Kodak "Medalist" RF

kingsley

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Jun 16, 2006
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I came across my grandfather's Kodak "Medalist" Rangefinder (guessing it was a 1950s vintage) and wanted to ask the forum group for recommendations on where I might send it for cleaning and minor restoration?
 
William,
Thanks for the reply and it is the Medalist you refer to. I had heard some years ago that Medalist owners were reconfiguring the camera to accept 120 film. Appreciate the referral and I will give them a call this week.
Appreciate the input!
King
 
Good luck with it. I'll look forward to seeing shots from it 🙂

William
 
The 100mm Kodak Ektar lens on the Medalist if just simply great!!!

I have seen them converted to Canon FD mount and used as a portrait lens on 35mm with beautiful results. I have one lens in Kodak shutter that I am going to hack into a Nikon F mount plus a set of elements that I'm not sure what I am going to do with yet.

Wayne
 
Wayne,
Good to know about the lens. I shot some B&W on this camera some 30 years ago as a teenager and remember the quality of pictures was fantastic given the fact I had "0" experience with an RF camera. I would like to have it reconfigured and cleaned and give it another go now that I am re-entering the RF world!
king
 
Ken Ruth/Bald Mountain does the premier work on this. He does full feed and take up conversions and a feed-side-only conversion - load 120, use 620 takeup reel, less difficult job. I don't know the cost difference, but the typical job on a Medalist there is supposedly >$400 now. It's time-consuming too.

Option B is Manfred Schmidt in the Chicago area. $120 + shipping for feed-side-only conversion, about $90 for CLA. Probably $200 for combined job.

For CLA only, Carol Miller at Flutot's in California is highly recommended on APUG, roughly $50-60 for CLA only. I don't think she does conversions.

Lens design was made specifically for the Medalist. Same design was allegedly prototype for first Hasselblad. Urban legend has it Hasselblad switched to Zeiss after WWII not to improve quality but to reduce cost.

Many people reroll 120 onto 620 spools. I have never mastered that.
 
I finished my own 120 feed-620 takeup conversion...stressful, but done, ran a roll of 220 Agfa XPS160 and a roll of 120 EPP100. Got the print film back, not done scanning. Will get chrome roll tomorrow.

http://www.rangefinderforum.com/photopost/showgallery.php?cat=6934 for first 4 images. No filter or shade, handheld GE (PR-19?) meter, shutter speed accuracy unknown.

It probably apparent I spend more time acquiring cameras than using them.
 
Got my chrome back today - I was told about 1/2-stop overexposed, but mysterious dark brown rectangles every 1.5 frames or so, with image under it.

Most all the chrome film I've had done at this lab has had this problem - a few different cameras, including a painted pinhole camera (I thouhgt it was chemical fogging) and I'm wondering if I have a bad batch of EPP100. E200 was fine there. We're discussed shutter obstruction, in-tank processing problems and haven't figured it out.

On to roll #4. Maybe b/w this time.
 
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