Does anyone collect Exakta cameras?

[Wishy]

Didn't Exakta make a version of that East German 6x6 SLR (the name escapes me right now), or did they just import the East German camera and spruce it up a little?

They made a Prewar and Post war 6x6 camera. They're both rare. I believe it was only about 2000 post war 6x6's that were produced, as they had a design flaw in them and were quickly discontinued. They fetch very decent cash on ebay.
The concept was refined and used for later 6x6 cameras (Kowa i think, but i could be wrong)

 

[Wishy]

I bought a couple of Exaktas from the estate of the late Jim Upton who was a competent repairman and replaced the shutter curtains.
A common fault with Exaktas is shutter curtain pinholes. I dealt with this by diluting 'Plasti-dip' as sold for dipping tool handles and carefully painting the shutter curtains. This salvaged a beautiful 'embossed' nameplate VXII acquired at a jumble sale.
Mark

I hadn't realised Jim Upton had died.

Shutter pinholes are indeed common, Fabric paint will definately sort the problem in the short term, but you might find the shutter speeds go wonky afterwards. I will generally spot them to check for other faults, and if theres not a lot else wrong send them for service. But I do generally build the cost of service into the amount I'm willing to pay.

 

[Marc Akemann]

I forgot to mention another Exakta-mount lens I have. It's a 400mm f4.5 Piesker Tele-Picon (Berlin W. Germany) that I bought at a consignment shop a couple of years ago. Amazingly, I still haven't shot with it yet. The lens is very heavy, has a fixed lens hood with no threads for filters and has perhaps a single coating on the front element only. The aperture is beautifully round with 20 diaphragm leaves!

I will shoot with it soon.

Does anyone have experience with this or any other Piesker lenses?

Marc

Here's a funny thing on eBay regarding the above mentioned lens. There's a guy selling the front part of this lens and claiming it'll work for 4x5, 5x7 and 8x10 LF cameras. http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&rd=1&item=380028173805&ssPageName=STRK:MEWA:IT&ih=025
This lens has at least 4 or 5 elements in it and he's working with 2 of them with what he's selling there. I e-mailed him and told him I have the same lens with the difference being I have the entire lens assembly and it was made for 35mm cameras. He said he has bench tested it and came up with 339mm of coverage. No other info. Am I missing something here?

Marc

 

[Curt]

I bought a new Exacta 500 at K-Mart back in the late '60's early '70's, can't recall because of my age but it was sweet. Never trade a camera off to get another, in this case a Mamiya 645, can't pronounce Mamiya this evening but the Exacta was well... Exactly perfect. Got some great negatives from it and wish I still had it.

 

[Dan Fromm]

Marc, the Canadian who sells on eBay as wideangleman is, to be polite, a wild-eyed raver. He doesn't understand much about the lenses he offers or he lies shamelessly. I fear both may be true.

Do you know Bob Monaghan's MF site? He's posted a couple of articles there about hacking inexpensive 400 mm and longer "telephoto" lenses sold for 35 mm cameras. Many of them have cemented doublet achromats at the front that will form an image. And in fact some so-called tele lenses, e.g., the Century 500/5.6 Tele Athenar II I sold a couple of years ago, are simply a cemented achromat at the front of a long tube. Long focus, not telephoto at all.

Cheers,

Dan

 

[Marc Akemann]

Marc, the Canadian who sells on eBay as wideangleman is, to be polite, a wild-eyed raver. He doesn't understand much about the lenses he offers or he lies shamelessly. I fear both may be true.

Do you know Bob Monaghan's MF site? He's posted a couple of articles there about hacking inexpensive 400 mm and longer "telephoto" lenses sold for 35 mm cameras. Many of them have cemented doublet achromats at the front that will form an image. And in fact some so-called tele lenses, e.g., the Century 500/5.6 Tele Athenar II I sold a couple of years ago, are simply a cemented achromat at the front of a long tube. Long focus, not telephoto at all.

Cheers,

Dan

Dan,

I guess 'wideangleman' is going to go through with the auction. He also wants $31 for shipping. :rolleyes:

Thanks for the link to Bob Monaghan's site. I used to use his old site years ago and thought it was dead. Interesting about the Century 500/5.6 Athenar II. That was a pretty expensive lens, as were the other Century lenses.

Marc

 

[Rebecca C]

i have an exacta vx and im having problems with it, can someone please help me out???
when im trying to take pictures the film won't keep rolling its just stays put and i'm overlaping my pictures!
e-mail: beccabrecama@gmail.com