How's this for a 135mm lens?

[martyn_bannister]

Lens is marked Meyer Gorlitz Ihagee Anastigmat Trioplan 1:4.5 f=13.5cm






As you can see, body condition is poor, especially the bellows. Anyone know if I can get new bellows anywhere? Also, is the lens removable? If so, how? It could do with a good clean

I must say I am impressed by the ingenuity of the engineering. It is a plate camera. Did the plates just contain photographic paper? Or was some sort of film used? I would love to get a few snaps through this antique masterpiece.

Also, there is an adjuster which varies the height of the lens in relation to the track it slides on. What is the purpose of this?

I am having trouble tracking down a f4.5 135mm Trioplan lens in the VM, so not sure how common this camera/lens is.

Anyone have any info?

[luisalegria]

Due to a recent spell of insanity, I have acquired about a dozen plate cameras of these types, and have spent most of the last three months messing with them.

Some answers -

- You can remove the lens and shutter. It may or may not be easy. When you collapse the bellows you can get at the usual sort of slotted lock ring on the back of the lens standard (which will be partly covered by the bellows). This can be unscrewed with a spanner, two small screwdrivers, etc, whatever works for you. Sometimes that ring is tight; all the usual remedies apply. Once that is unscrewed the shutter comes right off.

- The Trioplan is very easy to clean. The front and back cells unscrew right off the shutter, and the first cell unscrews also to give access to all surfaces. You can even clean the lens without removing the shutter from the front standard.

- The Ibsor shutter is simple and easy to open, flush-clean and lubricate if necessary.

- Bellows are a bigger problem. The best source would be another 9x12 plate camera. The problem here is that what you have is a tough in-between - its a mid-range model with extra-long double extension (thats what those rings are for, to take up the extra folds so they don't sag), so you will want a donor with double extension, unfortunately the potential donors with good bellows would be just as good or better than what you have, unless you get lucky and find a donor that is otherwise unrepairable but still has good bellows. You could get a lower-end one as a donor but these generally didn't have double extension bellows; you could use this but you wouldn't be restoring your camera to complete original function.

- The Trioplan lens is quite common on mid-range plate cameras of the time. I have a 10.5cm one on a KW Etui. You will find the Trioplan quite often on a high-end Compur shutter also. It was considered a very good lens in its day, if not quite a Tessar.

- The Vertical rise adjustment is for fixing parallax; its useful for architecture photography for instance, to straighten out converging lines. More expensive types also had a shift (horizontal) adjustment.

- These cameras were very versatile as for film. They could take film holders for cut film, glass plate holders, film pack holders, and 120 roll film backs. You can still get 9x12 film and of course 120 film. Glass plates are mostly gone, but I believe you can still get plain glass ones (I don't know if in 9x12) for collodion and other artisan processes. Film packs are of course long gone - the best use for film pack holders is to convert them into groundglass backs for cameras that have lost their original ones.

[martyn_bannister]

[luisalegria]

Those are glass plate holders. I have a bunch of plate holders in 6.5x9 but I haven't tried to use them.

I understand that you can make them work for film too, you just need to find a flat and rigid material to make a "filler" to back the piece of film or photo paper. I have been thinking of thin plexiglass.

The expensive bellows were made with an outer layer of thin leather backed with fine cloth. The cheaper ones often were coated cloth or patent leather. Some people have used cloth outer covering as well. There are paper inserts sandwiched between the leather and cloth layers to give then their shape. There are several sites with instructions on making bellows; I have tried to do this a couple of times. I haven't found it easy to do. Its doubtless easier to get an acceptable result on a larger format, say for a home-made 4x5 or 8x10 view camera. But this case (very compact double extension) requires a very fine, precise standard of craftsmanship.

[estudleon]

Hi Luis.

Thanks. Very informative and instructive words.

NIce to see you again.

Regards, Rino.

[luisalegria]

Hola Rino !

Como va ?

[martyn_bannister]

[martyn_bannister]

[luisalegria]

That would be 9x12 plates, even if the size isn't quite that. I would look for a "9x12" label if I were looking for old plates.

I am guessing though that if you want to try your hand at real glass plate photography you would have to have glass cut to size.

[Sevo]

[martyn_bannister]

[Sevo]

Paper has sensitivities in the 1 ISO range, and blue only spectral sensitivity - with that, paper will do as a nice substitute for mid 19th century processes, but hardly for modern film.

What you have are plate holders - to put film or paper in there, you'd need folded metal sheaths. These actually are not rare, and even exist as format adapters (e.g. 6.5x9 film inside a quarter plate holder), but they usually have been separated from the holders, making it hard to identify fitting ones - even more so as most sellers are ignorant and seem to be unable to give accurate dimensions even on request. But sometimes there are identifiable ones on sale, I just got me seven 6.5x9 ones at 1.5€ each on ebay last week. At a pinch you can also fill the gap with cardboard or a thin glass plate.

Sevo

[luisalegria]

You can absolutely use photo printing paper.

I use it quite a lot in 4x5 film holders.

Just cut sheets to size under a safelight (a dim incandescent with orange/red filter) and load in the film holders.

Expose it at ISO 6

Is easy to develop under a safelight too.

Its also easy to scan on a standard scanner, you don't need a 4x5 negative scanner.

[martyn_bannister]

Thanks to you both for this info. Sounds like a really interesting project. I've just been looking for paper and chemicals and found that there is a bewildering array of stuff. Can anyone recommend a supplier in the UK?

I can;t belive I'm even considering going back to using <gasp> a film camera

[kansalliskala]

[luisalegria]

I'm sure you could make an adapter for a Polaroid pack film holder. The format of these should fit a 9x12 camera. Maybe thats a good use for one of the very common and otherwise useless 9x12 pack film holders, mate one of those with the Polaroid back.

You will need to make a dedicated groundglass back to use to focus for the Polaroid I think, as I don't think you could make the film plane on the Polaroid holder mount flush with the original groundglass. Thats another use for pack film holders, just figure out the depth of spacer you need inside it to match the Polaroid back plus adapter.

[PeteMarshall]

[lens-o-matic]

+1 to the idea of using a dslr as the "Film Back".
I have been working on a project with a fairly rotten Goerz lens, similar to what you have there.
I was able to disassemble the camera (the lens screwed off from behind, but I had to make a tool).
My lens has visible defects that I cannot clean off, makes a horrible cloud in most images, and is the most interesting photo project I have had all year. It's been my primary lens for 2 weeks now, and I have really been having a lot of fun while learning.
I have a photoblog:
http://photopictomania.blogspot.com/
where I have been putting up the results of my endevours.
I had a few different attempts at mounting. The most satisfactory version involved taping the lens to an M42 extension tube and mounting the tube on a M42 bellows.
Good luck, please post photos to show how you get on!

[martyn_bannister]

[woodrim]

Mertyn: I hope you don't mind me adding a picture of another such camera to your post. Your initial post caused me to go find this one that I've had for a few decades sitting unused - and never used by me. I doubt it's worth much. No lens data; safe to assume it is a Kodak lens. Does yours have a patent date?

I find it very interesting the notion of somehow combining this old photo technology with today's digital, but I can't energize any interest in myself to bother with film of any type. However, I keep asking why. Why bother using such an old and presumable inferior lens? I think I can answer that from my own perspective, but I wonder how you and Luis and lens-o-matic would answer it.

[martyn_bannister]

[woodrim]

I found the lens identification - it was marked on the side. It's a Rapid Rectilinear Bausch & Lomb Co. Didn't see anything about focal length. f/4 as can be seen on the front.

lens-o-matic: I enjoyed your blog. Can you say more about the method of mounting the digital camera on the back of the folding camera? I don't really want to take the lens off this one as it doesn't appear straight forward and I also don't want to destroy this old piece of photographic history. When you tried this first method, how did you deal with the increased registration distance? Is it just a matter of collapsing the bellows?

I've actually taken a few pictures through it by using a macro lens. Not great, but better than I might have expected.

[dof]

Since we're showing off our plate cameras, this is my 9x12 Nagel Kodak
Recomar 33 with 135/4.5 Kodak Anastigmat lens. I found it at a flea market
for $15. I've done a bit of restoration and everything seems to work. I just
got some film holders for it and now just need to replace the ground glass
before testing.




Freestyle sells one 9x12 film and you can get Ilford films in that size from
European suppliers but it's pricey. I will probably just use cut-down 4x5 film.

[martyn_bannister]

Nice camera - and the bellows look in vey good conditions. Looking forward to show example shots