graflex lenses

[E. von Hoegh]

The filmholders - and film loading - could be a culprit, too.

Could you show more clearly the "clock-back" you mentioned in your first post? You also mentioned you had to "guess at the size of the hole". By this, do you mean there is no aperture scale?

[BrianShaw]

I assume he was using teh best-availlable words to describe the Optar 1000 shutter's cocking collar. There are so many options on what's going wrong. One other consideration could be impact of the large amount of extension being used to get close-ups.

[premortho]

Yeah, Brian...talk about a choke shot!!

[Mark Kononczuk]

ok, I'll have a look. thanks

[Mark Kononczuk]

the pictures I posted are tiny samples- the overall image is a full-length portrait which takes up 70% of the whole shot, so there is still stuff around the figure. the full pictures are about 80cm x 60cm at 300dpi. the little samples of details are about 4cm x 3cm.
I took the collar cocking mechanism apart wanting to retain the lenseboard and the cogs kind-of fell apart, so that's the end of the shutter's life - it didn't work properly anyway. the lenseboard is also unsalvageable as it's permanently connected to the shutter.

[Mark Kononczuk]

actually - how far can you go with sharpness with an optar lense? can you get a razor sharp image ( if all is working properly ) on a, say, 100cm x 80cm print?

[Mark Kononczuk]

does anybody know the difference between a graflex wollensak an optar and an ektar lense? are they coated (or multi-coated)? also, how do these lensboards differ? I noticed the some boards have been drilled. what lensboard would i need for one of the above lenses on a super speed graphic?

[Dan Fromm]

Mark, go to www.graflex.org and read the FAQs. All of them. Then think a little, and if there's something you don't understand ask for help there and here. When you ask, it would help if you explained that you'd read the FAQs and needed help understanding what's in them.

[Mark Kononczuk]

The filmholders - and film loading - could be a culprit, too.

Could you show more clearly the "clock-back" you mentioned in your first post? You also mentioned you had to "guess at the size of the hole". By this, do you mean there is no aperture scale?

my shutter doesn't work on times over half a second so I had to uncover and cover the lense by hand after a reading from my lightmeter. the only problem with this was that the notches where you set the aperture normally don't work when the shutter is open so I had to guess the size of the hole. it turns out that f/32 or f/120 for example is a lot wider than I thought. I can't show you the clocking-back mechanism because I dismantled the shutter and it fell to pieces.

[ic-racer]

Attachment 77007 . The color images are not very good

Things that I have observed that cause a lens to not make a sharp image at any focal point even when stopped down are the presence of the wrong rear element or severe abnormal front-rear element spacing or stopping down too much.