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Flexnib
28-Feb-2007, 12:28
Hello Group,
I am looking at the 14in. Commercial Ektar lens in barrel but not in shutter. I am thinking of buying it. What would a good price be for such a lens? It is a hugh lens around 3in across the face of the lens and in the barrle it stands about 4in.
thanks
Arthur

Gene McCluney
28-Feb-2007, 12:32
I have one in shutter and it is a mainstay of my commercial studio product work.

Scott Davis
28-Feb-2007, 12:49
As long as you have a big enough packard shutter to put behind it, I say go for it! The 14" commercial Ektar is a fantastic lens. I have a friend who sold a 355mm Kern Gold Dot Dagor and replaced it with a 14" Commercial Ektar because it had nicer Bokeh (out-of-focus rendering).

Flexnib
28-Feb-2007, 12:51
Thanks for the info. Any idea on what a fair price would be to offer?
thanks
Arthur

Walter Calahan
28-Feb-2007, 12:51
Just won a 12" Ilax Paragon f/4.5 barrel lens on eBay for $142.50.

There are 3 Schneider 14" with shutters on eBay ranging from $150 - 250.

Jim Galli
28-Feb-2007, 13:27
$165. A shutter adds about $250 plus a whole lot more folks who want it.

Leonard Robertson
28-Feb-2007, 18:27
I have an Ilex Acme #5 shutter marked on the face 14 3/4" f6.3, with no glass. I suppose it had Caltar or similar cells originally. Every time I see a barrel mount 14" Commercial Ektar, I wonder if those cells will screw into my shutter. Any opinions?

Scott Davis
28-Feb-2007, 18:44
Leonard - you'd have to measure both the cells and the shutter to be sure. It would probably end up needing an SK Grimes machining job anyway. I'm not sure if this was true for the #5 shutter, but in the #4, there are actually two sizes - the Kodak size and everyone else's size. The Kodak size is four or five mm bigger in diameter at the flange. I also have two different Kodak Ektar lenses in Ilex #5 shutters, and while the flanges are identical, the front barrel for the 300mm F4.5 Ektar is much larger than the front barrel for the 14" F6.3 Commercial Ektar, as is the rear barrel section. Thus it would stand to reason that the two lenses are unlikely to be directly compatible.

Glenn Thoreson
28-Feb-2007, 18:46
Len, my 14 in. Commercial Ektar is in a no. 5 Ilex. It should screw right in. There may, however, be a spacer ring necessary on the front, to get the right cell spacing. That appears to be the case with mine, though I can't be sure, as I don't have anoter shutter to compare it to.

Leonard Robertson
28-Feb-2007, 20:28
Thanks for the information. The only reason I thought the 14" Commercial might screw into any Ilex Acme #5 is there weren't too many lenses ever available in this shutter. But I do recall what Scott mentioned about Kodak using "different" Ilexes for some of the lenses they sold. I'll try to measure and post the thread size of my shutter tomorrow. The spacing of the cells occurred to me. I have vernier calipers to measure the overall length of the cells, and can hack out shim washers on my South Bend (after several tries).

Arthur - Remember a Packard shutter can be front-mounted:
http://www.electricedge.com/greymatter/archives/00006060.htm There is a link over to a second page in front-mounting.

John Kasaian
28-Feb-2007, 22:33
According to Grimes, IIRC, the Commercial Ektars will screw into appropriate Ilex shutters if the shutters are marked "made for Eastman Kodak" The run of the mill Ilex Universals apparently have a different size thread than the Kodaks
The 14" Commercial is a beauty.

Kirk Fry
28-Feb-2007, 22:45
I bought a 14 in Commerial Ektar in broken (solidified) #5 Amce shutter but almost perfect glass for $343. Carol has it now. We will see. It also had a ratty packard shutter on a 9 in plywood lens board behind it. I can't imagine what kind of camera it was on.

Kirk

Flexnib
28-Feb-2007, 23:02
The lens has its own shutter built into it. There is a ring in the middle of the barrel that turns and the shutter moves. So I am not sure if we are all talking about the same thing. I guess I could remove the front Ektar element and insert it into a shutter of the appropriate size. The lens was used in an 8x10 Deardorf as is and I know wonder how it was used? WOuld it have been completely inserted into a packard shutter?
arthur

John Kasaian
1-Mar-2007, 00:03
Maybe you're confusing the shutter with the aperture?

Ash
1-Mar-2007, 04:55
The ring you describe is the aperture. It's an iris that opens and closes - you'll see numbers along the rim by the ring.

That's for depth of field, not for timed exposure :)

Mark Sampson
1-Mar-2007, 05:28
Leonard- your #5 shutter was probably made for a 14-3/4" (375mm) Ilex-Calumet Caltar. That's the only lens I know of with that exact focal length. Not the same lens as the Ektar- but a fine optic none the less.

Leonard Robertson
1-Mar-2007, 08:22
Again, thanks to everyone for all the great information. I've wondered about mating my #5 with a barrel mount Ektar because those lenses show up fairly often, usually much cheaper than ones mounted in shutter. But it doesn't sound like a workable idea. I suspect the 14 3/4" Caltar was never sold in barrel, although finding one in a bad shutter might be a possibility.

Scott Davis
1-Mar-2007, 08:36
It isn't that you can't do it - it will just be an expensive proposition, unless you just front-mount the shutter on the 14" Ektar. That you might be able to do with a minimum of expense (an adapter ring of some kind). You could take that to a machine shop and have them make you an adapter that would thread into the front threads on the Ektar and the rear threads on the shutter. The downside of this option is that the shutter is big enough that it could conceivably cause vignetting.

Ash
1-Mar-2007, 09:35
Just get a packard shutter, rear-mount it to the lens. :)

Rick Olson
4-Mar-2007, 19:42
Will the 14" Kodak Commercial Ektar cover 7 x 17?

Thanks,
Rick

Scott Davis
5-Mar-2007, 09:52
The 10" that covers 7x17 is the Wide Field Ektar, which is either a biogon type or double-gauss type design. The 10" Commercial Ektar is a Tessar, and barely covers 8x10. It is really a 5x7 lens. The 12" Commercial Ektar and 14" Commercial Ektar do cover 8x10 with movements. The 14" Commercial Ektar will cover 11x14 with limited movement.