folders, folders, folders

You bet

I have a bunch of folders in my filing cabinet and a fresh box in the storeroom. Great for subject placement.

For 120 film, you might want to try APX100 (E.I. 200 in Diafine) or APX400. Both go for about $2 a roll right now at the major mail order places.

I note that Focal Press published the following book:

Isolette/Speedex Guide by W.D. Emanuel 1953, 2nd edition

Do any of you kind folks know of any later editions, perhaps from the late 1950's?
Thx for any info, Kiku

P.S. Any other Isolette Guides by different authors???

Wow! Am I happy! In my mail yesterday was a pkg. from Jurgen Kreckel.
Inside was a refurbished Agfa Isolette III that I had ordered. It has an f3.5 75mm Solinar lens, Synchro-Compur shutter, new tan bellows, green body covering and the metal in a brass finish. It is a beauty and Jurgen did a beautiful job. Now to run some film through it.
Kiku

Another folder discovery

It's been a while since I last posted. Since then, I've found and repaired the usual pin-point leaks in my folders' bellows, and shot more film. I've also been experimenting with Kodak's chromogenic 120 emulsions, which have worked out quite well! Instead of separate color-dye layers, they use black-and-white layers that are sensitive to different light levels. So with a film rated at 400 ASA, one can expose individual images at an "effective" speed from 200 to 1600 ASA... or even further outside those ranges, if you don't mind a drop in image quality.

I also wanted to share some further "discoveries" about the Kodak Monitor 620 (with its superb f4.5 "Anastigmat Special" lens). I have one of the earlier units (built in 1940), and it makes it quite easy to use modern 120 emulsions in a 620 camera. Just trim the edges of the spool flanges back to the film, and the spring mounts in the camera's film chambers take the longer 120 spools just fine. No respooling is needed.

In addition, while shooting my first roll of 120 in the Monitor 620, I noticed that the camera's auto-stop feature made the film-number viewing window obsolete. This spawned an idea. And sure enough, once I covered the red viewing window with black tape, I could capture 16 huge 6x9 negatives on 220 film. Not many MF folders can do that!

Sincerely,

Dave

About those folders and the camera butcher

When I closed my wedding studio, I sold off all my cameras. Someone told me I had a very short time to live. He died first, so I started to purchase old cameras. I don't know anything else, but didn't want to eat up the inhertance before anyone got it.

First I bought a german folder on Ebay. It was supposed to be in great shape. I am absolutely sure the man who sold it to me thought that it was. However it turned out to have some serious problems. The bellows began to leak light from every fold. Obviously it had dried out and waited until I owned it to crack. The shutter trip leaver stopped returning on its own. Leaving the shutter open without any warning.

Since I had so little money in the camera, I decided to butcher it. I have never been inside a leaf shutter so I figured what the heck. I removed the outter shell easily enough and there it was, front and rear glass surrounded by by levers and what not. Not having the slightest idea what to do next, I squirted it with graphite, the kind you use on locks. I cleaned both elements of the lens then re assembled the unit. (I have done this same thing to another lens and am shocked that it works) you have to get all the loose graphite out before you reassemle it or have a lot of black specks on the lens.

I had completed the distruction of the already distroyed bellows so I went looking for a body. I ended up with an old ansco pioneer 620 body from ebay $1 plus shipping. If anyone knows them they know that they are almost all metal with the exception of a small bakelite lens barrel. The lens is a single piece of glass and the shutter no more than a blade. Switching out the lens assemblies was easier than i thought. I glued up the joint with liquid nail construction cement and the wrapped a piece of black wool yarn into the crack and coated it with more cement. Held it all in place over night with thick rubber bands until it set up.

The camera that emerged worked perfectly. The graphite freed the sticky shutter and it works like gang busters. The lens is sharp but not graflex sharp however it is very portable and makes great 6x9 negs. By the way the 620 problem really isnt a problem, at all. It is just a chance to use a little reverse engineering of the whole system. In other words a heck of a lot of fun.

Oh yeah if you become a camera butcher always reset the focal distance so that there is a sharp image at infinity. Otherwise all your negs look like crap. since then I have butchered a polaroid model eighty ($1 on ebay) grafted it to a pioneer 616 camera to make 2 1/4 by 4 inch negatives. It does plenty sharp panaroma shots. Also a 120 graflex back onto a polaroid 160 roll film camera to make the sharpest studio camera I have ever owned. Record previously held by mamaya universal press camera, lost to the sell off.

I switched a kodak 828 jiffy lens to a 120 body (actually the case of the folder i started with) it shoots a round negative that fills the 120 frame. I usually clone in the corners in photoshop if I want to print it. It gives only mediocre sharpness but still pretty interesting old time stuff.

For the most part I shoot black and white film (arista) develop it myself, then scan the negatives and up load them to a store near me. I don't drive much these days. I also do a little photoshop on them now and again. My favorite so far is the polaroid 160 the negatives are beautiful but the damn thing weighs a ton and a half. It is best for the studio.

audiomystery said:

I had completed the distruction of the already distroyed bellows so I went looking for a body. I ended up with an old ansco pioneer 620 body from ebay $1 plus shipping. If anyone knows them they know that they are almost all metal with the exception of a small bakelite lens barrel. The lens is a single piece of glass and the shutter no more than a blade. Switching out the lens assemblies was easier than i thought. I glued up the joint with liquid nail construction cement and the wrapped a piece of black wool yarn into the crack and coated it with more cement. Held it all in place over night with thick rubber bands until it set up.

The camera that emerged worked perfectly. The graphite freed the sticky shutter and it works like gang busters. The lens is sharp but not graflex sharp however it is very portable and makes great 6x9 negs. By the way the 620 problem really isnt a problem, at all. It is just a chance to use a little reverse engineering of the whole system. In other words a heck of a lot of fun.

Click to expand...

I have a Pioneer 620 that I use fairly regularly with the original lens; the resulting images aren't extremely sharp, but they have a nice quality to them. However, in looking at mine, I think it would be almost trivial to convert to accept 120 directly. I'd need to file or grind just over 1 mm off the three round heads on the film spool locating pins, epoxy short pieces of brass tube over the pins to bring them up to 120 spool size, deepen the slot in the drive key on the pull-out film carrier to accomodate filing it, and modify the key that contacts the film spool to the 120 size -- probably all the work of a single day, once I find a piece of the right size brass tube and some channel stock that will fit over the drive key. I've already verified that there's clearance inside the camera for the diameter of a 120 spool on both sides; it's the length that causes the problem here.

So, mine will soon be a Pioneer 120.

I haven't been intersested in hacking the shutter completely off to allow mounting another lens/shutter assembly, but then I don't have any 6x9 folders with shot bellows. How do you deal with the curved film plane in yours? Don't the better lenses generally have a flat focal plane?

Zone focus is challenging me, even with a separate rangefinder. I am very prone to errors with folders, double exposures, shutter firing when I'm pointing anywhere but where intended, forgetting to change settings, forgetting to bring a tripod, and so on.

SLR and Crown Graphic both have ground glass, so there seems to be the discrepancy for me. I still guess poorly where to set focus when I want SOME DOF, so my judgement is obviously poor there. I get ready to wash my hands of them, then see a site like JohnDesq.com with his incredible interactive Moskva V script pages, or Aki-Asahi.com for exotic new leather for camera bodies, and I'm ready to dump more $ into a CLA.

My symptoms of folder-osis:

Agfa Ventura 69 with a persistent shutter problem...I decided to hack this down to a 6x9 roll back and keep the bellows and lens for other projects.

Moskva V with enough focus inconsistency to foil my own errors (I suspect focus friction drive slips)

Kodak (Nagel) Vollenda 620, uncoated Schneider Xenar 105/4.5. Shot a roll of 50's or 60's (guessing) Italian Panchro (Ferrania Pan?) this weekend....curly as could be. Only 3 obvious screwups out of 8 exposures (1 double, one fired while pointing at sky, one slipped while pressing shutter release and using a tree for support). The remaining 5 potential screwups will probably reveal themselves after development. I'm sure my composition was horrible too. I at least did make myself walk away from one scene, realizing I had a poor view heightwise (this is progress I guess). I hope to at least learn something about exposure and pre-seeing contrast and texture-worthy scenes in b/w.

I'm thinking about a business-card-sized DOF card tied to the camera case. I already do that with EV numbers for old shutter speed series.

Murray

Hey Don - interesting Polaroid 160 story. I read somewhere the 160 has a Yashica lens, but I don't know who made the 95b, 150 and 800 (and 900?) lenses, and if they should be any different from brand to brand if they were made to Polaroid specs.

The Moskva-5 doesn't have a friction drive in the focus, it's all gears. However, they are prone to wearing the bearing (which is just drilled in the cast zinc housing) for the focus knob enough out of round to allow the gears to skip a tooth now and then, which will (of course) throw the RF out of alignment. The scale on the lens ring should still be good, if the lens was correctly collimated (which you can easily check with a ground glass substitute at the film plane).

AFAIK, all the manual Polaroids in the pack film series (the 180, 190, and 195) have Tominon lenses (made by Yashica, I think); most of the older high-end models and some of the non-consumer cameras have Rodenstock Ysaron lenses (which, judging by their name, might well have been made for Rodenstock by Yashica, but I have no evidence on that score).

Hmmm, so the 95, 150 ,160, 800 & 900 optics are still of mysterious origin.

Well, when you're talking about an f/8.8 (or slower) triplet, I don't know that it makes a whole bunch of difference who built it. I could just about put together a lens in that class from Edmund Optical loose parts and get something that will make acceptable contact prints on 2x3 or 3x4...

Murray, they weren't off-the-shelf lenses like the Tominons and Rodenstocks used in 110s, they were made on contract to Polaroid's specifications by the winner of the bidding competition. All very reminiscent of the Novar triplets used on low-grade Zeiss-Ikon cameras. Made to Z-I specs by the low bidder. And reminiscent of many of the military surplus 75/4.5 Biogons floating around. Some of them were made by Viewlex. Ever hear of Viewlex? They also made 6" Metrogons. Same story, low bidder gets the contract, produces to specifications.

Hmmm, ok...

No, not Viewlex, but I did get some Metrogon filters that had some company name on them that made no sense, made me stare for a moment, out of the blue, like Lawn-Boy or something totally wrong.

Like a printing press I saw once made by Electric Boat Company...makes you pause & wonder if someone went back in a time machine & stepped on a bug, totally screwing up the future, causing irrational names like that.

I'm going to act like I didn't read that post about 220 film working in a 120 folder...I don't want to be tempted to go back & do it again...I just got over that phase and need some positive results in my photography to keep me from going digital!

Murray, you *do* know that Electric Boat built at least half of the American submarine fleet for WWII? They had to do something to, er, "stay afloat" after the war ended and there was suddenly so much less demand for submarines (after all, only one real customer, right?). Similarly, during the War, there were typewriter companies making pistols (you can occasionally find a 1911-A1 with Remington-Rand stamped on the frame), Ford built C-47s (aka DC-3), and GM manufactured the Liberator pistol, at a cost of under a dollar each, that was air-dropped by the tends of thousands over German occupied France.

All that said, I doubt we'll see 220 film again. There just aren't enough photographers who "need" it and few cameras that can use it at all relative to the number that want 120.

Instruction Manual Download for Billy Record II

Hi:

Does anyone in this forum have an instruction manual for a Billy Record II as an electronic file (.pdf) they can send me or know where I can download one?

Thanks,

Craig

I, too, love 6x6 and 6x9 folders, although I've bought many that weren't up to snuff. The Moscva was in mint condition but the lens was pitiful. All three Novar lenses were shall we be kind, 'sub-optimal." Tessars have been spotty performers as well.

At the moment, best performers include a late model Mamiya Six (which couldn't be any better in any way), a Billy Record III (Solinar), a Ensign Selfix 12-20 (marvelous Ross Xpres lens), and a beat to death Salex 645 with a very sharp Tessar which cost 20 GBP and has been worth every pence.

I don't here or see much about Ensigns which seem to be excellent cameras with usually excellent lenses. Any other Ensign users out there? And Mamiya Sixers?

Jurgen took a ratty Certo6 of mine and turned it into an object of beauty and admiration. He does impeccable work from new bellows to CLAs. And speedy.

Russ

Russ, I have a Selfix 820.

Ok camera, I guess, but since I usually shoot 2x3 with a 2x3 Graphic the Ensign feels like just one more damned thing to carry. It adds little, i.e., fits in only a slightly smaller pocket than a Century Graphic, and doesn't shoot as well. I may have a bad 'un, but the Selfix's 105/3.8 Xpres doesn't seem to be as good a lens as the 101/4.5 Ektar I use on the Graphics.

I have the impression that relatively few Ensigns were sold in the US.

Cheers,

Dan

Bought two folders (5£) in bric a brac shop 20 years ago ('81) dropped them in plastic box, several house moves later remembered. Both are 6x9 Bessas one with 4x speeds t,b,25 and 75, the other with six speeds. One needed the rear cell removed for condensation, and the shutter front plate removed to drip zippo fluid and PTFE liquid lube. Both had leathertte lifting, pritt stick is wonderful. One had the 4.5x6cm mask.

Film in both now only problem is what size for a lens hood 28.5mm?

Donald Qualls said:

Well, when you're talking about an f/8.8 (or slower) triplet, I don't know that it makes a whole bunch of difference who built it. I could just about put together a lens in that class from Edmund Optical loose parts and get something that will make acceptable contact prints on 2x3 or 3x4...

Click to expand...

I thought I had commented on this before, but it seems I haven't. OK, here goes:

Donald, NO CHANCE! Compared to just about any other lens construction in the history of photography (excepting zoom lenses), a triplet is the trickiest one of all. The centering and spacing are far more critical than most people realise - so much so that many were mounted in barrels with "tuning screws" for final adjustments.

There are lots of triplets, made by just about everybody, and they tend to be "decent". Only a few manufacturers made great triplets. Attempting to assemble even a "usable" one from loose parts from Edmund Optical loose parts is an exercise in futility. But it will undoubtedly be educational!

Ole said:

Only a few manufacturers made great triplets.

Click to expand...

Now you got me wondering; which triplets are the great ones?

Just a hint: Cooke's (or rather, TTH's) early triplets had centering screws.

I have a Voigtländer triplet which is great, another which is decent, and one which can charitably be termed "acceptable".

Cooke was the only name that came up when I thought about "great" triplets. The Novars I've been using has actually been a pleasant surprise - maybe it has to do with triplets being overly much "written down" and thus (my) expectations are very low?

Just jioned this forum & came across this thread. It is great to find lots of other people using old medium format folders. I have a few, but tend to use my ensign 220 more than the rest, small & light. It is great as it frees me up & allows me just to take pics. I am looking to get a mamiya six folder, does anybody have experience with one of these

Agfa Record II at "The Antique Mall" in Ottawa

Agfa Record II at "The Antique Mall" on Bank St. in Ottawa (Old Ottawa South) just across from the 7Eleven. At the booth/shop at the extreme southeast corner, tucked in the bottom back of a display case.

$65 CDN asking price, looks just beautiful.

While you're there, check out Olda's old cameras (not may left; one of you has been in, I'm sure...)

I'm not interested as I adore using my little Perkeo II.

AND, I have no affiliation w/ the seller.

PM me if you get it; just to make me feel good about finding another home for a poor orphan.