Super Angulon 65mm f8 - Could someone measure one for me?

[Steve Smith]

Steve, what measurement have you achieved so far?

I'm going to take it into work to measure tomorrow. All I have here is a sort of go/no go gauge I machined today with a 56mm gap. I would guess at about 58mm.

I can't imagine it was 2mm shorter in the old shutter. 0.5mm perhaps, 1mm at most. Unfortunately, I threw out the old shutter. Although the refuse collection isn't until tomorrow so I should go out and find it!

I would be interested in the measurements of your two lenses.

This is a bit like thermometers - If you have one, you know what the temperature is, If you have two, you're not sure!


Steve.

[Steve Smith]

Update: My current measurement is 58.4mm.

I have just found a CAD drawing I made about five years ago when I was building my 6x12 camera to show clearances in the focusing mount and I have drawn the lens with an overall length of 56.75mm.

I would have drawn it based on actual measurements and as this was in its original shutter, this is the distance I will be aiming for.

So I now have to get the front 1.85m closer to the shutter.


Steve.

[IanG]

I just checked my 65mm f8 Super Angulon Compur #00 (Linhof selected) and it's 57.46mm overall length, it's sharp to the edged at f22, in 25 years I doubt I've used it any wider maybe f16.

There's likely to be a slight variation between individual lenses, you may need to test to get the optimum spacing. I know two of my WA lenses are shimmed - a 75mm F8 SA and a 90mm Grandagon.

Ian

[Steve Smith]

Thanks. Yours is closer to Larry's 57.4mm .

I'm going to aim for 56.5mm for mine as that is the measurement I took from it when it was in its original shutter. I can then do some tests winding it out a whole turn at a time and if necessary, make a shim for it - and write down the actual measurement and store it in a safe place!



Steve.

[JimL]

Mine measures 57.53mm... S/N in the 10 millions. I bought the shutter and cells separately (lucked out on the right shutter... I think) and also wondered whether the spacing was off after looking at the schneider data page... and a scan of a 1967 Schneider brochure (about the age of my lens) from a Schneider archive also shows an overall length of 56mm. Maybe that's where the figure on the web page is from.

Edit: BTW, my shutter is bored for the shoulder

[Steve Smith]

I have done a bit more filing and got it down to 57.85mm Any further and I'm in danger of preventing the shutter from moving.

I think I will leave it like that and try some film to see if it has improved. The thread pitch is 0.5mm so I can do six shots with the lens unscrewed half a turn each time. that would give me 57.85mm to 59.1mm in 0.25mm steps.

Then I can decide which one I like the best (if any!).


Steve.

[rdenney]

Dang it! I forgot last night. Watched a movie with my wife.

Rick "now even more curious" Denney

[Steve Smith]

I think I know what's going on - For the benefit of anyone else daft enough to do it, this is what I have found:

My front cell measures 21.30mm front to shoulder and the rear cell, 20.35mm Add in the 16mm shutter distance and you get 57.65mm which is very close to the measurements others have given.

Take the 56.75mm figure from my CAD sketch and assume I was temporarily dyslexic and it could easily have been 57.65mm in reality.

Add in the fact that I have just discovered that the rear cell also has a shoulder which interferes with the shutter thread and that would explain why my measurement was too big.

After a bit of filing on the rear cell, it now fits fully up to the shutter. My new figure is 57.2mm which makes me think that I should now unscrew my front cell a whole turn to add 0.5mm to it.

Rick "now even more curious" Denney

Me too. If Rick's measurements are similar to the rest, I will take an average and try it there.

Thanks to all for your information and help.


Steve.

[Steve Smith]

So far we have an average of about 57.48 from three lenses with the biggest deviation from mean being 0.05mm.

I have unwound my front cell by about half a turn so my spacing is now 57.45 and with a piece of ground glass at the film plane, distant street lights appear as very sharp dots right up to the edges. If I wind it out a couple of turns (1mm) they get less distinct.

Obviously, I'm going to need to test it with film but I think I'm there.

Next time I need to do this, I'm using a lathe instead of files!


Steve.

[rdenney]

Okay, I've finally found a confluence of 1.) being home and 2.) remembering. Last night I had a music gig and my brain was still into the Fanfare from La Peri when I got home.

I have two 65/8 Super Angulons, one with a serial number of 9689xxx (ca. 1966) and the other with 7652xxx (ca. 1962). Both are in what appear to be identical Synchro-Compur #00 shutters. Both measure 57.56 when I attempt to use the same measuring technique. But I think the shape of the lens makes them extremely difficult to measure with calipers. It's too easy to hold the calipers at a slight angle, and the thicness of the barrel edge can spread the measurement a but. As I was trying to hone my technique, I was getting measurements sprayed across 0.18mm. And then I discovered that the newer lens front element is just a touch out of square, or something. I put both on a true surface and then laid a straightedge across the top of them, and I could only get three edges to touch at once. I will have do some experimenting of my own to decide which of these to use. I bought both of them for their shutters (I have a 65/5.6 that I use with the 4x5 camera), as backups for the shutter in my 47/5.6. I will use the better one on the Wanderlust.

My suspicion is that the difference between 57.48 and 57.56 is not going to affect performance. Or, whatever effect it has might be as much affected by sample variation, in which case the perfectionist will want to fine-tune the spacing as you are doing anyway.

But it would appear that the value in the Schneider literature that Dan linked is incorrect or measuring some slightly different dimension (which is what I suspect).

Rick "not sure I helped" Denney