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View Full Version : Any experiens with this lens? good? bad? what?



durr3
13-Mar-2015, 08:49
Does anybody have any experience with this lens and shutter? It is a Steinheil Munchen Doppelanastigmat Unofokat 1:4.5 f=16.5cm on a Compur shutter. I had it CLA'd and have not had a chance to shoot with it due to the fact that I do not have a retainer ring and cannot find one.
Any help? thanks130721130722

Vaughn
13-Mar-2015, 09:30
No experience, but the 165mm focal length is interesting and looks to be a nice small lens. Have fun with it!

Jon Shiu
13-Mar-2015, 10:13
What size of retaining ring or flange do you need?

Jon

durr3
13-Mar-2015, 13:59
Hi Jon,

I am not sure, but I will take some measurements and let you know.

thanks

Peter Yeti
13-Mar-2015, 19:42
Steinheil was a highly esteemed manufacturer from Munich (inventor of the rapid aplanat/rectilinear design, 1864). I have an Unofokal 4.5/150mm from 1925 which a previous owner found worthy to get it coated. It is a great vintage lens in a great shutter. The Unofocal is a dialyte design (4 elements in 4 groups) comparable to a modern Apo-Ronar. It is super sharp with high resolution and medium coverage. It also has beautiful bokeh in my opinion. I guess I don't have to say much about how great the Compur shutters are. Yours was modified by adding a flash sync. It should be a Compur 2 and finding a retaining ring is nearly impossible. For testing you can make a makeshift retainer from thick, sturdy cardboard (like a 3mm mat board). But in the end you may want to get one machined from metal.

Here are two examples that I shot with my 4.5/150


http://u.jimdo.com/www46/o/sb5e7cfd989e16d4a/img/iaf38232838bef832/1424388322/std/zitronen-flaschen-steinheil-unofocal-4-5-150mm-f-8.jpg
@ f/8


http://u.jimdo.com/www46/o/sb5e7cfd989e16d4a/img/ia8c8a9f647bef13e/1424388321/std/roast-chicken-steinheil-unofocal-4-5-150-f-5-6.jpg
@ f/5.6

Peter

F64
25-Mar-2015, 08:20
Hi, f/8 is just great. May I go OT and ask how you lighted it? Thanks

Chauncey Walden
25-Mar-2015, 08:32
A ring is not necessary for a lens that light. Put it through the hole on the board and add a little hot glue around the back.

stiganas
25-Mar-2015, 09:54
I might have an extra retaining ring good for your Compur.


I had it CLA'd and have not had a chance to shoot with it due to the fact that I do not have a retainer ring and cannot find one.
Any help? thanks130721130722

David Lindquist
25-Mar-2015, 15:01
I recently got a flange from SK Grimes for a "No. 2" dial set Compur for $35.00. If you go to their website you will find they offer as stock items flanges for 4 different mount sizes of this shutter. Also some of the listed sizes are quite close together so they might want to have the shutter in order to make sure of the fit. It looks like they only have flanges (the thing that fastens to the front of the lens board with screws) but not retaining rings (the thing that you screw on the back of the shutter after putting it through the hole in the lens board) for these particular shutters.
David

Peter Yeti
25-Mar-2015, 15:39
David, you are right about this. I own two "No. 2" Compurs, one has a flange diameter of 43.8 mm, the other of roughly 56 mm. The dimensions of the old dial set Compurs were all over the place and little standardized. This drove me so crazy that I even started a data base.

Peter

Peter Yeti
25-Mar-2015, 15:44
Hi, f/8 is just great. May I go OT and ask how you lighted it? Thanks

Thanks. Hmm, it's quite a while ago that I shot this. IIrc, I had a small softbox on shower and a larger one at roughly 8 o'clock at ratio 1:2 and about 200 Ws total.

Peter

David Lindquist
25-Mar-2015, 18:43
David, you are right about this. I own two "No. 2" Compurs, one has a flange diameter of 43.8 mm, the other of roughly 56 mm. The dimensions of the old dial set Compurs were all over the place and little standardized. This drove me so crazy that I even started a data base.

Peter
On their website SK Grimes offers four flange sizes for the No. 2 dial set Compur, for thread diameters of 43.77, 43.95, 50.0 and 55.6 millimeters. All have a pitch of 0.9mm. I have a hunch these diameters are empirically derived from measuring the shutters in this series that they have seen over the years. I just measured the diameter of the thread on the dial set Compur I mentioned earlier. Using vernier calipers graduated in millimeters I get 43.8 mm. With this information I wouldn't be able to decide with confidence whether I should order SK Grimes's 43.77 mm or their 43.95 mm flange. But they had my shutter at hand for repair. Their invoice described the flange as "44mmX.9".

I also have an 18 cm f/4.5 Tessar in a dial set Compur. Its mounting thread diameter is 55.6 mm. I didn't measure the pitch.

Egad this is fascinating. Well to me anyway.

David

Peter Yeti
25-Mar-2015, 19:11
David, you seem to have pretty much exactly the same shutters of this kind that I have. Whether SK Grimes measured 43.77 or 43.95 doesn't seem to matter much once you cut the thread on the lathe. I think they would both pass as M44x0.9 threads. I noticed deviations of 0.1 mm on the threads of #1 Compurs on average, which seem to be slightly more standardized regarding flange thread (M39x0.75 iirc).

I also have a Tessar 4.5/18 cm like yours (great lens by the way). It seems like the Compurs were custom made for that lens since the barrels are considerably wider than a usual Compur #2 would take. That also appears to be the reason for the larger flange diameter. The 4.5/16.5 cm Unofokal might be in the more regular shutter with the M44 thread according to the pictures.

Peter

RSalles
25-Mar-2015, 20:48
Gentlemen,

Not intending to go TOT into this thread, but, does anybody have an idea of what size or type of lathe do I need to make myself any size of flange and retaining rings for lenses in barrel and shutters?

Thank you,

Renato

plaubel
26-Mar-2015, 01:16
Recardo, there is something to know about, and an answer with only one sentence is nearly unable ( no, it is able, but this creates 10 new questions ) - so maybe you want to create a special thread ?

This small lenses from the old Plattenkameras - I love them all.
Everyone seems to have an own and a very special characteristic, sometimes smooth witout the missing of sharpness, often with an unbelieveable deepness in the picture, and even the notsogood-ones mostly are sharp enough to me at f/22.
For me, really wonderful lenses.

Because of the small weight of the combi, you can give a "thread" to a wooden plate, by screwing the shutter into a whole with a less diameter of nearly 1 mm.

Cheers,
Ritchie

MDR
26-Mar-2015, 07:50
The Steinheil Unofocal was considered one of the best lenses of it's type (fast anastigmat), 165mm is the standard focal length for 10x15cm plates. For more info see the Brochure on cameraeccentric.com http://cameraeccentric.com/html/info/steinheil_1.html

F64
26-Mar-2015, 07:55
Thanks. Hmm, it's quite a while ago that I shot this. IIrc, I had a small softbox on shower and a larger one at roughly 8 o'clock at ratio 1:2 and about 200 Ws total.

Peter

Thank you very much. Very impressive.