Jaz
26-May-2013, 18:46
Looking around craigslist recently I found a very odd listing. I have been looking on ebay for quite some time now for an aerial camera or lens to put on a 4x5 or 8x10 camera, but never did I think I would find something on craigslist. After communicating with the seller I decided to go have a look at the cameras. I had seen pictures of them on the listing, but seeing them in person was quite shocking and it only took me a few moments of considering to decide to buy them. I do not have photos of the 30/23 at the moment, but I can post images of all the other equipment I managed to pick up.
From what I heard the story of the camera is that it was orginally bought and used by the US navy. From there at some point the USGS acquired the cameras, I have no idea if that means they got a plane that had the cameras mounted in them ( I think this is likely because the metal cases that these cameras were often transported in are missing. ) or the camera's themselves. From what the seller said these cameras were used in one of the USGS survey updates of the USA that they go periodically ( I think he said they update them every 12 years. ) . From there somehow the seller's grandfather got a hold of the cameras ( I assume the USGS surplussed the cameras after moving to a digital system is my guess. ). From there the seller obtained the camera from a storage unit his grandfather left him, and now I have obtained. it.
The camera: 95812
There are a lot knobs, plugs, and instruments on the back of the camera. Some are rather obvious what they are for, say the bubble level, and meter for the current vacuum pressure. There is also a knob that controls the aperture, but a few others baffle me, my guess would be one controls shutter speed and likely one plug is there to power the system and other plugs likely interface with the various other instruments.
In one of the open doors on the side is a motor that you can remove and replace with a motor from another camera or some of the other support equipment. It looks like the motor in the IRU unit there appears to be the same motor for instance. In the other door there appears to be lights that light up small area to give the operator a work space, and inside is a zeiss timer as well as what I think is an altimeter.
The lens: 95813
The text on the lens states this is a " Carl Zeiss Toparon 210mm F/5.6 " lens. I have had a very hard time finding any information on the toparon lens. The lens is also massive and aperture is controlled though some sort of linkage system built into the camera. I assume the lens is designated "topa" as in topographic? But I can only guess, again, there is little info on the net to find out much about them.
The film magazine: 9581495815
As far as I can tell the film magazine has a 9in x 9in film opening for 10 inch film. ( I think the the "23" in 21/23 is referring to 21 cm len and 23 cm squared negative image format. The back is motorized to advance the film, and I believe it also used the motor or the motor in the camera body to make a vacuum in the magazine to suck the film as flat as possible on the film plane. The magazine also has a cloth curtain that can be deployed or retracted to act as a dark slide.
The IRU unit: http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/802/dsf72001.jpg/ http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/13/dsf72011.jpg/ http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/209/irulensdsf72011.jpg/
I looked at the IRU camera for quite some time baffled, It has a 180mm F/4.5 zeiss tessar that projects onto a ground glass on the back. Inside the ground glass in is a frame in the middle that looks similar to a 35mm film strip, with lines flanking the sides and squares inside of the lines. I thought for a while this might be a video camera, but after doing some research, my guess is that this is actually a unit that is designed to allow the crew to compensate for the forward motion of the aircraft and to allow them to know exactly when to take a photograph to give them the best negative stitching possible. The controls on the back of the unit I think control the speed in which the squares move in the frame of the ground glass. The operator would change the spend of the moving lines until they moved at the same pace in which the terrain below was moving. This would not only tell the camera how to communicate with the stabilizing mount the camera was sitting in how to compensate for motion, but also when to take the next frame to allow for a continuous stitching without gaps.
The filter box: http://img707.imageshack.us/img707/3010/dsf72071.jpg
These filters are really impressive, they are almost an half an inch thick, extremely flat and have a very nice coated central ND gradation in the center to correct for the large leaf shutter. This set has a haze, yellow, and orange filter, it looks like one is missing, I would assume either some deep red filter or perhaps an IR filter.
The other camera, the RMK 30/23 has a 305mm F/5.6 Topar lens and just about everything else seems just about the same as the RMK 21/30. In total this set came with 4 film magazines, two IRU units, the two cameras, and the filter set. I would love to know more about this camera and what I have, but most importantly I am interested where I might be able to take this camera to sell. While I think I have a very interesting camera and I could have two very interesting lenses for a LF portrait camera, in all honesty I would much rather have the money that this set might be worth. I graduated college last june and I am trying to save for graduate school. So if anyone could help me come up with how much this set might be worth and some kind of aviation supply store or network, or business that might want these cameras that would help me a lot.
Also please don't suggest ebay, I might do that, but to ship this would cost me a fortune, so if I used ebay it would be for local pick up only. I think if any one knows of places in the Pacific Northwest, so Washington and Oregon, then that would be the best solution to where to possibly take these.
If anyone has any questions I can try the answer them, but again, I likely have just as many questions as you do if not more so I don't know how helpful I will be beyond what I have already explained.
From what I heard the story of the camera is that it was orginally bought and used by the US navy. From there at some point the USGS acquired the cameras, I have no idea if that means they got a plane that had the cameras mounted in them ( I think this is likely because the metal cases that these cameras were often transported in are missing. ) or the camera's themselves. From what the seller said these cameras were used in one of the USGS survey updates of the USA that they go periodically ( I think he said they update them every 12 years. ) . From there somehow the seller's grandfather got a hold of the cameras ( I assume the USGS surplussed the cameras after moving to a digital system is my guess. ). From there the seller obtained the camera from a storage unit his grandfather left him, and now I have obtained. it.
The camera: 95812
There are a lot knobs, plugs, and instruments on the back of the camera. Some are rather obvious what they are for, say the bubble level, and meter for the current vacuum pressure. There is also a knob that controls the aperture, but a few others baffle me, my guess would be one controls shutter speed and likely one plug is there to power the system and other plugs likely interface with the various other instruments.
In one of the open doors on the side is a motor that you can remove and replace with a motor from another camera or some of the other support equipment. It looks like the motor in the IRU unit there appears to be the same motor for instance. In the other door there appears to be lights that light up small area to give the operator a work space, and inside is a zeiss timer as well as what I think is an altimeter.
The lens: 95813
The text on the lens states this is a " Carl Zeiss Toparon 210mm F/5.6 " lens. I have had a very hard time finding any information on the toparon lens. The lens is also massive and aperture is controlled though some sort of linkage system built into the camera. I assume the lens is designated "topa" as in topographic? But I can only guess, again, there is little info on the net to find out much about them.
The film magazine: 9581495815
As far as I can tell the film magazine has a 9in x 9in film opening for 10 inch film. ( I think the the "23" in 21/23 is referring to 21 cm len and 23 cm squared negative image format. The back is motorized to advance the film, and I believe it also used the motor or the motor in the camera body to make a vacuum in the magazine to suck the film as flat as possible on the film plane. The magazine also has a cloth curtain that can be deployed or retracted to act as a dark slide.
The IRU unit: http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/802/dsf72001.jpg/ http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/13/dsf72011.jpg/ http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/209/irulensdsf72011.jpg/
I looked at the IRU camera for quite some time baffled, It has a 180mm F/4.5 zeiss tessar that projects onto a ground glass on the back. Inside the ground glass in is a frame in the middle that looks similar to a 35mm film strip, with lines flanking the sides and squares inside of the lines. I thought for a while this might be a video camera, but after doing some research, my guess is that this is actually a unit that is designed to allow the crew to compensate for the forward motion of the aircraft and to allow them to know exactly when to take a photograph to give them the best negative stitching possible. The controls on the back of the unit I think control the speed in which the squares move in the frame of the ground glass. The operator would change the spend of the moving lines until they moved at the same pace in which the terrain below was moving. This would not only tell the camera how to communicate with the stabilizing mount the camera was sitting in how to compensate for motion, but also when to take the next frame to allow for a continuous stitching without gaps.
The filter box: http://img707.imageshack.us/img707/3010/dsf72071.jpg
These filters are really impressive, they are almost an half an inch thick, extremely flat and have a very nice coated central ND gradation in the center to correct for the large leaf shutter. This set has a haze, yellow, and orange filter, it looks like one is missing, I would assume either some deep red filter or perhaps an IR filter.
The other camera, the RMK 30/23 has a 305mm F/5.6 Topar lens and just about everything else seems just about the same as the RMK 21/30. In total this set came with 4 film magazines, two IRU units, the two cameras, and the filter set. I would love to know more about this camera and what I have, but most importantly I am interested where I might be able to take this camera to sell. While I think I have a very interesting camera and I could have two very interesting lenses for a LF portrait camera, in all honesty I would much rather have the money that this set might be worth. I graduated college last june and I am trying to save for graduate school. So if anyone could help me come up with how much this set might be worth and some kind of aviation supply store or network, or business that might want these cameras that would help me a lot.
Also please don't suggest ebay, I might do that, but to ship this would cost me a fortune, so if I used ebay it would be for local pick up only. I think if any one knows of places in the Pacific Northwest, so Washington and Oregon, then that would be the best solution to where to possibly take these.
If anyone has any questions I can try the answer them, but again, I likely have just as many questions as you do if not more so I don't know how helpful I will be beyond what I have already explained.