Hi there,
I'm interested in a recent offer on ebay.de, a 13x18 Mentor flatbed camera. However, I can't find any information about Mentor cameras on the net. I know, that Mentor was a East German manufacturer, but that is about all. Does anyone here has any information about Mentor and could give me a few pointers?
Martin
Martin, I looked at one of these about 7-8 mos. ago. Very Heavy duty machine. Great for studio/indoor use. Neat feature was a built-in focal plane shutter in the front standard. Speeds up to 1/125 if I remember correctly. Uses a non-standard type of back & holders. OOps, just checked your post again, the one I saw was the metric equivalent of 8x10, so I'm not sure how much of the info pertains to the smaller size. I believe I saw a folding field version in 13x18 size on e-bay awhile back.
Good luck, Eric
Dear Martin, I bougt in Rome, second hand, two Mentor large format cameras about three years ago. One is called Mentor Studio, 13x18 cm; the other is called Mentor Panorama, 18x24 cm. Mentor Kamerawerk factory was in the ex-DDR, and before the IIWW it was the most important producer of studio camera in Germany. The two cameras I mentioned are all-metal made; the Studio has a focal-plane shutter, and the Panorama has a front-standard shutter. They use the same lens standard, and normally they are supplied with Zeiss Tessar lenses, a complete serie from 180 mm to 360 mm focus lenght. They are very heawy (the Panorama is extremely heawy, and is a monorail; the Studio is folding, but requires a really sturdy tripod). The film holder are not of the normal standard; don't buy the camera if they cannot supply also a couple of doubler-sided film holders! The cameras and the Zeiss lenses are very good; I found some failure only in the self-timer knob.Just for your information, I paid 500 dollars for the Studio including two Zeiss lenses, in exellent conditions, but this price probably is too low for the non-roman market. Here we hawe a lot of polish people wich buy the camera in Poland (or in Russia) and sells them in the flee market of Romle, at a very convenient price. Regards, Franco
Hi Martin,
My reaction may be a little late for your purposes, but for anyone with an interest in Mentor camera's (and others) see: ww.dessauphoto.de/Prospekte/body_prospekte.htm Here you will find brochures about former DDR manufactured camera's and noticing that your email address is located in Germany you probably will not have problems to read German!
Regards,
Fred
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