What is this shutter on a Vesta Portrait lens?

[Whir-Click]

avid1, beautiful picture! You’re really showing the Vesta’s characteristics to great advantage.

It couldn’t be simpler to put the 7” Vesta in an Alphax or Betax #3, just unscrew the cells from the old shutter and screw them into the new shutter. No machining, adapting or anything else required. Here’s the before and after about 30 seconds apart.

You have a few options in this family of shutters (pictured), but none faster than 1/100. You may need to resort to ND filters to shoot wide open. The regular and heavy duty Alphax #3 go up to 1/100 with synchronization optional. The older Betax and newer Pi Alphax have top speeds of 1/50. All will accept your Vesta cells while maintaining correct spacing (plus or minus a fraction of a millimeter).

[avid1]

Thank you so much for comprehensive post about the various shutters for the Vesta, along with pics. This information was immensely helpful. I will be off to find an appropriate shutter for the lens, most likely a Synchro Alphax #3. Is it a general rule of thumb that 1/100th are all #3 shutters, and 1/200ths are #2 shutters? They don't indicate the shutter number on the shutters on any of them. Most sellers don't mention the number either, perhaps they don't know.

The max speed of 1/100th is not a concern, ND filters and 100 iso films should take care of it, as you suggested. Not to mention, the Speed Graphic has the focal plane shutter to shoot at high speeds of up to 1/1000th. At 1/250th and above, the shake from the curtain should be well mitigated.

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to you!

[avid1]

Hi Whir-Click, here is what I bought on eBay and I think it is the right shutter. Says #3 on the original box from Ilex and Alphax on the shutter fascia. Looks to be a synchro variant. However, the widest aperture on this is f4.5 while the one you posted above is f3.5. It also comes with some lenses but no barrel, and I am not sure what that's about. Either way, all I need is the shutter. I just hope the shutter fires at proper speeds without the need for a CLA. Anyway, here are the images of the shutter I just bought:

[Whir-Click]

Hi avid1, that Alphax shutter will work with your Vesta lens cells. It appears to have a lever to be fired by an external solenoid rather than internal flash synch. My guess is that the Ilex box and miscellaneous bits in the sale are unrelated to the Alphax shutter.

For the aperture, you could transpose the scale from your original TIB shutter onto the new Alphax, either by measuring the size of the opening at each setting, or by simply making a photocopy of the scale and taping it onto the face of your new shutter.

[avid1]

The difference in aperture scale compared to yours had cast a doubt in my mind. The seller couldn't shed a light on it. Good to know this particular shutter will work. I don't intend to use a flash with it, so the synch won't be that important for now, but I am hoping that the shutter speeds are going to be fairly accurate when it arrives. The biggest deal for me would be to transpose the aperture scale and be accurate with it. I hope it doesn't become an issue, although pasting a photocopy version would be a brilliant way to simplify the problem.
Thanks again.

[Mark Sawyer]

Best to assemble the lens in its new shutter and determine the f/stops by measuring. The new Alphax may not close down at the same linear rate as the old shutter.

[Whir-Click]

As usual, Mark is right! I measured, and although the “TB” shutter and the Alphax have identical minimum and maximum aperture dimensions, the Alphax shutter’s diaphragm indicator lever travels noticeably farther. You’ll have to measure the opening values and mark.

[Mark Sawyer]

I'm always right, and I never lie!

[avid1]

So, I received the Alphax shutter yesterday and transferred the lens cells on to it. It fit right in as expected. However, I noticed one of the leaves of the shutter was not in line with the rest of them. I attached a picture of it. Also, the shutter doesn't stay open at T or B and it only works at 100, 50 and 25. When I fired the shutter without the lens cells at first, it did work at all shutter settings. It even fired at 1 second at what seemed to be like a second. Something happened after I screwed the cells in. Not being too experienced at fixing shutters I think it would be safe to send it for a CLA now, and a proper assembly. The aperture ring on the shutter is pretty smooth, as is the shutter itself. So I can't blame the shutter. Looks like I screwed up something inadvertently.

[Whir-Click]

avid1, what a drag! Is there a screw missing in the circled area? With the shadow I couldn’t be sure, but a missing blade screw is the only thing I can think of that could cause the blade to slip out of position.