Zeiss Ikon Ideal 9x12

[Attila]

Any experience ? Today I saw a "brand new one" from 1930. I did pickup a camera what my friend fix it and I saw this camera in incredible new condition He still use it sometimes.

[Farside]

I don't have one, but I'd like to have one.
http://www.xs4all.nl/~lommen9/Zeiss%20Ideal/index%20engels.html
Lovely.

[Attila]

Thank you Dave for link !

[luisalegria]

I have maybe 10 of these types, including a 2 of Zeiss Maximars, but not an Ideal.

The Zeiss Ideal was the top of the line of the time, the Maximar was a less expensive model.

You may want to be careful about the film holders because the Ideal used a different type than the usual. There may not be a roll film adapter for these.

[Univer]

Hi,

I had a stroke of luck last year at a local antique fair, and found an Ideal 250/3 (6.5 x 9cm), in near-mint condition, for the towering sum of US$5.00. It's fitted with a (non-interchangeable) Dominar lens, and as far as I can tell, everything is in perfect operating order. It still has the little metal tag, affixed to the side, from the original camera shop in Germany.

It was being sold by the daughter of the original owner, and she seemed delighted to encounter someone who regarded it as something other than a worthless pile of obsolete junk. She insisted that I also take the original leather case and the filters her father used with the camera - each one carefully wrapped in tissue and stored, like precious little objects, in a worn calfskin coin purse.

My original plan was to remove the lens and contrive a way to mount it on a bellows, but I've found that I have no desire to dismantle a beautiful camera in which the original owner took such obvious pride. So for the time being (and quite possibly forever), my Ideal is serving as a lovely display piece.

Cheers,

Jon

[Attila]

Nice to know you have it , I am glad you didn't bucher this valuable cam.

Friend of mine still make pictures with his copy sometimes, I am really curious how this old lady perform.

[PaulC]

Beautiful looking camera.

I have no idea how to use this sort of equipment.

[Attila]

Basically same than a wooden box camera, light come throw and you can see an upside down image on back mate plate. Bellow works from 1:1 macro to infinity ! Lens is interchangeable, back also from plate to roll film adapter.

[PaulC]

[luisalegria]

The film backs have a dark slide.

You slide in the groundglass back, focus and compose,

Remove the groundglass

Slide in the film holder (sheet film or roll film, in the old days film packs and glass plates too).

Remove the dark slide from the film holder and take the picture,

put the darkslide back in.

etc.

[Attila]

[PaulC]

It would be hellishly difficult to find alternative lenses, then.

[Attila]

[luisalegria]

Not so hellish I think.

Most of these lenses in shutter are attached to a lensboard or the front standard with a screw and ring/nut.

If you want to put a new lens in most folders you can generally just unscrew the ring, remove the lens/shutter assembly, and put in another one if they are close in size. This is a bit tricky sometimes because the overlap of the bellows often interferes with the ring, but its generally not a big problem.

I am pretty sure that the Zeiss Ideal (like the similar Voigtlander Bergheil, which I have seen), the lens/shutter is held on the bayonet mount by the same ring. You should be able to remove the lens/shutter from the bayonet mount and put in another.

[Farside]

The real difficulty with most of these 80-odd year old cameras is the minor bits and pieces needed to make them work well (like the lens choices for the Ideal, and the sometimes odd film/plate holders) have been binned years ago, as nobody knew what they were.
Various plate holders (and film insert adapters) can be found on ebay, if you're patient, but you end up buying oddball ones until you learn to look for the right thing.
Foma still make 9x12 film, and fortunately there's no real shortage of rollfilm backs for most of them, so 120 is a very real option - just as it was back then.

[luisalegria]

I agree about the 120 backs. They make these things very usable.

They can be a little difficult to find, and not all backs work with all cameras. The usual problem is the rails on some backs are thin and others are thick.

I have backs made by :

Rada - thick rails
Rollex - thin
Suydam - thin

KW (Etui) and some Certo, some Ica - need thin rails
Voigtlander Avus, Ica some models, Zeiss Maximar, Certosport, Agfa, Kodak/Nagel Recomar - thick rails

Thin rail backs fit on thick rail cameras, but thick rail backs do not fit on thin rail cameras. So my Rada back does not fit on my KW.

Now, some Ica and Zeiss models had backs that did not use rails, I wonder whether there are 120 holders for these. I have a Kodak/Nagel Recomar that has a pop-on groundglass back, but it also takes rail backs.

[Nesster]

...and you can experiment with using printing paper instead of film, cut to size and put in the back...