Camera Talk

Hi all,

Not sunny Sunday means I have to open, fix and/or clean something.
This time a Plaubel Makina II, the 's' I added myself because it's not entirely II or IIS version, just in the middle. Surely I'm wrong.
I mean the II version can accept more than 10cm Anticomar, but all the II I saw they have not the aperture and distance scale for the Wide Orthar 6.8 that this has, probably I didn't take a look deeply.

So the problem of this camera is the rangefinder, both mirror and beam splitter need to be changed, not far beyond to be cleaned. Luckily Martin Seelig can provides the mirror and he will cut the beam splitter with the original dimension that both need, I guess in one month I can haven them here.
Also maybe the back seals have to be replaced and but apart from a general cleaning all is fine, bellows and lenses as perfect.

Some photos from my day, all the rest at flicker.

Overture.


Front out.


Front from behind.


Speed ring connection.


Big and dirty Compur.


Aperture inside, shutter blades.


All cleaned.


Back to normal.


All together again.


End of Act I.

Full pictorial https://flic.kr/s/aHsmw9d97e

What can I say, the engineering is beautiful, top notch as Zeiss or Voigtlander, everything very straight with easy solutions but great quality and absolute not margin for mistakes.
Probably I will shoot something with the ground glass (btw its broken and I need a new one) and tripod.

Thank you for watching.
Alex

You are a much braver man than I! What a job. Good work.

I always heard these were great instruments, but know very little about Plaubel Makinas. Recently one of those was offered here at a very high price.

Glad to see that you were able to get it in shape!

Excellent work! Good camera to have too. Anyone I've ever known to own one just raves about them.

PF

Oh, that's so nice. When I was buying a lot, I toyed with the idea of picking up one of these cameras. I never did.

That's a fairly simply three-blade shutter, which means that it should have been relatively easy to service. "Relatively" covers a wide range, but with this one, it probably was easier than some.

I'm very excited to see what you do with this.

Thank you all for your nice comments.

About the three blade shutter... Have you ever heard about a 'rebound' of these blades in high speeds? I mean when closing they open back for a short while bouncing from the shutter case. I say this because the speed meter I used is based in a photocell connected to the phone (mini-jack) and measuring with an App, so far it reads pretty well up to 1/500 but no more, enough for me. And the readings I get from 200 and 100 in the Makina II are a double opening, I will post an image back at home. Checking the shutter at eye sight everything is normal, maybe its just an strange effect of being 3 blades instead of 4 as usual.
A normal test shooting will tell anyway more exposure than it should be.

Alex, I have heard of shutter bounce, but usually it's with a focal plane shutter.

You definitely need to use that camera, because I want to see some photos.

I want to... Im still waiting the mirror and the beam splitter, already posted 28th Nov no news so far...

You have to determine which lever is the catch for keeping the blades closed, and adjust the tension of its spring. But don't over do it. It once took me a couple of days to figure out that someone had really torqued a spring on a Zeiss Contaflex II Syncro-Compur, which then held back the striker bar that was supposed to activate the shutter catch lever.

PF

Good call Phil, I will take a look, I know the spring which close the shutter blades but I'm not sure if can be adjusted.
Another theory about this is the 3 blade shutter can't be checked the same way a 4 blade shutter by my photosensor, the next time I open the shutter I will check carefully both options.