What's this Meopta Magnifax part for?

[whitezo]

I've managed to acquire a bunch of Meopta Magnifax 4 parts in one go, some of which I needed, some of which I didn't, and one I don't even know what it's for. Could anyone tell?
It fits in the negative carrier slot, has the same rangefinder focusing mechanism, but has a small drawer with matte glass.

 

[darkosaric]

It looks like carrier for mounted slides.

Edit: can you show back of the box - what it says, or some text inside?

 

[MartinP]

I haven't seen one of these exact devices before, but extrapolating from my own Meopta this would replace the standard negative carrier completely - that can be seen by the rails for the pressure springs on top and by the focussing device at the back of the carrier.

I think it is probably a sheet film holder for 6,5x9cm sheets. Does the rectangular plate with the brass screws lift up? Somehow the anti-Newtons-rings glass would go on top of the film to keep it flat, so lifting the plate (via the brass handle??) might enable this in some way. Or is the glass we can see a double glass where the sheet could fit between two glasses?

Note: I have a mounted slide carrier and it is a single piece with a couple of spring clips, which fits where the lower glass or plate would sit - so nothing like this device. You could try sending the pictures and the part-number to Meopta and Fotoimpex (who stock many spares for the enlargers) to see if they can help.

 

[gorbas]

It's copy attachment for 6.5x9cm sheet film. You are missing film holders for it. I had them 20 or more years ago but in that time I was missing this part. Removable glass on the top is focusing screen. Also you could focus with rangefinder on this copy carrier (the same way as with regular negative carrier).

 

[MartinP]

Aha! I think Gorbas has the answer

It all makes sense now.... So, the focussing ground-glass (not film-flattening anti-Newton) is removable and then would be replaced by a dark-slide holding the film.

Making an exposure would require a shutter of some sort, but that could be as simple as removing the lens cap and counting elephants (though how that light-level would be bright enough to focus I'm not sure) or by using flash for the exposure and modelling light for focussing. When I used a copy-camera regularly, also decades ago, the lens was mounted in a shutter and the flash was synched in the usual way.

 

[whitezo]

there's no further info on the box

 

[whitezo]

Yes, one of my friends suggested this as well , that it may have been used for "reproduction work", using the lens below as a taking lens I guess.

The ground glass part can indeed be removed, but I haven't used sheet film, so I wasn't familiar with this format but it sounds logical.

And come to think of it, it would really look like a large format camera with the bellows, and without the light source at the top.

 

[AgX]

Employing an enlarger as repro-camera is not unusal. Durst had several models that could work this way. Up to autofocus and projection of a grid indicating the boundaries of the field to be photographed.