Lens design changes

[swmcl]

Hi all,

I have a query. If you take a shuttered lens, say a Kodak Commercial Ektar, can one assume it to have stayed the same in its dimensions and other physical particulars over the time it was made ?

ie. If you see an interesting lens on the Bay and it does not have a good shutter on it, can one assume it will fit your version of the shutter eg. Ilex shutters vs Kodak Eastman shutters.

I bet someone is going to tell me lenses were made with shutters and as a pair they stay. No chopping and changing ...

So if you have a Ilex #5 can it be swapped for a Kodak Eastman #5 - if you know there are examples of the lens in both shutters ... ?

It might be a little much to ask a seller to take full measurements (including tpi) of the lens threads ...

You may imagine I do not want to suck and see because it costs too much !

Cheers,

[swmcl]

OK would it help to ask whether the Kodak Eastman #5 shutter is equivalent to the Ilex Universal Synchro #5 ??

[Steve Hamley]

Kodak shutters and Ilex shutters are not the same thread, at least for the Commercial Ektars, the Kodak shutters have larger openings.

Cheers, Steve

[Dan Fromm]

Steve, in general if a lens is in a standard shutter (modern Compur, Prontor, Copal, Seiko) its cells can be put in another standard shutter. In general.

But there are exceptions. Although standard shutters' lengths, diameters and thread pitches are well standardized, how deeply the cells screw into the shutter can be lens-specific. For example, I just picked up a 60/5.6 Konica Hexanon for the Koni-Omega system. The lens is in a Copal #0; its rear cell goes too deep into all of the other #0 shutters I have on hand. Putting it in a normal ordinary usual #0 will require a shim to get the right cell spacing. I had a similar problem years ago with a 65/8 Ilex and #00 shutters.

Rochester, EKCo in particular, is in another universe altogether. According to the late Steve Grimes, an Ilex shutter sold to EKCo will not match the equivalent Ilex shutter sold to other customers. But two Ilex shutters of the same size, #5 in your example, sold to EKCo should match.

All that said, why swap shutters if the bad shutter can be repaired? I have to reshutter that Hexanon because its shutter is set up to be released by the K-O body and has no external release or cable release socket, but my situation isn't yours.

Cheers,

Dan

[swmcl]

Thanks Dan and Steve,

There was only the smallest, faintest glimmer of hope that 'all things would be equal'.

When you ask, "Why not repair the dud shutter ?" - I think I may have seen it on the Grimes site somewhere that the Kodak shutter was not the Ilex shutter. I think the implication was that the Ilex was the better shutter.

If there was some measure of confidence that one could take the Kodak shutter off and put an Ilex on then one sleeps a little easier.

I guess I'll wait till another comes up with a better shutter.

Cheers,

[Gene McCluney]

Thanks Dan and Steve,

There was only the smallest, faintest glimmer of hope that 'all things would be equal'.

When you ask, "Why not repair the dud shutter ?" - I think I may have seen it on the Grimes site somewhere that the Kodak shutter was not the Ilex shutter. I think the implication was that the Ilex was the better shutter.

If there was some measure of confidence that one could take the Kodak shutter off and put an Ilex on then one sleeps a little easier.

I guess I'll wait till another comes up with a better shutter.

Cheers,

While the thread mount of the Kodak specific Ilex shutters and STOCK Ilex shutters is different, the internal mechanism of the shutter (for a given Ilex size) should be the same, and parts from a working Ilex shutter "could" be used to repair a Kodak Ilex shutter. Although I have never seen a shutter on a Kodak Ektar that couldn't be made to work satisfactorily.

[Steve Hamley]

Kodak shutters are made by Ilex and are labeled so - but the lens cell threads could be different as they were made for Kodak, as they are also labeled.

Cheers, Steve