Barrel lens users whats your technique?

[stompyq]

If you practice a little, you can get speeds in the 1/25 to 1/50 using a pair of old dark slides, or stiff black cards. You can also easily construct a drop shutter to mount on the front of your lens. It's just a holder with a sliding card. Not that hard to do. Filters will help lengthen exposure time. Especially neutral density filters. A polarizer is essentially a neutral density filter of +/- 2 stops. Use slow film. Imagination is key here. It's been done for over a century. You can do it, too.

I have no idea how you can get 1/50 with a set of dark slides. Wow. Any pointers? or links? I want to stop subject motion 1/50 i can do but my wife won't sit still for seconds without her looking very glazed .

[Ernest Purdum]

You don't need a specialist to make a front-mounting lens adapter. Any half-way competent machinist can do it as long as he has access to a lathe that can cut both inch and metric threads.

[Dan Fromm]

Dan i've been thinking along the same lines. The lens is a simplex. I bought it off Hollis, here who bought it off Jim. It's very light and small. It's just stuck on a homemade linhof board that hollis kindly gave me. I need to check the diameter but it's smaller than 52mm (my filters are bigger) I would guess somewhere b/w 40-50mm. That would be in the realm of a copal 1 right? I know grimes makes custom adapters but it'll cost me several times more than i spent for the lens. How hyave you front mounted them? I'am kind of thinking about a jamming together a set of adapter rings and try to afix the lens and the shutter to them with loc tight. Bad idea?

The front threads of the #1 shutter, into which the lens' front cell normally goes, are threaded M40x0.75. Unfortunately there don't seem to be 40 mm filters so there aren't male 40 mm-to-female something larger step rings.

I use adapters from Grimes. You're right, these can be quite pricey so shouldn't be bought to find out whether a lens will work in front of a #1.

If I were you, I'd find a #1 on board, remove the lens cells, mount it on my camera, hold the lens in front of it and look through the back of the camera to see if the shutter cuts off the edges of the image. This requires at least three hands, but can be done with only two. Then you'll know whether it makes sense to proceed.

If it does, buy an ex-Polaroid MP-4 Copal #1 Press shutter. These are relatively inexpensive because they have no diaphragm and are basically useless. Then glue the lens to the shutter or bodge up an adapter ...

But first make sure one of these, um, confections is what you want.

Ernest, in my limited experience grimes' prices are competitive. Revolting, eh? And grimes knows something that few other machinists do. To avoid bad flare and, sometimes, a horrible central hot spot, the interior of the adapter's rear tube has to be threaded; threads as on filters are sufficient. If this isn't done, glancing reflections off the adapter will cause problems.

Good luck, have fun, make haste slowly,

Dan

[Merg Ross]

I adapted a Sinar shutter for use on my Calumet 8x10. The opening measures 3". Top speed, as Ken mentions, is 1/60th sec. Last time I did a speed check it was very accurate. The Luc is a good solution also, as is the Packard for not too great an expense.

[stompyq]

Dan i just measured the lens. There are threads at the back and the diameter is 49mm (or b/w 48~50mm). I'll need to get the calipers from my lab to make sure. Regardless i like the idea of the MP-4. Any idea if this will screw right in or will take a little bit of DIY work? Unfortunatly all my lenses are copal 0

[Dan Fromm]

Let me add to Merg's comment that the Luc and Packard, if they can be attached to the OP's lens or camera, respectively, pose much lower risks of vignetting issues than front-mounting on a #1.

There's another possibility in the Sinar/Packard/Luc spirit. Auxiliary roller-blind shutters. The make that pops up most commonly on ebay.co.uk is Thornton-Pickard, but there are others. They also pop up on ebay.fr.

All of these confections have one nominally instantaneous speed and "T," but I understand that a virtuoso operator of a Packard can get a fairly wide range of fairly well-timed speeds between forever and whatever "I" is.

Stompyg, now do you understand why I sometimes refer to lenses in barrel as poisoned gifts?

[stompyq]

poisened gifts that certainly is a good explanation. I've thought about the idea of a pacakard/luc/sinar shutter. But they look huge. This lens is small and i'll be using it with my wista DX woody. Not those huge 8x10 monsters.

[Really Big Cameras]

poisened gifts that certainly is a good explanation. I've thought about the idea of a pacakard/luc/sinar shutter. But they look huge. This lens is small and i'll be using it with my wista DX woody. Not those huge 8x10 monsters.

The Sinar shutter only comes in one size. It's designed to fit 140mm front standard of the Sinar cameras.

Packard and LUC shutters come in a wide range of sizes, from quite small to huge. If you can find a small LUC shutter, it might be a good match to your lens. Gitzo also made a shutter very similar to the LUC shutters. They are newer, but aren't as common as the LUC shutters and I'm not sure if they came in multiple sizes.

I'm at the opposite end of the spectrum. I use the Sinar shutter with barrel mounted lenses for ULF. I like the wide range of shutter speeds it gives me (8 sec - 1/60 sec). The speed range seems especially well suited to ULF shooting. And, of course it also has a B setting for those really long exposures.

For front mounting small to medium lenses, I also have a Compound No. 5 shutter that appears to have been either made for the purpose, or modified as it has no iris diaphragm. As it was lacking an iris diaphragm, the price I paid for it was quite reasonable. I'm not sure if it would fit on a Wista lensboard, though. Perhaps a Compound No. 4 would be an option for front mounting with your camera and lens. My Compound No. 5 has shutter speeds from 1 sec - 1/50, plus T and B. For such a big shutter, it's very quiet and doesn't cause a lot of vibrations.

Kerry Thalmann
Really Big Cameras

[Jim Noel]

I use two different methods:
1. Packard shutters
2. Jim Galli shutter ie. two 5x7 dark slides

[Hollis]

lots of ND to stop it down into the 1-4 sec. range, which I can handle with a hat or my hand. Just remember to make sure your hand covers the entire lens. I forget that I have wee hands to go with my t-rex arms (old farside reference) and sometimes I don't cover the whole front of my bigger lenses.

H.