[LargeFormat] Ross lens, Epsilon shutter

[Les Newcomer]

Rule No 1 about Speed Grpahic cameras.  Graflex, Inc would mount any lens
you wanted on their camera. For expediency sake they also sold certain
lenses so you could buy a Speed Graphic with a cheap lens, or you could buy
one with an expensive lens, or a custom lens of  your choosing.

rule No2. At any given time they would deviate from any rule, or trend.

Their motto was "There's an exception to every rule."

It would make sense that any European distributor would market local lenses
as these would be cheaper than the American counterparts, even when quality
was better.

Ross was a lens maker held in high esteem for quality,

According to Kinglake printed in '39 you could have one of two lenses.

a Ross xpress f 4.5 where, "where the rear lens of a tessar is a triplet
instead of a doublet"   Covers 53=B0

He also lists  a Ross wide angle xpress f4 that covers 80=B0, based on a
Plasmat design it will be symetrical with a cemtented pair on the out side
and a miniscus lens seperated by an air space about each side of the stop.

Kingslake also remarks this is an aerial or infrared cine lens but was made
in focal lengths from 4-20 inches.


About the camera. If you look inside the body above the bellows there will
be a 6 digit numbers stamped into the wood. sometimes it's better to push
the lens in and use a flash light.  This could give us a better idea as to
when it was made or possibly if it was made for military.

 (most of the war was shot with plain old black Anniversaries, early ones
were chrome, later the chrome was left off. the OD green versions didn't
make it until late or even after the war.)

Les

> From: Martin McCarthy <marty@ehabitat.demon.co.uk>
> Reply-To: largeformat@f32.net
> Date: Sat, 20 Apr 2002 20:43:20 +0100
> To: largeformat@f32.net
> Subject: [LargeFormat] Ross lens, Epsilon shutter
>=20
> Hi Folks
>=20
> I usually use a Toyo 45C for large format stuff, but because I wanted
> something a little more portable I recently (about 8 hours ago!) bought
> a Speed Graphic.
>=20
> I shot a couple of pictures this afternoon to try it out, and they look
> fine - I'm happy with what I've got.
>=20
> But I know pretty much nothing about the lens that came with it.  The
> text around the glass reads:
> "5in wide angle xpress f4.5 No 2059 Ross, London"
> and it is in an Epsilon shutter, speeds 1s to 1/250 and B and T.
>=20
> The only reference I can find to this lens on the web is on the MPP
> users' page, so I wonder if this originally came from an MPP camera
> rather than the Speed Graphic.
> On the other hand, the plate that gives the table of shutter speeds
> based on Curtain Aperture/Tension Number says: "Colwood Camera Co (1953)
> Ltd, Authorised Graflex Distributors, London, SW19", so maybe it is a
> normal lens for Speed Graphics that were distributed here in the UK.
>=20
> Just curious to find out a little more.
>=20
> Cheers,
> Martin
> --=20
> Martin McCarthy                 /</                  PGP key available
> marty@ancient-scotland.co.uk    \>\  http://www.ancient-scotland.co.uk
> /</    http://www.ehabitat.demon.co.uk
>=20
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