Retrofocus LF Lenses - Wide Angle One-Shot Cameras (Tri-Colour/Three-Color)

[holmbāgu]

Everyone... thanks very much for all this great input.

Emmanuel, thank you for the French connection you've supplied. I may have never found this stuff, and to see an actual home-made tri-color camera... well this is a huge inspiration. I will definitely look into this more closely. Merci, merci, merci!

The problem with prisms I'm afraid, is that according to J.S. Friedman in The History of Color Photography, which I perused last night, these require lenses designed with all that extra glass in mind. So in other words you can't just put a normal camera in front of a prism unless you want to screw up all the corrections they've designed into it. I'm not good enough with optics to say anymore than what I read, but maybe this is what Dan was getting at with his mention of relay lenses in MP cameras. (?)

Otherwise I would agree, a prism like that seems like a brilliant solution for many reasons. National Photocolor makes reflective pellicles for relatively reasonable prices by the way. ($250 a piece for 5x7")

I'll look into the Komura Super Wide lenses and in the meantime, what MF SLRs had the longest focal flange distance?

Oh, and wide-angle attachments... a very useful suggestion.

[Sevo]

I'll look into the Komura Super Wide lenses and in the meantime, what MF SLRs had the longest focal flange distance?

I suppose Plaubel Makiflex and Arca Reflex 6x9 (or even older ones) - but these all took generic LF lenses, and had no retrofocal wides. Longest with its own lens family and retrofocal wides down to 50mm seems to have been the Mamiya RB67.

[ic-racer]

If you want a little prism like that to experiment with, look for a junked 3LCD rear projection TV, there is one inside.
http://sites.google.com/site/sonylcd...ockreplacement

[Michael Batchelor]

If you want a little prism like that to experiment with, look for a junked 3LCD rear projection TV, there is one inside.
http://sites.google.com/site/sonylcd...ockreplacement

Hey, now this is a piece of good news. I knew that there was a prism in old TV cameras, but they're scarce today.

How big is this thing?

MB

[marfa boomboom tx]

That's quite neat. Is it a commercial product or a special?

- Leigh

They are commercial products. Come in 2 flavors, one for CCD TV camera, one for [old style] digital to video projector...

WL in sep colors out ; or, RGB in WL out.

Shapes different, but in theory, and limited practice, either can be used for the other purpose.

-- it all goes boomboom sometime somewhere somehow

[Lynn Jones]

I did a couple of assignments with the Curtis Color Scout back in 1955/56, but I never thought that the lens was a retro, what a surprise for me.

Lynn

[RedGreenBlue]

The Curtis retro lenses were available in 2 focal lengths - 90mm for the 2 1/4 x 3 1/4 Scout and 133mm for the 4x5. These lenses appeared ca. 1956. However, no more than perhaps a dozen or so retrofocus lenses were made in each focal length before Curtis sold the business and manufacture of color cameras and lenses ceased, ca. 1959. The Scout cameras had been on the market since 1940 and the lenses on those cameras were not retrofocus.

Scott

[fdchen]

Zeiss Jena F4 / 140mm Flektogon should be suitable.
http://blog.xuite.net/fdchen/lenses/30068373

[Michael Batchelor]

Zeiss Jena F4 / 140mm Flektogon should be suitable.
http://blog.xuite.net/fdchen/lenses/30068373

Isn't that going to have a rather small image circle?

[fdchen]

Isn't that going to have a rather small image circle?

It can cover 4x5 easily. The distance from rear element to ground glass is about 170mm.