Re: Insomnia = brilliance?

[Joel Alpers <joel.alpers@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

Sam Jr. writes:

> 
>   I had some trouble sleeping one night
> in the middle of last week so I started
> thinking about the perennial problem of
> how to get a better MF stereo camera than
> the Sputnik (more shutter speeds, better
> viewfinder, better lenses, f32 in order of my
> priorities).

Good priority list.

Greg, I don't wish insomnia on you or anyone, but it
sure seems like you've used it well!

>   So I decided I had the skills to siamese
> two Diacords 

You and others have mentioned Diacords here before, but
I'm not sure I know what they are. 

ooh, hold it a minute...

OK, I'm back (did you miss me??? ;)  I figured I'd find the answer 
on your WEB page. For anyone else who wants more info, check out:

  http://www.angelfire.com/ca/erker/diacordl.html

and:

  http://www.angelfire.com/ca/erker/diacordg.html

Question: which model do you have???

You mentioned f/32 on your wish list, but you show these all
as having maximum of f/22.

Though on your diacordg.html page, you say  'f/22 *'  but there's
no (that I could see) footnote for the '*'...


[ snip ]



> 
>   But now: if the ebay 225's shutter blades
> are okay, Sam may be able to use it as the
> slave shutter even thought the shutter is
> broken for other uses.

Very likely!


[ snip ]


> ---
>   Nap time Saturday: I couldn't sleep again
> so I took my 225 apart again. This time
> to investigate the twinning issues.
> 
>   I figured out how to couple the focus,
> modify it so that I can get f32, and roughly
> how I'm going to couple the two film spools
> together.
> 
>   Later Beth and I went to the hobby shop to
> look at model airplane linkages to couple
> the focus (brass tubing force fit over the
> distance point to extend its length for
> the ball part of the ball and socket -
> for Bob's info).

Question: was Beth much help?  <grin>


>   Anyway, I'm 99% certain I can twin the
> cameras. I'm less certain about linking
> the apertures (but I could live without).

It'd be nice to find a way. Linked apertures
doesn't seem important until you use the camera ;)

[ snip ]



>   Now we just need a way to check lens
> FL's without blowing lots of film. More
> on this in another email. (Since it took
> Don Lopp 7 or 8 Diacords to get a matched
> set.)

Do you have a medium format projector? One method Les and I used
when choosing Olympus XA2's:

1. Loaded each camera to be checked with a short length of bulk
   B/W film.
2. Set up a tripod, and shot each camera in turn at the same scene,
   which had a couple of fence posts at each end of the scene.
3. After developing, mounted the film in slide mounts and projected
   it at a wall with a long sheet of paper.
4. Line up the left fence post with a line on the wall. Mark the
   location of the right post, labelling it with the camera #.
5. This graphically shows the differences, and with a tape measure,
   you can calculate % differences.

If you're willing to unload in a darkroom you could check up to
ten cameras with a single roll of 120 B/W film.

 
> I just had to share this - Greg


Greg - thanks for the detailed report!  Keep us up to date
on this project!

Joel.