Hi,

I'm not sure if this question should properly be placed in the large format forum, becuase it concerns a 6x9 camera, but at least it is a 6x9 view camera!

I recently bought this, my first view camera - mainly because the concept of tilts and shifts and swings and rise and fall fascinates me, but also because it is so beautifully manufactured. It is a Plaubel Peco Jr, which is a metal standards, monorail camera with rise, fall and sideways shift on the front standard and tilt and swing on the rear.

It came with three lenses, a 135 f4.7 Schneider Xenar, a 105 F4.5 Zeiss Tessar, and a 65 f6.8 Schneider Angulon. Checking the Schneider serial numbers against their www shows that the lenses date from the late 50's, early 60's. I suspect the camera is of the same vintage, though I have been unble to research anything on this model.Both the longer lenses are in Compur shutters, and running films through shows that the shutters are pretty accurate, except a bit slow at slow speeds.

The Angulon, though, has no shutter, although it does have a very nice lens cap in black leather, lined with blue velvet! Is this what is correctly called a barrel lens?

How is this intended to be used? Does one load slow film, set a small aperture, and expose by taking the lens cap off, timing with a stop watch and clapping the cap back on? The aperture scale is marked down to f32, but goes one click beyond this (to f45, or f64?).

I'd be grateful for any info on this, or the rest of the outfit, which includes both bag and conventional bellows, ground glass back, three disreputable looking film backs (one Plaubel, one Rada, and one unbranded) and a smelly dark cloth! I also wonder why somebody would have bought a 105 and a 135, unless there is some difference in their ideal use, or one was a dog, and it was 'replaced' by the other. I do know that the previous owner was an architect.

I'd be grateful for any help/advice/comments. Thanks in advance.

-- Ken Munn (ken@pcm-marketing.com), September 21, 1999

Answers

A lens without a shutter is indeed a barrel lens. You can use the hat on/off method if your exposure time is long enough, or Steve Grimes can mount the lens into a shutter assy. for you.

-- Ron Shaw (shaw9@llnl.gov), September 21, 1999.