. I assume that leaves the rubber stopper method which isn't working well so far (I've never had much luck with it). Has anyone had one of these apart? I'm trying to clean the shutter.

lobitar · Oct 17, 2018

thuggins said:
The second element in the lens on the Baby Bessa appears to have no notches for a spanner. I assume that leaves the rubber stopper method which isn't working well so far (I've never had much luck with it). Has anyone had one of these apart? I'm trying to clean the shutter.

I suppose the Baby Bessa is the 6x6 folder? Could you possibly post a picture, would be helpful.

Dan Daniel · Oct 17, 2018

Try putting it in the freezer for half an hour or so. Sometimes the contraction can loosen whatever is locking it in place. Put in plastic bag and let it warm up before opening bag. And yes, rubber stopper is it. Or cut a piece of rubber from a bicycle tire to protect the rim, then attach a hose clamp to give yourself a leverage point (but DO NOT overtighten the hose clamp- distorting the threads for the front element is not pretty). I've finding Tri-flo oil is a decent oil to drip along frozen threads, also, but that could commit you to a full strip down on a shutter if it goes in too far.

(The Baby Bessa is a 6x4.5 folder with no rangefinder, automatic frame spacing mechanism. Looks like the 6x6. Very sweet little camera if you can deal with setting distances by eye.)

MattKing · Oct 17, 2018

Dan Daniel said:
(The Baby Bessa is a 6x4.5 folder with no rangefinder, automatic frame spacing mechanism. Looks like the 6x6. Very sweet little camera if you can deal with setting distances by eye.)

Actually, the Baby Bessa came in both 6x6 and 6x4.5 versions.
This is from my Baby Bessa (essentially full frame):

Dan Daniel · Oct 18, 2018

MattKing said:
Actually, the Baby Bessa came in both 6x6 and 6x4.5 versions.
This is from my Baby Bessa (essentially full frame):

Ah, so both of them are called a baby Bessa? I've only seen the 6x6 listed on Ebay a couple of times and it looked pretty much like the 6x4.5. Do you know, was it basically the same camera chasis?

MattKing · Oct 18, 2018

Dan Daniel said:
Ah, so both of them are called a baby Bessa? I've only seen the 6x6 listed on Ebay a couple of times and it looked pretty much like the 6x4.5. Do you know, was it basically the same camera chasis?

I've no idea - I've only ever seen the one I have, and I had to do a bit of research before I figured out that it was actually called a Baby Bessa.

thuggins · Oct 22, 2018

In German it was called the Klein Bessa, which translates as Small Bessa. As far as I can tell the 6X6 and 6x4.5 are identical except for the image size. It is a remarkably small camera, smaller than any other 6X6 I've seen.

The caution about the overtightening the hose clamp is a sound one; it looks like the from element will not be going back in place. Oh well, I bought this one to take apart, it wasn't working to begin with. In the future I will remember to try to address a similar problem with the front element screwed in place.

Also 6X6 is not full frame. 6X9 is full frame and I have seen various old references to 120 film as "rollfilm 6-1/4X3-1/4" (oddly not 3-1/2, which is closer to 90mm) with 6x4.5 referred to as "divided frame". I am not sure when 6x6 became a "thing", but it looks like it came about with the TLR. Both the 6X4.5 and 6X6 numbers on the backing paper obviously came along at a later time. Many half frame cameras have two windows for the eight count numbers to be advanced in twice. The Voigtlander Brilliant has a ruby window where you set the first frame by the eight count numbers and the remaining eleven frames by the counter on the side. So apparently, as of the early 1930's, 120 film was not consistently numbered for 6X6 exposures.

MattKing · Oct 22, 2018

My Baby Bessa is the best camera I have ever found for left handed people like me.

thuggins · Oct 30, 2018

I got the shutter fixed up and it works like a charm. I managed to get everything back together and the last check was the position of the focus scale. After numerous tries, the lens will not come into close focus (I always try to set the focus at about the 3 ft/1 m mark. First because this brings me the closest to the target and hence the largest image on the ground glass. Second because the close focus is the most critical). In fact, the front cell had to be removed completely and held about an inch in front of the camera to get it into focus.

These cameras came with a flip down yellow filter that is missing from mine (this appears to be very common). In addition to this it appears that someone had "worked on" the lens previously. Which got me to thinking. These shutters were sold to any number of manufacturers, so for a given size the threads for the lens cells must have been standard. Which means it would not only be possible to replace both cells, you could get a mismatch if someone only replaced one of the cells. Feasibly one of the lenses could have been damaged or had fungus, and someone thought they were being clever by discovering that a part from another camera "fit".

Has anyone ever run into this before? Does my theory of the standard thread size hold up?

Dan Daniel · Oct 30, 2018

Wait, I'm confused here. So you have the back lens group installed in the shutter block. The shutter block is mounted on the standard in the body. The back element of the front group is in the shutter block. And then, it won't foucs closely at all, unless the front element is floated an inch in front of the second element of the front group?

Two questions- how are you checking focus?
And what happens if the front element is screwed into the front group? Will it focus on infinity? At any distance?

And yes, threading on shutter blocks was somewhat standardized. I know that Compurs and Copals and Seikosha/Citizens have the same threading (some day, some day!! a Minolta Autocord will walk the earth with a Zeiss Planar lens in that wonderful focusing helical of the Minolta's...)

thuggins · Oct 30, 2018

Dan Daniel said:
Wait, I'm confused here. So you have the back lens group installed in the shutter block. The shutter block is mounted on the standard in the body. The back element of the front group is in the shutter block. And then, it won't foucs closely at all, unless the front element is floated an inch in front of the second element of the front group?

Pretty much. But I'm actually removing the whole front cell, not just the front element. That is the first and second element that sit in front of the shutter and aperture, In other words, I am removing the entire subassembly that normally screws in and out to achieve focus.

Dan Daniel said:
Two questions- how are you checking focus?
And what happens if the front element is screwed into the front group? Will it focus on infinity? At any distance?

With a ground glass screen. I've used this method many times with no issues. It will focus at about 5 feet, with the front cell screwed out just to the point of falling out.

moto-uno · Oct 30, 2018

^^ And all this time people have sung the praises of the Autocord lens ? Peter

Dan Daniel · Oct 30, 2018

moto-uno said:
^^ And all this time people have sung the praises of the Autocord lens ? Peter

Horses for courses? The Rokkor is a great Tessar-type design. Great for portraits, people, etc. The Planar (and Xenotar) are sharper, more bite. Some days I want smooth, some days I want bite. Any day I want the Autocord helical. Some day every day will be any all day!! If anyone runs across a nice set of a 75mm Planar, let me know.

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