Polaroid Land Camera Lens Hacking

[clarence]

Hello. I've been thinking about a polaroid camera with manual controls. Ideally, I'd want something that is cheap and able to form images larger than 6x6. The old polaroid land cameras seem like a good option, but the ones with large aperture lenses (the 180, 185, 190 and 195) are beyond my budget.

I was wondering if it would be easy to transplant a lens and shutter from an old medium format folder, or even a large format lens and shutter into one of the cheap Polaroid land cameras.

These are some of the thoughts that I've been ruminating over:
- Rangefinder calibration might be difficult once the lens is transplanted
- Perhaps I could use a wide angle large format lens to gain more depth of field to overcome the focusing problem, and simply use an accessory rangefinder. An accessory viewfinder could also help with framing. Wouldn't the coverage of the lens still be enough to form an image on the whole area of the polaroid?

Thank you.

Clarence

 

[zuikologist]

Clarence

This sounds interesting. I would be interested in seeing the output from this project. Good luck.

 

[greyhoundman]

It can be done.

 

[zuikologist]

Hah! I like the name. Do you have any photos from this beast?

 

[greyhoundman]

Not yet. But now that I can walk good again, I'll be looking to get some done.
I definitely have enough 4 X 5 film. 🙂

 

[zuikologist]

Probably a stupid question, but is that a rangefinder on top and is it still coupled?

 

[zuikologist]

The previous stupid question probably answers one of Clarence's questions.

 

[BigSteveG]

These conversions are available from a handful of craftsmen in the US and abroad. They appear to make beautiful images.

 

[greyhoundman]

Yes it is an RF. Yes it is coupled, and accurate.

Most of the conversions are not done with 250's.

 

[zuikologist]

BigSteve - do you have any links? Is the availability of a cheap/folding body the main attraction for these combos?

 

[zuikologist]

Yes it is an RF. Yes it is coupled, and accurate.

Most of the conversions are not done with 250's.

I am not really familar with the Polaroid line. Are there some models which are inherently better for this conversion?

Greyhoundman - keeping the rangefinder coupled and accurate is pretty impressive.

 

[greyhoundman]

The most popular models are the 110a, 110b, 800, 900. And I believe a few J66's have been done.

I have a total of $3.00 in my 250. 🙂 But, I'm a good scrounger. 😉

 

[greyhoundman]

Here is the RF unit. It was quite easy to add the extension.

 

[zuikologist]

$/performance ratio should be good!

 

[Sonnar Brian]

The Tektronix C-4 oscilloscope camera has a 4-element 105mm F4.5 Tominon lens in shutter. You might try to pick one up and graft the lens onto a pack camera. The "Standard" lens on the Pack camera is 114mm. The DOF should cover a lot of the difference.

http://www.testequip.com/sale/catalogs//TEK/1988/488.pdf

 

[greyhoundman]

There are a lot of the older folding camera shutter/lens combos that show up on ebay fairly cheap. In my design, a slightly longer focal length was actually a help.

 

[BigSteveG]

Zukioligist,
here's one http://eastcamtech.com/
also search for Razzle and Alpenhausen. Razzle is in Australia. Dean Jones is the name. I've started planning a camera w/ him. His work appears outstanding. He looks to be a fine engineer/machinist/photographer. Look at the Razzle 900. It actually offers some movements like a real view camera.

 

[BigSteveG]

There is also another named Litman. But there appears to legal trouble associated w/ him. Here's the link to Dean Jones.

http://homepages.ihug.com.au/~razzle/

Please let Dean know you were referred by Steve Garza.

 

[kuzano]

Yes it is an RF. Yes it is coupled, and accurate.

Most of the conversions are not done with 250's.

And the really good news about the rangefinder is that it is a ZEISS-IKON product, and there are millions of these style Polaroids out there selling for little or less on auction sites.

The polaroid conversions that are commonly talked about are the Polaroid Pathfinder bodies... Old discontinued roll film bodies that have high quality lenses. The 110 series including A and B and the Polaroid 900. Those base cameras typically sell for somewhere in the $100 range pre-conversion and are sent to various conversion folks.

These cameras shown at the beginning of this post are found dirt cheap in great numbers in model numbers ranging from the 110's to the 400's series. The rangefinders are accurate, but the lenses are generally plastic and pretty worthless.

However, enterprising souls can always find a way to modify them up to high quality lenses, with various film backs for big old street shooters shooting Polaroid pack film, 120 roll film, and even 4X5.

 

[Chris101]

It can be done.

That is one seriously ugly camera.

I love it!