Graflex.org

worldphoto · Posted: Tue Feb 24, 2004 4:25 am Post subject:

Rich
Glad to see you won the auction. I own eight of the Tiffen positive lenses and they are all top quality!
Harry

RichS · Posted: Tue Feb 24, 2004 4:56 am Post subject:

You own eight of them??? You should be able to tell us everything about using these things!

I don't think I've ever bought anything from them before, but I was in their stoer a couple years ago. We'll see how long it takes for me to get it, and when I have the time to play with it. It has captured my interest...

And Dave(?), I'll have to take a look at "The Camera". I don't remember myself and it's been a while since I've read it...

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"Ya just can't have too many GVIIs"

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worldphoto · Posted: Tue Feb 24, 2004 5:47 am Post subject:

Rich
Thanks for bidding early because if there had not been a bid I would of placed a bid. It wasn't going to close without a bid. I've won auctions thru Henry IN Canada and they are OK.
Yeah, I have four series 7 and four series 9 plus lenses. One of my series 7s is a +6 lens and with my 135mm will drop and focus at infinity to a 84mm combined lens. (normal 120 camera lens) Vignetting is the problem here.
Harry

[ This Message was edited by: worldphoto on 2004-02-25 11:09 ]

RichS · Posted: Wed Feb 25, 2004 2:46 am Post subject:

I have a 1,2,3 set in 67mm (maybe 72?) that is rarely used. I do find them very useful on my 35mm setup when I'm walking around with a 28-210 zoom and find something I can't quite get close enough to with that lens. For serious 35mm work, I have a bellows & short focus lens, but I don't always have it with me.
With the Graphics, things are slower and it seems to already have the bellows attached

So I haven't really had the need in LF. But I'll tell you that having a 90mm streched out 17 inches from the film makes for one dark GG. A close-up lens would deffinitely help there with the slight trade-off of quality. But to be honest, I haven't tried them yet. Although ow that I think about it, they may be a good idea on the 8x10? Trading a little optical quality to get rid of the shake from 25 inches of bellows may be worth it?
And now that it's paid for, I'll hopefully soon be able to play with a minus lens! I'll take any excuse to get me to actuall use a camera instead of talking about them or fixing them...

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"Ya just can't have too many GVIIs"

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worldphoto · Posted: Wed Feb 25, 2004 5:36 pm Post subject:

Morning
My ISPs force me to stop and save my messages or lose it. So that's the reason for many of my edits.
Okay, I always carry a +2 lens (58mm) with my 35mm gear. My Tamron zooms are too soft with it so I use two modified Mamiya fixed focal length lens with the close up lens.
We got rid of the Mamiya camera because it's more fun shooting 120 film with the Crown. I am really excited now that I've figured out that my close-up lens (ser. 9) work on the rear element of my 360. By the way, it also works on my 4x5 view with the long bellows. With the 360 combo (+3 = 186mm) (+2 = 222mm) and (+1 = 275mm) and with full coverage with the 4x5. I haven't tested on the 8x10 yet.
I started testing my Macnan minus lenses on the Crown but found out that I didn't have adequate bellows with it so yesterday I began to set up my 4x5 with 30" bellows so they can be tested. I estimate one of the Macnan lenses is near a -5 diopted lens. Wow, I did get long.
Harry

[ This Message was edited by: worldphoto on 2004-02-25 09:44 ]

[ This Message was edited by: worldphoto on 2004-02-25 09:49 ]

[ This Message was edited by: worldphoto on 2004-02-25 21:36 ]

Henry · Posted: Wed Feb 25, 2004 7:01 pm Post subject:

Disclaimer: I don't do auctions. The "Henry" referred to in worldphoto's second post (third one down on this page) is not yours truly, but somebody else with the same name. Just like the guy who wrote all those Shakespeare plays.

Dan Fromm · Joined: 14 May 2001 Posts: 2144 Location: New Jersey

worldphoto · Posted: Wed Feb 25, 2004 11:30 pm Post subject:

Okay, I started testing my set of Macnan negative lenses today. The only one I got to check out was the negative plano-concave and it is closer to 6 diopters in strength. First I put it on my 152mm lens and ran out of railing before it would focus. Then I put it on my 135mm and was able to focus at infinity with a 14 inch draw (+ or -). The combined focal length is 350mm. Two more negative lenses to go and three positive.
Just another note, my -4 Kodak Telek (ser. 6) worked fine on the Crown & front element of the 135mm lens and with full 4x5 coverage on the GG.

[ This Message was edited by: worldphoto on 2004-02-25 15:35 ]

[ This Message was edited by: worldphoto on 2004-02-25 15:47 ]

[ This Message was edited by: worldphoto on 2004-02-25 15:50 ]

Dave · Joined: 05 Dec 2003 Posts: 78 Location: Canada

Hi all. I mentioned earlier that I thought Adams had written about positive supplementary lenses in The Camera. I was wrong-- couldn't find it there. I think I was confusing it with Stroebel's View Camera Technique, which has a couple of pages on this topic. Stroebel makes the expected cautions-- degraded image quality, limited coverage, exposure compensation for the different bellows extension.

I have a cheap (Hoya) +3 supplementary that should turn my 105 Symmar into an 80mm lens, and I'll experiment with it sometime-- I don't expect stellar results, even stopped down.

Jack5541 · Joined: 31 Jul 2003 Posts: 76

hi...
i don't know if this is related to the foregoing discussion, but i'm kinda new to this discussion board and to Graphics as well and I thought I would present this query to those here who have far more experience and knowledge than I have. I recently got a box full of filters at a recent camera expo near Boston. A few were labelled as Series VI Kodak Portra with +1,+2 and +3 designations. Can anyone tell me the functions of these items? Is their purpose to increase or decrease effective lens focal lengths? If so, how well do they work to achieve this?
Any info is appreciated. Thanks!!!

worldphoto · Posted: Thu Feb 26, 2004 7:36 pm Post subject:

Hi Jack
This is exactly what we are discussing. Your Series VI(6) Kodak Portra lenses work very similar to attaching a filter to the lens. Unthreaded Series sizes range from 5 to 9 and just require adapters to connect to many different filter size lenses. The +1 thru +3 are called wide angle effect lenses and will when combined with your prime lens shorten its effective focal length. I think within reason work very well but they don't work well on existing wide angle lens (the longer prime lens the better).
Look under this 'Lenses Help' for the topic 'Ever heard of a Taylor Series VI telephoto lens?' and there is additional discussion on this very topic. Minus (-) lenses were also made that provide combined telephoto effects (combined increase the prime lens effective focal length).
Note:
Positive (+) lenses are thickest near the center of the lens. Negative (-) lenses are thinnest near the center of the lens.

[ This Message was edited by: worldphoto on 2004-02-26 11:43 ]

[ This Message was edited by: worldphoto on 2004-02-28 08:50 ]

t.r.sanford · Posted: Sat Feb 28, 2004 2:18 am Post subject:

Those who did not grow up in the 1950s will not recall the extensive lore that surrounded closeup lenses back then.

The Kodak "Portra" and other positive supplementary lenses were the only way you could work closer than the greatest extension of the focusing mount on the fixed-lens cameras popular back then, including quite good rangefinder models from Konica, Minolta, Aires, and others (including, of course, the 35mm. cameras made or sourced by Graflex).

Cameras of this kind seldom focused closer than 18 ins., if that. Cameras with front-element focusing, which included most of the folders in 120 and 35mm. formats, might not let you get closer than three feet.

The basic premise is that, when the prime lens is focused at infinity and you attach a close-up lens, the resulting system will form a sharp image of a subject whose distance equals the focal length of the supplementary lens. That is, with a +2 lens in place and the prime lens focused at infinity, the subject distance is 2 diopters = 500mm.; with a +3, 333mm; with a +4, 250mm. A +2 and a +3 worked as a +5, for a working distance that started at 200mm., and so forth.

You could, of course, focus closer by racking out the prime lens, but you had no way of observing the effect. So sets of closeup lenses were accompanied by elaborate charts that showed the working distances for various normal lenses with the supplementaries attached, when you scale focused closer than infinity. Dial calculators were devised; tables were provided in the Kodak "Pocket Dataguide."

Most of the discussion here has been about using closeup lenses for a purpose other than the one for which they were intended. It has been pointed out, very justly, that they work well in their original role too, even on a groundglass-focusing camera with a bellows. They can be especially helpful with a longish lens when you want to retain a reasonably bright focusing image.

RichS · Posted: Mon Mar 01, 2004 9:15 pm Post subject:

Well, so much for my first order from Henry's (the Canadian camera store!)...

Got the lens today. Looked at the invoice, and they double charged me. They must have some computer system. Quantity 1, Unit price 9.90, subtotal 19.79???

No, they haven't responded to my e-mail yet...

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"Ya just can't have too many GVIIs"

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worldphoto · Posted: Mon Mar 01, 2004 11:43 pm Post subject:

Rich
Sorry to hear that you're having a problem! Based on their auction you should owe $15.75 total. Tell me (PM me) if they won't correct the error and I will cover the difference. Or, if you decide you don't want it, PM me and I'll cover it all.
Harry

[ This Message was edited by: worldphoto on 2004-03-01 15:50 ]

RichS · Posted: Tue Mar 02, 2004 3:16 am Post subject:

Wow Harry, that's quite a nice offer and I really appreciate it. But I certainly wouldn't hold you responsible for a mistake by Henry's (the store, not the person

). I've had billing errors before, quite a few of them... I haven't had one yet not get straightened out. One took some threatening, but that turned out to be the norm for that place.
I don't expect any problem with Henry's. I do expect having to send a couple more e-mails and maybe wait a week or so, but we'll see.

And no, I have no intention of giving up this lens even if you do want to pay twice what it's worth (just kidding).

I hope to give a visual test tomorrow to see what it's capable of. Now if I could only find a complete set in say 72mm...

Thanks again!

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"Ya just can't have too many GVIIs"

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