Ernemann Film K

[Muggins]

A bit unusual, this. It's German, from one of the companies that merged to form Zeiss-Ikon in 1926 (so at least a century old). Ernemann built the tower in Dresden that later became Pentacon's logo.

It's very well specified for a box camera, with B shutter setting at 2 apertures, plus instant, and a socket for a cable release. It's side opening and has folding latches to hold the film that makes placing the spools a doddle. It also has a pressure plate.

What's odd is that the lens appears to be a reverse meniscus so you'd expect images to be focused quite close to the camera , and with funky fall off of sharpness towards the edges. However a ground glass in the film plane suggests it's sharp all the way across - will be interesting to see what it looks like with real fillum.

flic.kr/p/2ruUsVV

 

[Muggins]

Should anyone else fancy using one of these, be aware that the shutter/aperture lever only needs to be moved a fraction to the right for the shutter not to fire cleanly or at all. It needs to be firmly to the left, pointing at "M12,5" to release cleanly. Guess how I found out...

 

[Vince Lupo]

When I was in my 'Ernemann phase' I had an Ernemann Film U, which is supposedly even more elusive than the Film K.

I shot exactly one roll of 120 film with it and every shot was out of focus. I tried to calibrate it to infinity and even sent it to Frank Marshman to see what he could do, but neither one of us could figure out what was going on. There wasn't anything missing from the lens, it was correctly mounted and the extensible wooden 'barrel' was fully extended (It seemed like the lens needed to be about 3mm further from the film plane for the film to be in focus). It was not a cheap camera so I ended up selling it to recoup what I had in it. It was unfortunate that between the two of us we couldn't figure out what was happening. I did like the camera but it had to go. Ah well.

 

[Muggins]

When I was in my 'Ernemann phase' I had an Ernemann Film U, which is supposedly even more elusive than the Film K.

I shot exactly one roll of 120 film with it and every shot was out of focus. I tried to calibrate it to infinity and even sent it to Frank Marshman to see what he could do, but neither one of us could figure out what was going on. There wasn't anything missing from the lens, it was correctly mounted and the extensible wooden 'barrel' was fully extended (It seemed like the lens needed to be about 3mm further from the film plane for the film to be in focus). It was not a cheap camera so I ended up selling it to recoup what I had in it. It was unfortunate that between the two of us we couldn't figure out what was happening. I did like the camera but it had to go. Ah well.

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That's a shame, Vince, it looks an intriguing camera.