75mmBiogon vs. 75mm Grandigon -N

[John_4185]

I wonder if the one you were given is the one I gave away. Does the rear lens have a lot of very fine abrasions?

I figure a seven-inch circle because it was designed to cover 5"x5". And it does. If you extrapolate its coverage to be proportional to the late 38mm Biogon, then 7" is about right.

I can't mount it to my Century One 8x10. Too big. So, it's up to you, Buddy! Go for it. What are you going to use for a shutter? If you got the original electric shutter, you might want to make it work. I converted mine to manual B and T because I'm stupid about electricity. (I still kinda resent having to use light bulbs in the darkroom.)

Meanwhile, I found a Metrogon of a strange focal length. Longer than 6", shorter than 12". I'll let you know what I find.

[Dan Fromm]

John, Charlie Barringer gave me his junker. Its basically ok, but has a couple of pinpricks on the front element.

It has its shutter. All the shutter is good for is inspiration and a pattern for Waterhouse stops.

Charlie gave it to me because he knows I've been wanting a nice doorstop for a while -- my house has doors -- and that I've been curious about the P.O. monstrosities. Also because he has a delusion to the effect that I'm clever and will find a way to make the thing usable. And then he'll be able to use my trick to make his good one usable.

After I got the shutter off the lens and the lens out of the cone, it hit me that your idea of mounting the lens on a pedestal was a good one. I have to find a 4x5 Speed to see if there's room for the lens' rear cell between the upper and lower rollers. If so, then the thing to do is set up the back of a Speed behind the lens and on some sort of slider for focusing. That is, use back focusing instead of front as I think you're trying to do. A crude bellows made from black felt will do just fine. If not, well, I have doors.

I asked about coverage because after I got the lens free from the cone and could manipulate it more easily I used it to project an image of a window on the wall opposite. I'd swear that the image didn't start to vignette away to nothing until the angle between the lens and the wall was around 30 degrees. In other words, the lens seems to illuminate a lot more than 90 degrees. Look at yours from behind. I think its beady little exit pupil will stare at you as you rotate the thing until it vanishes behind the rear cell's outer edge. That's a lot off-axis.

J. G. Motamedi recently bought one, has promised to hold his in front of an 8x10 GG.

Cheers,

[John_4185]

Oh I dunno, Dan. Aren't you concerned that best is the enemy of the good, or that you are having fun during these dark, dreary, depressing Winter months?

I still have that wooden platform but not the back. What you don't see there is that the side away from the camera slides the lens back and forth to focus.

elearning.winona.edu/staff_o/jjs/tmp/2.jpg

elearning.winona.edu/staff_o/jjs/tmp/NW04.jpg

The second version is, of course, back focusing.

elearning.winona.edu/staff_o/jjs/tmp/standw.jpg

And the current version is, well, all in pieces. I was trialing a focal plane shutter from a manual aerial camera. Too big!

[John_4185]

Forgot the "field" version debugged (which means the lensboard doesn't fall out).

elearning.winona.edu/staff_o/jjs/tmp/new1.jpg

I think you've already seen pictures taken with it.

[Ole Tjugen]

Gentlemen, let me introduce my "Lens Test Bed": A 13x18cm (5x7") wooden camera with a universal iris lens board. Takes any lens up to 95mm diameter, and not even my 500mm Aerotar is too heavy. In the picture it's fitted with a 180mm C. P. Goerz Berlin Doppel-Anastigmat Serie III Dagor. Next project for testing will be a Winter casket set, a copy of the more famous Busch Vademecum No.2. Minimum extension (without mounting the lens inside, which is also a possibility) is about 60mm.

www.bruraholo.no/Cameras/Reisekamera/DSCN0422.JPG

[John_4185]

HEAVY? What's HEAVY?

[Struan Gray]

jj, Dan while we're hijacking the thread, any idea what the 3" f2.8 Zeiss lens in the Fairchild KB-18A "Strike" cameras is? I'm guessing a Planar.

[John_4185]

Ole, should we send you one of these monster 3" Biogons, too?

I have five of the darned things, and one that's pretty beat up. Bent S.K. Grimes' best lens spanner trying to get the front lens element out. (Soft metal on those tips. Watch out!)

BTW - These look like 10-element Biogons. (I did get one apart using my own spanner.)

[Struan Gray]

I was reading a book this evening which started like this:

One morning after breakfast Tom was fooling around with his chemistry set and he invented anti-sticky.

The he fooled around with anti-sticky and jam and springs and wheels and connecting-rods and he made a two-seater jam-powered frog.

My first thought was: "I know someone like that."

[Dan Fromm]

Struan, sorry, not much idea. Help me a little. Does the KB-18 shoot 70 mm film or 5"? If 70, probably a Sonnar, as on the Agiflite. Charlie has one, I've seen it. If 5", no idea.

I just recently learned that there are two very different 6"/2.8 Elcans. A little one for the F95 that covers 6x6 and not much more and a gigantic one for I'm not sure which camera that covers 4.5" x 4.5". Both are double Gauss types.

And that sparked a thought that wants confirmation/disconfirmation. The KS87 shoots 5" film and I've seen ex-KS87 6"/2.8s made by Old Delft. It seems to have been USAF's practice to buy a lens design and then put manufacture out to bid. Hence the Viewlex and Pacific Optical 3" Biogons. So I wonder if those KS87 6"/2.8s were made to the big 6"/2.8 Elcan design.

John, when I counted reflections in my little doorstop of nothing at all, I decided it conformed to Bertele's Biogon patent. 8 elements. But reflections from cemented surfaces can be hard to discern, so I could be mistaken.

John, I'm not very serious about moving up to 4x5 yet, am looking at the doorstop mainly to help Charlie organize his thoughts a little. 2x3 is capable of more than I'm getting from it. Better, I think, to improve my technique that to buy better bigger gear for taking more lousy pictures.

Back when I was shooting S8 very seriously, friends used to harass me about moving up to 16 mm. Well, yeah, no doubt about it, 16 mm gives better image quality. It blows S8 away, there's no comparison. Gear, filmstock, and processing all cost more, though. And the stuff is bigger and heavier, so I'd have ended up with more than I could easily manage myself in the field. In some respects, small really can be beautiful.

As for the better being the enemy of the good, well, sometimes. The good enough and in hand can also be the enemy of the possibly better that will cost something to check out. That's why I've stopped acquiring macro lenses. I'm sure there are better lenses than mine for what I'm not doing. But it isn't clear there's anything much better than mine for what I am doing.

Regards to both,