Shutter options

[Randy]

I have a Yamasaki Congo 180mm f/4.5 barrel lens that I really like on my 5X7, and I like shooting it at fairly wide apertures (I believe it is a Tessar). Didn't even get a retaining ring with it so I managed to cut the hole in my home-made lens board just tight enough so that I could let the lens cut it's own threads into the lans board. The threads are about 53mm in diameter.

I could make a box and use my small Packard shutter (but I have that mounted in front of another lens), or find another Packard, but I thought I'd check to see if there are any ideas.

Is there a shutter that this lens will screw into, like a Betax #3 or something like that? I know a #4 is to big. I really can't afford to have it professionally machined into a shutter.

If all else fails I'll just use ND filters to get the exposure times slow enough...I guess.

[IanG]

You do Packard and I do Pickard :D

I've numerous Thornton Pickard shutters some front mounting others between shutter and lens boiard and and they are ideal for this use. For some unknown reason US photographers don't use them (they were sold under the B&J name).

Ian

[Randy]

Thanks Ian. I have seen only one myself personally. I didn't remember their name. Just looked on ebay and there are a couple for sale. Will keep them in mind.

[Dan Fromm]

There's not a really good inexpensive option. A Packard, mounted in front of the lens, might be your best bet.

When I've wanted to try barrel lenses out, I've mounted them very crudely (tape, tape, and more tape) in front of a shutter. Your lens' rear will go into the front of an Ilex #4 and the Ilex' diaphragm opens wide enough. If you want to use movements, well, vignetting might be a problem but I don't think the lens covers much more than 5x7 so that's more a theoretical than a practical problem. Unfortunately Ilex 4s aren't a dime a dozen. 3s are less expensive and easier to find. If you have one or can borrow one, try it, it just might work with the lens taped to its front. Might, but if you can lay your hands on the shutter trying is cheap. Tape is cheap.

Ian, stand-alone roller blind shutters (T-P and others) are very uncommon here.

[IanG]

Ian, stand-alone roller blind shutters (T-P and others) are very uncommon here.

That's quite surprising, by the late 1890's and throught to to the 1910's many manufacturres in the UK sold them with their cameras (mainly between lens type) and people with older cameras used the version that fitted the front of the lens. Essentially there's just a slight difference in the casing. They were still being made up until about 1960.

Perken, Son & Rayment, and also Lizars (http://www.earlyphotography.co.uk/site/entry_C176.html) use the shutters themselves as an intregal part of the front standards on some cameras. Maybe by the time Burke & james became the sole US agents demand had declined due to the introduction of shutters like the Compound and not much later the Compur, and of course in the US you had the early Bausch and Lonmb shutters.

Ian

[evan clarke]

You can buy a new Packard and it'll probably be cheaper than any other shutter you'll find.

[Randy]

You can buy a new Packard and it'll probably be cheaper than any other shutter you'll find.
Yes, the one I would need is $130 brand new.

[premortho]

I think that many cameras of the early dry plate cameras, used sector shutters here in the U.S. The more sophisticated of these had 2 or three instantaneous speeds for faster than f12-f14 single lenses. Those rapid rectilinear lenses made the idea of a between the lens shutter appealing. especially in the United States, where dust in the summertime was a real problem. So the rush to design and manufacture a more nearly dust resistant shutter. Or to at least convince the camera buying public that it would be so. I have a 1898 Premo Catalog floating around here, and when you get to the economy models, there is one with a "landscape lens" and a R.O.C. TBI sector shutter mounted in the front board, which was of course hollow. But even one step up had an inexpensive 3 speed plus Bulb and Time shutter made, I think, by Baush&Lomb. All of these Premos were in 4X5 or larger. I have one, a Premoette Senior, that came along a few years later. I carried it in my coat pocket as a back up to my Speed Graphic when I was working for a newspaper. It was in 3 1/4 X 4 1/4 and took film packs only. I made a ground glass back that fit inside the filmpack door. But usually used it off the focusing scale.
That's quite surprising, by the late 1890's and throught to to the 1910's many manufacturres in the UK sold them with their cameras (mainly between lens type) and people with older cameras used the version that fitted the front of the lens. Essentially there's just a slight difference in the casing. They were still being made up until about 1960.

Perken, Son & Rayment, and also Lizars (http://www.earlyphotography.co.uk/site/entry_C176.html) use the shutters themselves as an intregal part of the front standards on some cameras. Maybe by the time Burke & james became the sole US agents demand had declined due to the introduction of shutters like the Compound and not much later the Compur, and of course in the US you had the early Bausch and Lonmb shutters.

Ian

[premortho]

Should be "Bausch&Lomb" shutter in the above post. That Premoette Senior has a Wollensak Anastigment lens mounted in a Wollensak "Optimo" shutter. Shutter still functional after 100 years. Pretty accurate too, unfortunatly the supply of 3 1/4, /4 1/4 film packs have dried up!

[B.S.Kumar]

Perhaps you can find a Shanel 5A shutter with the appropriate adapter ring. These shutters were made for mounting barrel lenses. They have shutter speeds from 1/100s to 1s and B (no T), as well as flash sync, but no aperture mechanism. I have some Fujinar barrel lenses (including the 180mm) mounted in these shutters. Most likely the Yamasaki Congo lenses have the same threads.
Dimensions:
Overall size: ~116mm dia.
Mounting thread flange: ~64mm dia.
Maximum opening: ~51mm dia.
Rear flange: ~61mm dia.

Kumar