Kodaking

For Kodak people only...

Did a little experimenting with some of the funky Kodaks I received out of the Harry Poster deal. I had a matched set of Accura series 5 wide angle adapters, but in an earlier test there was considerable vignetting past f5.6. The problem seemed to be the distance of the adapter from the Kodak lens-- I had to use an additional series 5 adapter ring to deal with the distance the W/A extended into the lens housing. Reading thru the exploded parts view, it dawned on me that a lot of the space occupied by the front lens element retaining casting isn't necessary for the camera to function properly. Not only that, it was possible to pull the castings without the bother of tearing down the front end of the camera. So I pulled the retaining casting (first it was necessary to notch the rim to get a spanner on it ('cause that puppy wasn't going to budge with the old rubber cork trick), ground off the first 1/4 inch of aluminum using a hand file and a disk sander, and reinstalled it. If you didn't know Kodaks well, you'd never know the change had been made. I had to take a little metal off the series V wide angle lenses to get a good thread bite. With the modification there's enough depth to install the W/A adapters _without_ the added series V ring adapter, which puts the W/As about 1/4 inch closer to the Kodak lenses. I also had a junk lens element from an old Polaroid camera viewfinder, which corrects the Kodak viewfinder for a W/A view (you can see the lens barrels extending into the finder area. Next step, reset infinity focus, and take it for a test drive, and measure the field of view. I betting I can get a good clean f8 wide angle image... 

--Elliott


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