Leitz Focomat iia colour focus issues with 9.5cm

[Keetonkieran]

Hi everyone,

First post here! I have just acquired a Focomat iia colour, with its original lenses and accessories. The 5cm focotar lens projects and focuses perfectly at all distances and to all scales, but the 9.5cm lens cannot find focus at all, not even close, and only by manually holding the detached lens well below the focus helicoid, am I able to find focus, but the distance held causes huge projection cutoff, resulting in a circle of the image projected onto the baseboard.
It seems as though my Focomat iia has two 5cm helicoids? Should the 9.5cm helicoid be longer than the 5cm?
Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated, as I bought this enlarger for 6x9 and 35mm printing.

 

[MARTIE]

I'm not familiar with this particular enlarger but I presume you'll need to change the condensers or the arrangement of the condensers whenever you switch film formats.

 

[Focomatter]

With the IIc one has to engage a separate focusing cam by sliding the lens carriage. The IIa has a different construction from your pic. Is there an alternate cam? Check to see how the AF (assuming all Focomats are AF, the I models are) works on the lens that does work to understand the mechanism.

 

[Hilo]

The suggestions made are valid. What you probably want is that the bellows drops further down (while bringing the enlarger downward) with the 9,5cm lens, than it does with the 5cm.

Also I have the IIc and the bellows drops significantly more downwards with the 100mm than with the 60mm. You could try to 'help' it a bit when you bring down the enlarger with the 95mm in place. Perhaps it hasn't operated for a long time?

 

[Keetonkieran]

Thankyou for the responses, the bellows do move when the lenses are engaged, and it seems to be to the same degree of movement for both lenses. It also appears there may be a cam engaging part missing, is the large lower cam for the 9.5cm lens, and is it supposed to be activated like the cam above?

 

[Keetonkieran]

This Focomat on eBay appears to have a cam pin for the lower cam?

 

[Keetonkieran]

Thankyou Helo,

I ‘helped’ the bellows and the second large cam caught onto the correct spot, I can start printing now!

Thanks again everyone!

 

[Hilo]

Great!

Try to understand how the dropping down happens. If a metal part is involved along which something slides up and down, it may need some cleaning and lubrication. For the cleaning I use some domestic petrol, for the lubrication I use a little vaseline on the metal parts . . .

 

[Lachlan Young]

There are two pin positions, you pull the pin and move it between them for the 5cm and 9.5cm cams. You shouldn't need to force anything. One cam is slightly offset from the other, hence the holes for the cam bearer are different depths.

 

[Hilo]

There are two pin positions, you pull the pin and move it between them for the 5cm and 9.5cm cams. You shouldn't need to force anything. One cam is slightly offset from the other, hence the holes for the cam bearer are different depths.

That makes sense! Laughlan, any pictures that show the pin and the 2 holes?

 

[Lachlan Young]

any pictures that show the pin and the 2 holes

Hopefully the attached images adequately describe the sequence of operations for changeover between the 9.5cm and 5cm cams. The only real note I'd add is that at step 4 you should use your fingers to let the lens stage rise gently to meet the 5cm cam, not slam in.

 

[Hilo]

Lachlan, that's great !

I don't have the IIa, but I will keep these because the question will no doubt come back!

Btw, the slight beginnings of rust on the cams: that does come off quite easily. I wonder if these cams come off easily?

 

[Lachlan Young]

the slight beginnings of rust on the cams: that does come off quite easily. I wonder if these cams come off easily?

It was like that when I got it about 5 years ago and hasn't progressed since, and I've had no reason to do anything to them - the only reason I'd look into accessing the cams would be to investigate making other profiles for different focal lengths - unlike the IIc, both lens mounts/ helicoids are identical, so the only limiting factor is getting lenses to fit the barrel limitations.

 

[Saganich]

I have a IIa and confirm the pin/cam switch is manual as described above...a fact I forget sometimes lol.