TWIN ARGUS C3s

[P3D <GCCampos@xxxxxxx>]

I got Micheal Watters' permission to put his responses to my messages about
combining two Argus C3s.  Here's what he's done:

> Yup,

> I've indeed cut and paste a pair of trusty old C3's.   The camera right now
is 
> in the final stages of tweaking.  That means:  adjusting the exposures so
they 
> are accurate and making sure it is flash synced.  (I've also got to build
the 
> hot-shoe adapter, but I'm making that from an old bulb attachment so no
problem.)
> 
> The bare-bones simplicity of the C3 is what made the project appealing and
to 
> be honest fairly simple.  It's one of the FEW examples of a camera that
gives 
> you a very simple shutter mechanism (making the shutter link easy).  The
film 
> wind is NOT linked to shutter cocking (thus you get 1:3:1 advance by just 
> blacking out some of the umbers on the film counter to keep track of what 
> frames to skip).  The bodies are VERY square (making the joining easy).  
> If you have the equipment, you can even weld the front and rear plates into
 
> solid units.
> 
> In addition, the c3 had interchangable lenses.  So with a little looking at
shows, 
> you can get 35mm lenses and 100mm lenses (in addition to the stock 50mm's).

> The lack of appeal of the C3 to collectors assures that it can be picked up
fairly
> cheaply (ie no more than $5 for each body, the extra lenses are more
expensive 
> though, probably more like $30-$40 each.  Still cheap compared to SLR
lenses.)
> 
> I've got a full lens set, and all seem nicely sharp so far.  I haven't done
any critical 
> testing though and one of my 100mm's needs to be replaced.  It's either
very soft
> or has WAY too much flare in the highlights in it, I can't tell the diff
right now.
>
>  Did you have any questions about it???

> mike
> watters

Then in response to some of my questions he wrote:

> Seperation:

> The lenses are 76mm apart.  The width of a 35mm frame (including the spaces
> between frames) is 38mm and there is one frame between the two being shot.
 
> The film is advanced in a 1:3:1 style, manually.
>

> Focus:
>
> I left them to be focussed seperately.  However, it probably wouldn't be
TOO 
> hard to rig it up so they were synced using the removable gears that are
used 
> to sync the lenses to the rangefinder.  Wasn't important enough to me to 
> bother though.  Same with syncing the f-stops.  More of a pain that it was
worth 
> to me.

> Non-matched cameras:
> I'm not enough of an Argus expert to say exactly what you've got.  I'm
guessing 
> it's a variation on the C3.  You'll definatly want the cameras and lenses
to be 
> matched though.   
> Nice thing about Argus, if you screw up you're not out much money.  :)

> mike
> watters

He might sign up again to monitor the responses.


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