Small lens for 6x9 view camera?

[false_Aesthetic]

Hey,

I just got my hands on a 6x9 graflex. It came with a 135. I'd really like to put something on it that's wider. Shorter than 65mm.

Cheap and light would be awesome. Multi-coated is preferred but I'll take single coated.

What are your recommendations?

[rdenney]

Hey,

I just got my hands on a 6x9 graflex. It came with a 135. I'd really like to put something on it that's wider. Shorter than 65mm.

Cheap and light would be awesome. Multi-coated is preferred but I'll take single coated.

What are your recommendations?

Shorter than 65? The only lens that would fulfill your requirements (particularly the "cheap" part) is a 47mm f/5.6 Super Angulon (NOT the XL). That is a tiny lens mounted in a #00 shutter. It has an image circle of 123mm--ample for 6x9 with room for movements.

Another tiny lens is the 65mm f/8 Super Angulon, which also comes in a #00 shutter. Image circle is 155mm.

I paid less than $300 for each of these lenses within the last ten years or so, and I've seen the 65 for less than that. The 65/5.6 Super Angulon isn't much more expensive in its older versions but it's a big bigger (67mm filter ring instead of the 49mm filter ring that the 47/5.6 and 65/8 have).

There are many cheap and small options at 90mm for this format.

Rick "figuring there are some Horseman and Fuji options, too" Denney

[Lightbender]

There is also the 58mm Rodenstock Grandagon. They make 47mm and 65mm as well, but the 58 is more common.

[Kuzano]

Also... don't overlook the 58 and 60 mm lenses that were used on the Konica Rapid Press cameras. Very good glass... don't know the coverage, but here's one on eBay. I think there is also a 58mm Hexanon (Konica) on eBay now as well.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/KONICA-HEXANON-60mmLENS-RAPID-OMEGA-CAMERA-KONICA-60mm-/230587762129?pt=Camera_Lenses&hash=item35b01a05d1

[Dan Fromm]

false, Speed Graphic (if so, which model), Century Graphic, or Crown Graphic?

Language, false. Graphic means press camera, Graflex means SLR. In Graphic speak, we talk about formats in inches, not in poor metric approximations. 2.25" x 3.25", 2x3 when speaking loosely. 56 x 82 mm, not 60 x 90.

You have high hopes and demands. Cheap. Small. Light. Multi-coated. Shorter than 65 mm. I suppose its all a matter of interpretation. You may find a lens that I see as expensive to be cheap. You may see a lens that I think is gigantic as small.

I've done the short lenses on 2x3 Graphics thing, fairly thoroughly too. Haven't had a 50/6.3 Mamiya, a 53/4.5 Biogon (AFAIK, can't be fitted), or a 53/4 Super Angulon. But I've had many of the easily found lenses shorter than 65 mm that can be used on 2x3 Graphics.

Read about 'em here: http://www.galerie-photo.com/telechargement/dan-fromm-6x9-lenses-v2-2011-03-29.pdf

Oh, yeah, if you luck into an uncoated 60/14 Perigraphe, grab it. With just four glass-air interfaces it doesn't really need to be coated.

[false_Aesthetic]

Sorry. Its a press camera. It came with a 120 roll-film back that is "close" to 6x9. I suppose that's actually a 2x3.

You're right. Cheap is a relative term. I'm hoping in the sub $400 area.

THanks for the link. I'll check it out today.




false, Speed Graphic (if so, which model), Century Graphic, or Crown Graphic?

Language, false. Graphic means press camera, Graflex means SLR. In Graphic speak, we talk about formats in inches, not in poor metric approximations. 2.25" x 3.25", 2x3 when speaking loosely. 56 x 82 mm, not 60 x 90.

You have high hopes and demands. Cheap. Small. Light. Multi-coated. Shorter than 65 mm. I suppose its all a matter of interpretation. You may find a lens that I see as expensive to be cheap. You may see a lens that I think is gigantic as small.

I've done the short lenses on 2x3 Graphics thing, fairly thoroughly too. Haven't had a 50/6.3 Mamiya, a 53/4.5 Biogon (AFAIK, can't be fitted), or a 53/4 Super Angulon. But I've had many of the easily found lenses shorter than 65 mm that can be used on 2x3 Graphics.

Read about 'em here: http://www.galerie-photo.com/telechargement/dan-fromm-6x9-lenses-v2-2011-03-29.pdf

Oh, yeah, if you luck into an uncoated 60/14 Perigraphe, grab it. With just four glass-air interfaces it doesn't really need to be coated.

[Dan Fromm]

false, Speed or Century/2x3 Crown? It makes a huge difference.

The shortest easily-found lens that will cover 2x3 and focus to infinity on a 2x3 Speed is the 58/5.6 Grandagon/Technikon. Come to think of it, the 58/5.6 Konica for the Koni-Omega should work too, the Grandagon has miles more coverage. But note that lenses for the K-O have to be reshuttered before they can be used on any other camera; I wrote about that in the article.

The shortest lens that will cover 2x3 and focus to infinity on a Century/2x3 Crown is the 35/4.5 Apo Grandagon. 47 Super Angulons won't make infinity on a 2x3 Speed.

[Joseph Dickerson]

Lenses mounted for the Graflex XL series of cameras can be removed from the focusing tube and remounted on Graphic, or any other, boards.

Not sure why Graphic didn't follow their own naming convention when they introduced the "Graflex" XL but they were surely rangefinder cameras. Except the extra wide body of course.

I think that lenses in the 90 to 105mm range should be fairly plentiful. Wider focal lengths will probably be scarcer, and get more so as you go wider. Unless of course, you're willing to pay for lenses designed to cover 4x5.

JD

[Dan Fromm]

Joe, the 58 Grandagon that's been mentioned several times was sold for the XL. The XL was a nice camera in many ways, an infernal nuisance in others.

Its 58 Grandagon mounted on a board that had a cable socket. The #00 shutter the lens is in has no cable socket, also no "T" setting. Focusing it on another camera, e.g., my little 2x3 Pacemaker Speed Graphic, is possible but not as easy as it should be. Triggering it while keeping one's paw out of the frame is also possible but ... The solution is to reshutter it.

[Joseph Dickerson]

Dan,

Good point. My Graflex XL experience is very limited, I never could come to grips with the "cluttered" viewfinder.

I still have a 270 Rotelar that I "liberated" from an XL many years ago. I used it on a 6x9 Gowland, which I wish I still had. :rolleyes:

JD

[rdenney]

Lenses mounted for the Graflex XL series of cameras can be removed from the focusing tube and remounted on Graphic, or any other, boards.

Probably (and Dan will correct me if I'm wrong--something I'm willing to risk in order to draw him out) it's because "Graphic" and "Graflex" were model names back when the company that made them was Folmer and Schwing. When F&S was bought by Kodak, it became the Folmer and Schwing Divison of Kodak. It was spun off by Kodak in the late 20's to become Folmer Graflex, and by the middle 40's became Graflex, Inc. It's not the first company to eventually assume the name of its most popular product (Rollei is another).

My assumption is that after the company name became Graflex, subsequently developed models were called Graflex This or Graflex That. That would include the XL, the 2x2, the Norita, and several others. In the early days, though, it would be a Folmer and Schwing Speed Graphic or a Folmer and Schwing Graflex RB Series D (to name, respectively, an example of a camera without and with a reflex mirror).

Rick "who has drawn Dan out before now" Denney

[Dan Fromm]

Rick, Folmer & Schwing's and successors' nomenclature confuses everyone. I'm not sure there's a rational explanation for it.

Set out bait and sometimes I'll take it.

Dan "the fish are biting today" Fromm

About bait, in old AT&T when they wanted to get my group to attend large painful meetings they served breakfast at the meeting. That bait attracted all of us and provided us with ammunition (buns) if the featured speaker was too offensive. I remember one meeting in which a clueless HR person harangued us with a speech written for a very different audience. Buns flew.

[domaz]

About bait, in old AT&T when they wanted to get my group to attend large painful meetings they served breakfast at the meeting. That bait attracted all of us and provided us with ammunition (buns) if the featured speaker was too offensive. I remember one meeting in which a clueless HR person harangued us with a speech written for a very different audience. Buns flew.

I'm not sure you can get away with food flinging in today's corporate america. Such a shame.

[Dan Fromm]

You mean buns are edible?

[rdenney]

Rick, Folmer & Schwing's and successors' nomenclature confuses everyone. I'm not sure there's a rational explanation for it.

In the absence of fact, plausibility must suffice, and my speculation seems as plausible as any. Certainly the nomenclature decisions of the 50's and 60's would have been made by different people and for different reasons than in the 20's.


Buns flew.

If we ever meet in person, I'll make sure to stay out of bun range when speculating out loud.

Rick "who has only had to dodge thrown (er--throwed) buns at Lamberts in Sikeston, MO" Denney

[Dan Fromm]

In the absence of fact, plausibility must suffice, and my speculation seems as plausible as any.

So wrote Rick "misinformation is better than none" Denney.

[rdenney]

So wrote Rick "misinformation is better than none" Denney.

Oh, so you can throw buns even through the Internet!

Speculation is not, by the way, the same as misinformation. And that word "probably" moves it into the category of plausible speculation.

Rick "bun received" Denney

[Dan Fromm]

Speculation is not, by the way, the same as misinformation. And that word "probably" moves it into the category of plausible speculation.

Quoth Rick "weasel words will save the day" Denney

[rdenney]

Quoth Rick "weasel words will save the day" Denney

Hey, I work for the gubmint. Weasel words are my life.

Rick "unreformed weasel" Denney