Front Mouting a Cooke Primoplane

Hello all,

I was able to front mount a Cooke Primoplane lens for a test in a very simple manner over a not so big Ilex Acme shutter.

I got this shutter off eBay and until I saw it I had another intention. I wasn't aware that the back piece (rear element thread + diafragm) could be dissassembled so easily, without preventing the shutter to work.

This made the shutter much thinner, not cutting on the enormous coverage of the Primoplane.

I was able to remove rear element thread and diafragm and mount the shutter straight onto a Technika/Shenhao board.

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A blog post on this in portuguese: http://refotografia.wordpress.com/

Good idea that. Nice lens isn't it? I had a few VIIb lenses once, (the successor to yours) but on the 108mm the elements were so closely spaced that they touched the shutterblades on remount, so I ended up keeping mine front-mounted. The longer focal lengths are ok. My 158 came in a Compur I think.

Cute. But it brings up the general unfairness of everything.

In other words, my modern Acme #3 doesn't come apart like your old one so I had to have the rear tube cut off. Unfair!

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Dan Fromm

Cute. But it brings up the general unfairness of everything.

In other words, my modern Acme #3 doesn't come apart like your old one so I had to have the rear tube cut off. Unfair!

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Dan, I'm sorry about that!