Voigtlander Avus 9x12, oh wait...

[luisalegria]

This is a Voigtlander Avus - or parts of it are.
Its an example of how you can piece together parts of old German folders, as they were so similar. You can pick up junk, basically, and make your own very plausible camera.



The Voigtlander Avus is one of the more desirable plate cameras of the 1920's-30's. It was nearly the top of the Voigtlander line of plate cameras - the Bergheil was the pinnacle - but to my mind the Avus was a better value.



It had double extension bellows, rise/fall and shift movements, excellent lenses, mostly the Skopars, but sometimes even the Heliars, Compur shutters and a very standard back with rails that can take almost any 9x12 film holder.



I picked this up in a lot with some other things; it had no lens, no back/groundglass, no bellows. The case and bed were usable, though someone had been drilliing holes in the case, probably to mount flashguns - and the front standard was excellent.

I added bellows from a no-name 9x12 with bad rails, a very interesting Goerz Syntor 16.8cm lens in dial-set Compur, and a rather odd back. I picked all this other stuff in lots of what looked like junk - but not all of it !



The Goerz Doppel-Anastigmat Syntor is a variant of the more common Dogmar, which is an excellent Dialyt. This lens is a little long for a "normal" in 9x12, I think it came from a 10x15 format camera, but its weird so I want to try it. I have plenty of 13.5 cm lenses to switch to anyway.




The back is truly weird. This is a US-made aftermarket accessory for German 9x12 plate cameras - a removable spring back. Usually the cameras came with a rather delicate slim groundglass back with a popout fabric and leather hood, that one has to slide out before putting in a plate or film holder. Sliding these things is a bit of a problem as you have to be careful, and there is a lot of resistance, so its easy to move the camera in the process. And the fact is that they would break easily; there are many more cameras around today than groundglass backs !



But the spring back lets you slam the filmholder in in the proper energetic US press-camera style ! Well, not quite, German 9x12 film holders are way more delicate than US wooden film holders. Still, its a good improvement, and extremely sturdy (and heavy).



At first I thought that this was meant to let you use the standard US 3 1/4 x 4 1/4 film holders, but no, its meant for the German 9x12's. That Kodak holder is really a Nagel btw.



And of course, it can still use Rollfilm backs. This is an early US-made Suydam multi-format roll holder.

[David]

That's a pretty impressive piece of engineering. So is that back for 120mm film? How long till we see pictures taken with it?

[Minolfan]

You must have gathered quite a lot of junk stuff to be able te make some old cameras ready to use again!
I admire your work.

[Nesster]

That, sir, is a thing of beauty and taste, and you, master, are a genius and a teacher.