I can't identify this Leica

[ZeissFan]

That's a very old compound shutter and therefore is not flash synchronized.

You tension the shutter using the small chrome-plated lever that connects to the front plate of the shutter and release it using the small lever on the opposite site.

Also, the fact that the person's name is engraved gives a hint. His name is "Miller." If this were done by Leica for an in-house project, you would expect his name to be "Mueller" or something German -- probably not "Jerome S. Miller." The person's name could have been engraved at a later date, but I suspect the modification was done by or for Mr. Miller.

 

[Rogrund]

Perhaps a customized camera for some scientific application.

This is my guess, too. There was a Jerome S. Miller at the Division of Mammals, Museum of Zoology, University of Michigan in the 1950's. He published a article on the occurence of the Red Bat in caves in august 1955.

A camera for bat photography, maybe? 🙂

 

[kb244]

Hi,

the big lever on the front shutter is used to release the shutter. But first you have to cock it with one of the other levers. It might be slef-cocking but I'm no epxert in shutters.
I'd say it is modified for some scientific application. Maybe for a microscope or oscilocope or something like that. The leaf shutter might be needed to avoid banding caused by the focal plane shutter or maybe they needed fast flash syncing.

Cheers,

Michiel Fokkema

I knew this already just keep reminding people it's not in the body but the lens. Did get a lot of rolled up 35mm film with shots of microscope images (looked like fisheye at first) on them but I wasn't sure if it came in with the camera or if the camera was a separete beast.

 

[kb244]

It would seem the camera came in with a bunch of perfectly mounted insect specimen slides as well.

 

[Edward Felcher]

With the addition of the slide evidence, I would go with the Jerome S. Miller at the Museum of Zoology theory.

Not mug shots but a custom modified slide/specimen camera, with mounting brackets.

 

[kb244]

What's even more peculiar is that it also came with this little device that resembles a vaccume tube of sort but only a metalic ring for a connector, inside of a small old cardboard box marked in pencil 'Night Vision In Red Sensor WWII Surplus'.

 

[Edward Felcher]

My God, you've found that lost time machine!!

 

[kb244]

I'm wondering of course if you some how energized that thing (it fits kinda like a cap on the leica body) that it would activate the sensor surface on front reacting to a certain wavelength and thus projecting some kind of image or at the least an intensity of that image ( I can't imagine anything being very clear of thats what it was for ). But thats just pure speculation at the moment, it was also next to a box full of world war I slides, and maps in the 2-1/4 format, I'm told that the guy who owned all this, his father was a professor and I'm assuming the sides were teaching materials. But the mounting materials and the way everything was put together seems 30s, maybe 40s.

Maybe measures UV radiation off of biochemical substances?

 

[Edward Felcher]

I think you're over-reaching on the functions of the technology of that era.

It's obviously a flux-capacitor.

 

[kb244]

I think you're over-reaching on the functions of the technology of that era.

It's obviously a flux-capacitor.

But then where would they get the 6.5 gigawatts of energy required for it...

Course if Bob were a live back then ( I think he was just a kid ) they could have used his Radioactive Gas Flux Confusion energy.

 

[Edward Felcher]

The same place they got it when they made that ship disappear in Philadelphia.

 

[Ash]

LOL!!

I'm waiting for the doc to appear and give us his insight before rushing off to the past to stop his future self leaving that camera in the reach of you guys 😀

 

[kb244]

I found the lens that would have been originally used and learned a lil more of the user. I found a Goerz Dagor f/6.3 Focus 7In No398847 lens attached to the front of a brass tube that had two parts for expanding and collapsing that fit snug screwed onto the lieca almost in perfect shape, and when I used a visoflex it is apparently a telephoto macro lens, and I learned that the guy who used the camera, his big thing was bugs. So would go right along with the insect and plant specimins and so forth. I'll get a shot of the camera attached to the tubed lens in a moment, my guess is he used a tripod and really slow film as he had one of those big rubber lens caps.

 

[Ash]

Ummm... a Goerz Dagor is a LF lens, not a telephoto macro lens. It's also my favourite LF lens... Put it on 4x5 or half plate and it will cover the whole field.

7in = 178mm (basically a 180mm lens). They're amazing German lenses, old but high quality. Dagor stands for Doppel Anastigmat GOeRz.

Kinda wasted on 35mm 🙂

 

[kb244]

Ummm... a Goerz Dagor is a LF lens, not a telephoto macro lens. It's also my favourite LF lens... Put it on 4x5 or half plate and it will cover the whole field.

7in = 178mm (basically a 180mm lens). They're amazing German lenses, old but high quality. Dagor stands for Doppel Anastigmat GOeRz.

Kinda wasted on 35mm 🙂

Yes, I know this already, but I'm saying with the brass extension, it becomes a telephoto macro.

PS: It's more like an enlarger lens than it is a 4x5 camera lens. (and yes I know you could put it on a packard shutter and what not)

 

[kb244]

Even though one item may not even belong to the other they certainly look cool together, all the items came together in the aquisition (the below of course is only a small handful).

 

[Ash]

The Dagors are about 100 years old now, especially a barrel one like I have, and you have.

It was before lenses in shutters were the most common. Remember - Graflex wasn't the first camera manufacturer to have built in shutters, I believe Conley made portrait cameras with built in shutters. Alongside Packard shutters, over the past 150 years there has been French guillotine shutters, and Thornton Pickard shutters among others.

Oh, and the old bowler/derby hat shutter too 🙂

Nice thing about barrel lenses are as you say - they are live lenses for taking photo's, but in the old days people would use them as enlarger lenses as well. This was especially useful to combat light drop-off towards the corners.


So my theory is this, the bug goes in the jar, electricity lights up the diode, perfect exposure at a given setting for slides.

 

[kb244]

Oh, and the old bowler/derby hat shutter too 🙂

....

My co-worker owns a derby, he'll bring it in for me to see.

So my theory is this, the bug goes in the jar, electricity lights up the diode, perfect exposure at a given setting for slides.

The "Jar" you speak of is a vaccume tube with electronics in it, so doubt you could put a bug inside 😀 lol.

 

[Edward Felcher]

Nice that someone got this who can appreciate it, and not someone who would toss it in the trash.

 

[Ash]

So what's all the metal inside it?