Konica Hexanon GRII 300mm f9

[tim atherton]

Anyone ever mounted one of these puppies in a shutter?

[Jim Galli]

Tim, This guy says he put one directly into a Copal 3?? I have 210 and 260, and they're a pain in the neck. Won't go into any shutter easily AT ALL. Love the 260 though as it's just incredibly sharp. Haven't had much luck with the 210 though. It would be a BIG pointless 210 anyway.

[Dan Fromm]

Hey, Jim, how easy is it to get the cells out? I can see what I suspect are slots for a spanner at the outer edges of the cells, don't have the nerve to risk scarring the glass. Am grade A klutz, have to be cautious. I shoot my 210 front-mounted on a #1. Works wekk on 2x3, shouldn't even be tried on 4x5. And I have a 150 that lives in a drawer.

Cheers,

Dan

[tim atherton]

Dan,

going by this 300 and other lenses I've taken out of barrels, you don't have to remove the elements themselves - rather undo a bunch of the little screws around the outside and then unscrew the lens assemblies from the barrel sections - sometimes easier than others.

Jim,

thanks for the APUG link - I knew I'd seen a reference somewhere - considering I contributed to that thread...! Now I just have to find an old copal 3 somewhere :-)

[Arne Croell]

On the 260mm, there are 3 tiny set screws at 120° intervals around the barrel for both the front and the back cell. After removing those, the cells unscrew normally.

[Arne Croell]

One short addition: on the front side there is another recessed set screw, slightly larger than the other three and above one of the three smaller ones. That one holds the aperture scale in place and does not need to be unscrewed.

Has anybody ever noticed that, judging from the reflections, the Konica GRII lens is different in construction from their G-Claron, Fujinon A etc. process lens counterparts? It looks that they consist of 3 single meniscus lenses on each side of the stop, i.e. 6 lens elements in 6 groups. So they are not a plasmat (6/4), Dialyte (4/4), or Double Gauss (meniscus, but only 4/4).

[Dan Fromm]

Arne, Tim: thanks for the replies. Yes I see the little slotted set screws, also the hex-headed screw. I'm still not going to dismantle my lenses.

Arne, I took my GRIIs out and counted reflections. Six on each side for the 210/9, all strong. Four strong, one faint, on each side from my 150/9. Possibly I'm going blind.

To check that, I took out a known Plasmat (Wolly 160/5.6 Pro Raptar) and counted reflections. Four strong, one faint. And a known Opic (= Planar), Taylor Hobson 4"/2 Anastigmat, also four strong, one faint. Also looked at a double Gauss (Process Nikkor 260/10), saw four strong on each side. Maybe I'm not blind.

Cheers,

Dan

[Arne Croell]

Dan,

thanks for sharing your observations. I only have the 260mm and based my assessment on that. It has the 6 strong reflections on each side, all moving in the same direction when the light source or the lens are moved, i.e. all have the same direction of curvature = meniscus lenses. Interesting that the 150mm GRII appears to be a Plasmat, and the 210 and 260mm are 6/6 constructions, and the 300mm maybe too?

[Dan Fromm]

Arne, I'm sorry but I have no insight into the 300. I don't think I've ever seen one. I took a shot at one that was on eBay recently, was outbid. Really didn't need it, shouldn't have risked having to pay for it, but ... And now, thanks to some other eBay foolishness and expensively sick pets I'm out of the market for a while.

I've looked in Cox and in the Vade Mecum for 6/6 more or less symmetrical lenses. There don't seem to be any such figured either place. I fear we're both hallucinating.

Cheers,

Dan

[Jim Galli]

Dan & Arne, Perhaps not. If you take the f9 Kowa / Computar apart for interior cleaning you'll find it's also 6/6. At least the 210 is. Always thought it was a clone of the G-Claron but not quite. Jim