Topic: An ongoing project bears fruit (sort of)

[Terry]

Last year I picked up this old Rochester Optical Co. "Empire State" 5x7 camera for a ridiculously small sum.  The bellows were in tatters and it was covered in crud and rodents had eaten part of the rail extension.  So I cleaned and polished a bit and uncovered the lens which was mummified in layers and layers of old cloth electrical tape. (WHY I ask??) It's clearly a plate camera designed for glass plate negs, and I had thought I might try to lash up a few of those (and may eventually).  But today I thought, "What if I cut out a shim of black polystyrene sheet and slide a sheet of Shanghai 100 in there on top of it?"  This I did and then trooped out into the cold and fired off a couple of frames.  Herewith the results, with apologies to Sandeha for the quality of workmanship on the bellows (first time trying that; next time will be better!). 

I'm well pleased with the lens though.  It's an old Cooke (pre Taylor and pre Hobson I guess) Series III 7x5.  No coating and no shutter.  I shot this at about 1 second (removing the lenscap  and counting out loud to self) at f/45.  The camera was marketed from 1905 to 1913--I have no idea where it falls in that time frame and I'm supposing this lens might be the original.  (That black line in the top of the frame is a bit of thread hanging down from my bellows--but they don't leak!)

(Apologies to the purists for the two color shots which are made with my crappy little digicam.)

[Ezzie]

Brilliant. Reviving a 100 year old camera must be most rewarding.

If the black line is due to a loose thread in the bellows, it would have to sticking upwards from the bottom.

[Sandeha Lynch]

You're gonna have fun with that !!  And if your bellows are light tight you've already done a superb job.   

Eventually you could make or find a spring back to take regular film holders, but patching with a shim as you have done is just fine.

According to the Lens Vade Mecum, Cooke was used as a brand name by TTH.  First rate lenses for either portrait or general use.  Check it over carefully as some have a high value.

[Terry]

Ezzie:  Thanks!  Of course--duh--it's got to be poking up not hanging down.  I've just had a look and found it: it's a thread from a piece of cloth in the back itself, part of a light seal.

Sandeha:  You're far too kind.  But it was great fun figuring out how to make the thing. I took my measurements from the remains of the original, which was made of leather.  I realise now that with a finer fabric like the blackout cloth I used, the margins between stiffeners should have been smaller.  We live and learn.  It's got a slight left-hand torque too, but it does fold flat and it doesn't leak.  And thanks for the historical info--I knew a little about modern Cooke lenses because a friend of mine was one of the people who rescued THC from the scrapyard several decades ago.  Some company had bought Rank Strand and was selling off THC for scrap metal.  That would have been a crime. 

[Francois]

Pretty nice!
Shoddy digicam images are always OK for show & tell

I think I've seen this camera in a book I have from the Eastman Collection. I'll see if I can't find it.

[Diane Peterson]

Terry, truly brilliant! I have been wanting to find something like this to see what kind of resurrection I could do..A fellow filmwaster told me he had found a "magic Lantern Lens" for next to nothing, I should be so lucky! Keep up the excellent work!

[Terry]

thanks Diane.  Now I have to shoot something interesting with it! 

And thanks Francois.  I'd like to find out how to date it more precisely.  The most recent patent date on the backs (the only date on the whole thing) is 1904.  The backs say "Premo Camera" and my understanding is that ROC sold these under that brand name, so they're probably the originals too.

[calbisu]

Brilliant! Resurrecting and Reusing old objects it´s unique (which I have never done... ) 

[Terry]

Thanks Carlos.  There's something wonderfully counter-intuitive about wooden cameras. 

[Francois]

I'm just checking the book "500 cameras" by the George Eastman house.
I think the backs were originally made for a different camera. They were made by Rochester Optical Company which was acquired by Eastman Kodak in 1903. They produced the Premo camera.

The Improved Empire State View Camera was also made by Rochester Optical in the 1890's. By the design, yours looks to be a bit more recent than that as the Improved model had only rear focusing.

But your camera resembles a lot the Eastman View No. 2D which was used by Stieglitz. On his camera, he used a Goerz Double Anastigmat lens.

Some of the product in the Premo line of cameras were designed by a certain Mr. Laben F. Deardorff...

I know that's not much of an answer but it's still interesting trivia.

[Terry]

After some rummaging on the Piercevaubel site I found it:
http://www.piercevaubel.com/cam/roc/empvar2.htm

This is my camera in every detail except the serial number (mine is #49).  Even the canvas case it came in is the same!  (Except mine was well chewed by the aforementioned rodents.)

[Francois]

When I think mahogany was used in those days because it was cheap!

[Terry]

It is light too.  A friend has an Ansco 5x7 camera that's made of some other wood (oak maybe??) and it weighs roughly twice as much.  This camera is very easy to carry and handle.  I could get to enjoy shooting with it, I think.  I may have to swap lenses for one mounted in a shutter, but otherwise....

[Francois]

Or just get a Packard shutter for it.

[Terry]

It would be fun to fire it with a bulb, wouldn't it?  I think maybe I had one of those lying around here somewhere--if I didn't give it away.....