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View Full Version : 3.8kg lens on Eastman View No.2



Ramiro Elena
19-Sep-2011, 03:05
I am about to purchase this lens that weights 3.8kg (8.3 pounds) and I was wondering if anyone here has experience mounting a lens this heavy on a Eastman View No.2 8x10 or similar. It does fit a lensboard, just worried about its weight.

Steven Tribe
19-Sep-2011, 03:32
I think the weight is a problem!

The only solution I can think of is the system employed on my 18x24 reisekamera.
Just tested in gales on the Island of Skye!
This has two pairs of screw clamping mounts attached to both sides of the front and rear standards. Two brass (or better, bronze) rods are inserted as soon as the adjustments have been made. I was using a big and heavy Krauss/Tessar 50cm and the front standard lens was absolutely secure and steady.
I have made a quick illustration on folded camera below.
If it can work on my camera, I am sure it will work on the rather more sturdy 2D.
The clamp fitment is permanently fitted to the front/rear standard and the hole for the rod is 4mm. The tightening screws were missing on one side of mine but stainless steel replacements with finger milled edges are available.

eddie
19-Sep-2011, 03:42
har har har. galli attaches pretty heavy lenses on his 2d.....not sure if they are 4kg though. what 4kg lens did you find that will fit on a 6x6 inch lens board? try it. but put something under the camera to catch the lens if it breaks off.

the short answer....i doubt it will hold it for repeated uses.....do not move the camera with the lens attached....

a thread you may find interesting.....http://www.largeformatphotography.info/forum/showthread.php?t=45678&highlight=chin+strap

Ramiro Elena
19-Sep-2011, 04:29
Well, it is an O.I.P 300mm ƒ3.5 Soft focus lens... can't seem to find pictures or any info on it right now. I've read something about it being a "Labor" but cannot say for sure until I get it.
Good thing is it is not a long lens (11cm long and 10-11cm wide).
The chin-strap looks like a good simple idea Eddie.

Struan Gray
19-Sep-2011, 04:52
Ramiro, the O.I.P. Labor soft focus lenses get a brief mention in the Lens Vademecum. There are also some sample images from a 240 mm version, and pictures of a 440 mm on the French galerie-photo site:

http://www.galerie-photo.com/soft-focus-objectif-portrait-flou.html

I have the 440 mm version (ooof!) but have yet to do more than project a light bulb image onto a wall with it.

The Labors are a triplets, and move the central element to introduce softness. In that sense they are Cooke portrait lens copies. How well they hold up in comparison to the Cookes when it comes to manufacturing quality I don't know. O.I.P. made mostly military optics of unknown quality and school microscopes.

Steven Tribe
19-Sep-2011, 05:29
Struan, isn't the design more like the Heliar Universal that moves the central biconcave lens forward? It also appears to have the miniature "bollards" like the Universal to assist soft setting.
A metal design lens board is also a must.

Ramiro Elena
19-Sep-2011, 05:50
Thanks Struan, all I could find about it was your two posts here and Photo.net and the site you linked.
So you never mounted it on a camera? I imagine the 440mm must be huge!

I remember being it compared to a Heliar aswell in some site I can't find now Steven.

eddie
19-Sep-2011, 07:30
The chin-strap looks like a good simple idea Eddie.

just be sure it does not snap off your front standard! better tie it off to something besides the front standard.

eddie

Fotoguy20d
19-Sep-2011, 07:38
I have a 3 1/2 lb B&L 508mm tele which I was going to try mounting to the front of my 2-D but I wasn't going to try without making up a brace. My idea is to have two skids which rest on the camera rail and are tied back to the lens board so they move with the front standard. The skids have risers with a sling which holds the lens from underneath and which is adjustable for rise/fall. If you can't visualize it, I was planning to sketch it up before I make one. I have a tripod block which allows supporting the front hinge - if you don't have one, this won't do anything but transfer the stress to somewhere else.

Dan

Dan Fromm
19-Sep-2011, 08:54
I finally took a look at a picture of an Eastman View #2. Interesting.

I had a parallel problem with my Baby Bertha, solved it with an inexpensive 4” x 4” lab jack from Lab Connections (www.labconusa.com , their SKU 3588-1, “Lab Jack Aluminum 4"(100mm)”) . Using a lab jack to support a lens on an Eastman View will require making a support for it. The easy obvious thing is a plank that goes under the bed and is held to it between the standards.

Ramiro Elena
19-Sep-2011, 09:50
Thanks Dan, I had no idea those Lab Jacks existed.
The thing is I am not sure I want to go through all the trouble. It'd be different if I already had the lens. I never imagined the lens would be that heavy. It's twice my Aero-Ektar!

Steven Tribe
19-Sep-2011, 12:13
I think you are coming round to the right decision.
This has a weight which is only really designed for a heavily built studio camera.
I have a number of similarly heavy lenses which I will not mount on a big, but lightweight, field camera.
If you could get this at a reasonable price, it might be worthwhile doing an instant "trade" with someone who has a lens with similar characteristics but has a much lighter design.

Struan Gray
19-Sep-2011, 12:37
Ramiro, my beast of a Belgian Blue lacks a flange. I have plans to investigate 8x10 and ULF portraiture with it, but for now it can sit on the back-burner shelf while investments of money and time have to go elsewhere. It's not much use for photographing kids whizzing about on a badly-lit handball pitch, and I can't see myself lugging it up a Scottish hillside. One day though, it will see use.

I don't think the weight is that extreme. Provided you can lock the rise movement securely your front standard shouldn't collapse. The weight isn't cantilevered out in front of the lensboard quite as much as a large Petzval, so the torque won't be too extreme either.

I have toyed with ways of mounting mine on a 12x15 Perken Son and Rayment camera I own. It has diagonal struts behind the front standard to stop it from tilting forward, and you might want to rig up something similar on your 2D. The only modification I thought absolutely necessary was to put some tabs behind the lensboard to anchor it behind the rear of the front standard (inside the bellows) and so relieve some of the tension on the lensboard locks.

Steven: I meant only that the O.I.P. Labor lenses were three lenses in three groups - i.e. although the centre element moves in the same way as a Universal Heliar, the front and rear elements are singlets (as in a Cooke) and not cemented doublets (as in a Heliar). I appreciate that this takes sloppy thinking to the verge of heresy for paid-up members of the Infallible and Holy Church of the Blessed Blur. If lynching is in order, I would like twelve other similar crimes to be taken into consideration.


PS: I wrote my post before Steven's had appeared. It might now look as if I'm trying to pick a fight. I'm not.

Miguel Coquis
19-Sep-2011, 12:42
"trade" with someone who has a lens with similar characteristics but has a much lighter design.
I saw that fast lenses are mainly "heavy", aero ektar 300 mm f:2,5 or Labor 300 mm f:3,5 or Ross XPRESS 250 mm f:2,7....(all of these more then 3,5 kg !)
Would much appreciate to learn wich lenses would be the ones with similar characteristics but has a much lighter design ???

Steven Tribe
19-Sep-2011, 15:30
It is a very small world and I have realised that my next project would, in fact, create a clone of the Labor design - a 40cm F4 which weighs just 2 kilos. I just compared it with the Universal as the position of the middle lens is closer to the rear single lens than in the original Cooke design.

This is a modification of an Leitz Epis. The brass sleeve (which extends well behind the flange thread) and the internal tube, with the three lenses, have exactly the same length. So I can cut off the front and rear lenses in short sections of the barrel and grub screw into the correct positions on the brass sleeve. The remaining barrel - with the central lens - is cut well down at the front. The amount removed is exactly the amount you want the middle lens to move towards the front lens with maximum "softening". The focussing slider, which moves in the full length diagonal track, has to be repositioned in a new cut thread and the sleeve will be open in a section of the track requiring a dark cloth.

Your project could certainly be done. The bigger sizes UK tailback cameras are very solid in front and the Continental types were made and used as standard studio cameras.
Meniscus lenses, even the big sizes, are extremely light. The Portland is an obvious candidate but it is possible to open up the more usual landscape meniscus types from the usual F.11 to something a lot faster and optically divergent (deviant?)!