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Opemus 5 - Baffled by Negative Carrier

lilserenity

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Oct 29, 2008
Messages
85
Format
35mm
Hiya,

I do hope someone can help.

I recently acquired a Meopta Opemus 5 for next to nothing which I wanted to use as a upgrade to my Axomat 5 which is fine for 35mm but I'm now getting into some 6x6 MF work.

I picked it up and it's all working. What I am confused by is the negative carrier.

You pull it out (it's got too large 'wings' on the side, probably for the negatives to roll up in that aren't in the negative carrier itself) and there are two glass plates, top and bottom. There are then four plastic sliders which adjust four plastic 'blades' to crop the bottom glass plate's 'size' as it were e.g. if you had a smaller negative or larger etc. This is how I guess you'd crop between 35mm and 6x6.

There are then two pins, which four settings each which move up and down towards the back of the negative carrier. I cannot for the life of me figure out what these are for, and what they're doing, seemingly nothing. Nothing moves at all when I move each of them up and down. What are these for?

Secondly, how (million dollar question!) am I going to in the case of 35mm be able to accurately get the 35mm strip straight and crop it to 36x24mm accurately?

As it stands I can see myself only using the Opemus 5 for 120 which is a bit of a shame.

Any advice would be grateful. I have been looking for a manual and through old threads but all the manual links are dead and the information is a bit vague in not answering my queries.

Any help would be so gratefully received,
Vicky
 
You did not include a picture of the carrier, but can it be that the pins you mentioned are to line up your neg's ????

Peter
 
I have an Opemus 6 somewhere. From what I remember the pins are to hold the negative in place and line it up. I'm assuming you're not going to print full frame off the negatives in 35mm so, why should a minimal edge crop matter? Anyway if you really care you could allways remove everything (pins "black junk" as it is a glass negative carrier. The "wings" you describe are for the extra negative... some people stored them as one piece. If you search around I'm sure you can find a manual that will describe the carrier. If you are really that puzzled you could allways make a temporary one.
 
Indeed, the two pins are to align the film: you move them back for 120 and forward for 35mm. At the back of the neg-carrier there is also a focussing aid tool: when you align on the board the two light lines, the enlarger is focussed.

Well, the glass equipped neg-carrier is good when you need to keep the neg. flat, or when you want to print with black borders (works in 35mm, not sure it does in 120 too). But you can look on ebay for other two neg-carriers (or at least one more), as well as for the glass-free inserts for 35mm and 120 film. These go very cheap. I say to look for at least another carrier, because it is not recommended to mount and unmount the glass inserts. So, for the glass-free inserts I would use a second carrier. For my Opemus 5 I have three carriers, each equipped with the glass, and the glass-free 35mm and 120 inserts.

Two more things: First, in the filter tray you might find a slightly greenish squared glass. This is an IR barrier, you use exclusively with the condenser head. With the color head this piece of glass has to be removed, and the tray stays empty (unless you add some additional graded filters). Secondly, do you know that the lens board has to be reversed when moving from the 50mm lens to a 75 or 80mm one? For the 50mm lens, the board has to be mounted in the concave position, and for the 80mm lens in the convex position. Meopta had an old proprietary mount for lenses: 22.5mm. These are easy to modify to accept older Schneider 25mm threaded lenses. But Meopta made also standard 39mm threaded boards.

A page that could help you: http://www.meopta.com/?id=166 If you don’t find the Opemus 5, look at the Opemus 2, and 6, as these are very close to the 5. In the past, they had the manual of the Opemus 5 too.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Hiya,

Many thanks for your replies, they are most helpful.

I have managed to get the Opemus 6 manual and though the details are a bit terse and the pictures low resolution, it appears the Opemus 5 carrier I have is virtually identical.

What threw me off a bit was seeing here:
http://www.thedarkroom.co.uk/products_class.php?getCategory=114&getBrand=22

What are these carrier inserts this page mentions for the Opemus 6? Again the tiny pictures make it almost impossible to visualise what these are. I was wondering if I was in fact missing something like those on that page.

I have attached two pics of the carrier.

I can see roughly how the carrier pins allow you to line up the negative but not sure how they would hold the negative in place. From lining it up I presume I can flip the carrier over and adjust the masking frames to match the size of the negative.

Opemus 5 Negative Carrier (sorry about the poor quality, mobile phone cameras for you!)

So long as nothing is missing I can get by easily enough.

I think the other problem was that my Axomat 5's neg carrier (cheap plastic one) although plastic, it does have the inset bit so that the 35mm strip sits straight in it.

The filter tray has no opal glass in it and the lens mount is definitely 39mm (something I checked beforehand as I didn't want to get lumbered) -- that said I didn't know about flipping the lens mount over etc., very helpful to know - thanks.
 
I don't think the pins are designed to actually hold the negative in place, only to have a "backstop" to prevent the negative sliding out of the area when being moved between frames. It can also be used to set a backstop for inbetween sizes such as 127.
 
The pins are "backstops". If the film edge is tight against the pins (and the pins are in the correct position for the film size), then the negative is centered in the carrier.
 

OK, the masks pictured there are all the same, no matter what the titles say: they are all 6x6 glass-free masks.


Now, with the glass masks, the two pins only helps to back guide the film. They cannot perfectly guide it (front and back), because they are universal masks: you can use them with any film format up to 6x6. You only have to crop the image to the film format you use by adjusting the metal blades in the base of the carrier.

On the contrary, with the glass-free masks, that are specifically made for each film format (up to 6x6), you won’t need the two pins of the carrier, as the masks have themselves front and back guides for the film they accommodate. As for the metal blades in the base of the carrier, they help you to crop a part of the image, if you want it. So, you not only can crop the image by using the board’s blades, but also by using the carrier’s blades, so that the projected image match the size of the printed image. By doing so, you avoid the unnecessary light during the exposure.

BTW, at the top of the carrier’s image you attached in your last message, you can see the focussing tool integrated into the carrier. It is very useful when you do a lot of small prints.


Indeed, the carrier is operational and you can start printing with it. As for the Axomat, it is the cheaper line from Meopta. On the contrary, I never understood why they called the Opemus 5, "5a" in fact, where "a" is from amateur (they say that in the manual, but don’t explain it)!?
 
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