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Colin Melhuish
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Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Monday, January 10, 2005 - 04:35 am: | 
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Just an idle thought on shutter & lens compatibility with folding cameras.
When these cameras were designed was the chosen shutter housing tailored to suit a particular lens design or were the shutters just standard "off the shelf" items with the lens designed to suit the supplied housing?
Or alternatively, is it possible to swap lens elements from one type of shutter to another?
Just curious!
Colin. |
Winfried
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Monday, January 10, 2005 - 04:50 am: |
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In most cases the manufacturers used off-the-shelf shutters. Sometimes they used special nameplates (with the camera manufacturer's logo etc) but basically the shutters are the same.
I think there are no official standards but most shutter manufacturers kept to certain dimensions concerning distance front flange - rear flange, body thickness, front and rear thread diameter (both are the same on most shutters) and location of the release levers.
I am currently (i.e. in long intervalls) working on replacing an old Welter shutter on a Petri MF rangefinder by a german Prontor II shutters. The original shutter had a smaller rear thread (and thus the hole in the standard is a bit small) but I think I have someone to make a thread adapter.
Also, at least many german cameras were available with sometimes a dozen or more lens/shutter combos. Usually it is the same set of lens elements just fitted to a different shutter. The bodies usually are identical, i.e. the spreader mechanism length etc.
Some cameras have more special shutter modifications. On the french Telka III camera there is a Prontor II shutter with an integrated exposure calculator. Also, it does not have inner threads on the front and rear lens tube but outer threads since the lens elements are larger than usual and could not be fastened with inner retainer ring.
There is a list of the most important shutter dimensions of several sizes on the S.K. Grimes website. |
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