 Posted: Tue Feb 02, 2010 6:54 am Post subject: Zeiss Maximar baby view camera |
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luisalegria wrote:
I picked this sweet little thing up expecting to be able to adapt one of my new 6x9 Graflex roll film backs to it. Unfortunately that is not going to work, so I will probably sell it if I can't figure something out. What this thing really needs is a Suydam or Rada 6x9 back, these are fairly common for the German 6.5x9cm format.
This is a 6.5x9 cm Zeiss Ikon Maximar (type 207/3, the smallest of this line) plate camera, the design of which goes back to the early 1920's, but as per the Zeiss serial number this one probably dates to 1937. It may be one of the last Maximars.
It had some considerable dirt when I got it, but fortunately just some normal cleaning and exercise got the lens clean and the shutter firing reaonably well. Slow speeds are still rather slow, but thats normal. The only thing that will fix that is a real shutter overhaul - and I am not competent to do that for a Compur !
The Maximar was a high-end piece, equipped with the top lens and shutter combinations Zeiss had - in this case a later model Compur-Rapid and a 10.5cm f/4.5 Tessar. This one comes with a wire-frame finder, which wasn't always present on the small Maximars.
For candid work, these were equipped with a focusing scale. But that is not going to yield the best these things can do.
What you really want to do with this is ground-glass focusing - for that it comes with a ground-glass back and the pop-out hood.
And to make use of that groundglass, this pocket view camera has rise and fall and shift.
And did I say pocket ? Yes I did. This thing folds up of course, and when folded its actually smaller around than any 6x9 folder I know of (albeit a bit thicker). Its smaller than most 35mm rangefinders. Its a small fraction of the size of a "miniature" press camera.
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I like Pentax DSLR's, Exaktas, M42 bodies of all kinds, strange and cheap Japanese lenses, and am dabbling in medium format/Speed Graphic work. |
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