Newbie Question on pricing old barrel lenses?

Magpie · Jan 13, 2006

Hi,
Being new to LF I have been haunting ebay etc looking at lenses and trying to work out values, if I was looking at two similar lenses, one in say a copal #2 shutter and the other not, how much cheaper should the lens without the shutter be?

I haven't seen enough shutters on their own to get an idea, and being on a budget do not want to pay 'over the odds'.

Regards

Brendan

Curt · Jan 13, 2006

SKGrimes.com can give you the estimate for mounting a lens in a barrel to a shutter. You have to figure the shutter cost and mounting fee. It can be expensive depending on the job. Since you might get lucky and find a "bargain" on ebay it could all go out the window. You could easily spend four hundred on a shutter and three hundred on a custom mount. If you provide the shutter you could cut the cost down but it would have to work with the lens.

avandesande · Jan 13, 2006

Getting a lens mounted is rarely economical. There are certain cases where the cells will screw right into the shutter, this is the case with the g-claron and a few of the other modern process lenses.

David H. Bebbington · Jan 13, 2006

Magpie said:
Hi,
Being new to LF I have been haunting ebay etc looking at lenses and trying to work out values, if I was looking at two similar lenses, one in say a copal #2 shutter and the other not, how much cheaper should the lens without the shutter be?

Off the cuff, I 'd say: Barrel-lens price 40% of lens in shutter.

Regards,

David

Ole · Jan 13, 2006

Or barrel lens $150 to $250 cheaper than lens in shutter - depending on age of lens, age, type, and size of shutter, "desirablilty" of either, phase of the moon, and who knows what else.

If you're new to LF, look for a bargain on an older lens in "unpopular" shutter. I just got me a 300mm f:5.6 Symmar in Compur #3 shutter for less than $200. That makes it one of my most expensive lenses to date!

Magpie · Jan 13, 2006

Ole said:
Or barrel lens $150 to $250 cheaper than lens in shutter - depending on age of lens, age, type, and size of shutter, "desirablilty" of either, phase of the moon, and who knows what else.

If you're new to LF, look for a bargain on an older lens in "unpopular" shutter. I just got me a 300mm f:5.6 Symmar in Compur #3 shutter for less than $200. That makes it one of my most expensive lenses to date!

Is it the size that makes the Compur #3 unpopular? If you got that lens on ebay I think I saw it.
Am I right in assuming that most lenses, if in good condition, and with sufficient coverage for the size format etc will perform satisfactorily? Not stellar performance from the older lenses but acceptable for B&W contact prints? :confused:

This lens stuff is making my head spin! And I still have to decide on film and all the wet stuff! Oh well it beats watching TV. :rolleyes:

Foto Ludens · Jan 13, 2006

Being a rather ignorant person, I'd say that you're right in your assumption. A while back I asked a professor a similar question, and he told me that as long as the lens was coated, I had nothing to worry about. If it was made for photography and its coated, its a safe bet.

As a side note, I recently bought a 6.5" (163mm) JML Process lens on ebay for about 60 bucks shipped. This lens covers 8x10 with some movements and is very sharp (on contact prints, at least). Last week an identical lens (but poorly described) sold for less than 30 bucks.

André

David A. Goldfarb · Jan 13, 2006

Sometimes it can work out, if you're lucky. I have a 10" Wide-Field Ektar in an Ilex #5 shutter. The Ilex #5 is big enough for me to use other barrel lenses on the front (requiring only 1 adapter, rather than two), and I have three lenses that fit the one adapter ring I had made by SK Grimes for about $125 some years ago--a B&L 5x8" Tessar, 12" Gold Dot Dagor, and 19" Apo Artar. The WF Ektar, Dagor, and Artar are a great combo for 8x10". The barrel lenses are lighter and more compact than shuttered lenses, and by having one shutter, I get consistent exposures for all three lenses.

Ole · Jan 13, 2006

Magpie said:
Is it the size that makes the Compur #3 unpopular? If you got that lens on ebay I think I saw it.
Am I right in assuming that most lenses, if in good condition, and with sufficient coverage for the size format etc will perform satisfactorily? Not stellar performance from the older lenses but acceptable for B&W contact prints? :confused:

No - acually the Compur #2 is the one that's "unpopular due to size".

There is no Compur #3, and never was. There is Compound #3 instead, which looks a little like a very old Compur. But the Compounds were in production well into the 1970's, and are very reliable shutters. But look very old.

Another one with a size problem is the Compound #5: 125.5mm diameter (almost 5") is too big for most lensboards, and the lenses that need these huge shutters tend to weigh anything from one to 3 kilos.

Yes, I got the lens off ebay - Germany.

For the nest question, you are absolutely right: Most lenses made in the last century are satisfactory, many are exellent. The poorest ones are the very very cheap ones (original price), and the very very expensive ones (ditto, but also "collector's price"): A 10-element 2-group double anastigmat was expensive, is expensive, and is theoretically a wonderfully sharp lens. Pity it's never been possible to produce perfect samples - in 99% of the samples, a cheap Aplanat would be sharper...

Ole · Jan 13, 2006

Magpie said:
... one in say a copal #2 shutter and the other not, how much cheaper should the lens without the shutter be?...

That reminds me: There is no Copal #2 either. Just 0, 1, 3, and 3s. Compur was 00, 0, 01, 1, and 2; Compound was 3, 4, and 5. Compur 00, 01 and 2 disappeared some years before the others.

In addition there are a vast nuber of different "special" sizes from op until the 1930's; Every lens seemed to have a different shutter. "#2" is often used as a lump term for these, but that is not correct. Even if SK Grimes says so, and uses one of the "oddball" measurements for size 2.

Newbie Question on pricing old barrel lenses?

Magpie

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Ole

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Newbie Question on pricing old barrel lenses?

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