To resurrect this thread, for anyone who is interested, a seller on ebay has 5 (now 4 after I bought one) for sale - broken iris and marks on glass he says. Seemed worth the $35 shipped to try one out.
Dan
To resurrect this thread, for anyone who is interested, a seller on ebay has 5 (now 4 after I bought one) for sale - broken iris and marks on glass he says. Seemed worth the $35 shipped to try one out.
Dan
Fragomeni has one for sale here on LFF.
Charley
Mine has no diaphragm as well. Got it off Ebay for a very affordable price. I should have asked about the diaphragm in advance... The glasses are clean, though.
It took a lot of time (and very strong force) to unscrew the cells from the barrel. There are two (maybe one, i don't remember) very small setting screws that must be removed before attempting to remove the optic cells.
Now i have a nice Ilex No.5 shutter that would be a perfect match for that 20 inches telephoto. I have seen one on sale with the same shutter.
Unfortunately the shutter has two lens rings stuck on it. A lathe clamp is needed, so i brought it to a friend of mine, who owns one. BTW, the lathe electronics were fried, but the clamp is still there, so i have the hope to get back the shutter in working conditions.
The original lens barrel could be cutted and machined to fit the shutter, with the right separation between the cells. The example i have seen looked to be made that way, IMO.
IF i find somebody who's willing to adapt the lens for a reasonable amount of money, i'd need one last thing:
one of the original filters with bajonet mount. A medium yellow would be perfect, but i would be happy to find any other colour, even a broken one that could be fitted with a gel filter...
If somebody has got one of them, or knows where it could be found, please drop me a PM.
Thanks
have fun
CJ
So apparently B&L made 2 different 20 inch f/5.6 teles. The long really heavy one for 35mm Dan mentioned and the one pictured before Dan's post. From what I have found, the pictured one was a WWII aerial lens for 5x5 film. I just picked one up that dates to 1944 from the serial. Some people have mentioned it on 8x10 and just a look at the image formed (at about 12 inches flange distance) shows it might illuminate 8x10. However, focused at infinity with the 5x7 back on it has to be stopped down to f/16 for the aperture to clear the built in hood when viewed from the ground glass corner. With the 6.5x8.5 back on and focused at infinity it must be stopped down to f/32 to clear. From this I would guess that it would have to be focused considerably closer than infinity and maybe stopped to f/45 to avoid light loss on the corners of an 8x10. The weight is a bit over 4 and a half pounds and the front shade is 4.75 inches across and looks like it has provision for a bayonet style filter. Definitely heavy duty construction. B&L didn't spare the metal or the glass in making it. When I get a chance I'll shoot it on 6.5x8.5 and see how the corners hold up.
OK, this afternoon I shot it on 6.5x8.5 Efke 25 at f/32 focused at infinity. From this I can say that at infinity it would be a great 4x5 lens, a pretty good 5x7 lens, but on 6.5x8.5 the edge image quality is deteriorating rapidly. On 6.5x8.5 focused closer it should certainly be good enough for contact prints. As far as using it on 8x10, maybe for portraits but I'm guessing the edges are going to be very soft. Of course most 8x10s don't need a telephoto lens to do 20 inches, especially a 4.5 pound one, so that is kind of a moot point. For what I wanted it, a long lens for the 5x7 Rittreck with its fairly short bellows, it should work well and even be usable with the 6.5x8.5 back. And, it was cheap.
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