Clarus MS-35 - a fat American

[Mos6502]

I recently acquired a Clarus MS-35. Never heard of one? Most haven't. The company only made one model and went bankrupt in 1952.

Clarus MS-35 by berangberang, on Flickr

Apparently the camera had been designed and announced just before the United States entered WWII. The war put things on hold, and in 1946 the camera was rushed into production to take advantage of the post war seller's market... but things went horribly wrong. Tens of thousands of Clarus cameras didn't work properly and in 1948 the camera was revised - simpler, more rugged internally, and a tad more reliable. Unfortunately by 1948 dealers and customers didn't want to take a chance on a camera with the reputation of a lemon and by 1952 Clarus had a backlog of unsold cameras and no money coming in to buy advertising or pay workers. The remaining cameras and spare parts were sold to La Belle (manufacturer of projectors) where they were re-badged under the name Wescon and faded into oblivion.



The camera is extremely thick. About as thick as an Argus C3. It is made up almost entirely of castings, even the top plate and film door are castings. As a result the Clarus is very heavy. The shutter is an interesting design which owes more to the Exakta than to the Leica. It is however a much simpler affair. Everything runs in brass bushings and bearings and the gears are all brass. Although the mechanism is smooth, the large gears are rather noisy. The shutter is released in an extremely crude manner: depressing the shutter release knocks a gear out from between the shutter and film transport. When you let up on the shutter release the gear jams its way back into place. To rewind you hold the shutter button down. Crude but it works.

The shutter on this camera needed some cleaning and oil, and I released then re-tensioned the curtains. The curtain tension has to be just right for both curtains as unlike on Leica and most other lift and set type shutters the slit width is not "locked" once set. Once the curtains are released they essentially race each other to the finish. Being even a tiny bit out on the tension of one or the other can cause the shutter to fade or cap.

I still need to clean the lens as it is filled with fungus, but once that is done I look forward to using this ugly American. Interestingly the Clarus was produced with a full compliment of lenses. Wollensak provided a 3.5/35mm, a (or maybe two) 2.8/50mm, a 2/50mm, and a 3.5/101mm. Elgeet also manufactured a telephoto for the Clarus. Unlike the "vaporware" lenses which existed only in advertising for other American cameras, all of the Clarus lenses have been seen in the flesh by collectors - so they are out there. The 50mm lenses are the most common, the 35mm seems the least common.

[luisalegria]

I always wondered about that one.
Three cameras I have considerd aquiring for repair/restoration fun-
Clarus,
Perfex,
and Mercury

[philslizzy]

A super camera, it certainly looks hansdome. If you get this working show us some photos. I'd look out for one but I must stick to my 1957 collection.

[Mos6502]

I have a Perfex too, but it needs new shutter curtains and I haven't peeked inside of it yet. The Perfex does fit the hand a lot better than the clarus though.

[Schnauzer]

I look forward to seeing some pictures from this camera.

[Mos6502]

Some photos from the test roll. No great pictures, but I put the camera through its paces.

Rangefinder is working well.



Some of the pictures exhibit an odd light leak that looks sort of like a reflection in a window. I'm not sure what causes this.

Overall the camera functions fine. The lens is not amazing, but works ok. It is just a triplet and the corners are soft at medium to large apertures, although this is not really noticeable most of the time because of the limited depth of field.

The frame spacing is also unusually generous - there's about a sprocket's worth of space between each frame. I haven't seen this on any other 35 camera.