Over the years I've sold many barrel lenses to photographers who appreciate the images these lenses can provide. Many of these lenses are typically used at their widest aperture. This was not a problem in the past, when film speeds were slow, and could be exposed for seconds. Today's films are of course much faster, and photographers need reliable shutters.

Remounting these lenses in shutters is a time-consuming and expensive process. It is far more cost effective to use the lens in barrel with an external shutter. A Sinar shutter is a great alternative, but adapting it to cameras other than Sinar is again expensive.

The Shanel 5A shutter is a much smaller and more elegant solution. It was made by Rittreck, (the predecessor of Wista) specifically for barrel lenses. It has no aperture mechanism, only a speed mechanism from 1 second to 1/100 plus B. X-sync and a cable release socket are available. This shutter is rugged, and will easily hold lenses weighing up to 1.5 kilos. The shutters are available on the used market in Japan, and I have sold a number of them in recent years. Unfortunately, the adapters that are required to allow lenses to be mounted on the shutter have become very difficult to find.

In an attempt to alleviate this problem, I've comissioned a CNC machine shop to manufacture the adapters in small batches. The first adapter for lenses like the Fujinar and Schneider Xenar 30cm / 300mm f/4.5 lenses is now ready for sale. The adapter is made of anodized aluminum and fits both lens and shutter perfectly.

As you can see in the photos, the adapter is mounted on to the front of the shutter, and the lens is screwed into the adapter.

More such adapters are on the way. The next one will allow a Verito 8 3/4" barrel lens to mount in a Copal 3 shutter.

Photos:









Price: 13,500 JPY / ~100 USD, plus shipping via my choice of JapanPost EMS or UPS.

If you'd like to buy, please send me an email at uchinomishiharai at gmail dot com. I will also post in the For Sale forum.