FOUND-WTB: Cambo WRS Lens Mounts

[diggles]

Hello,

Looking to buy a Cambo WRS Lens Mount for these lenses:

• Rodenstock Digaron 32mm HR
• Rodenstock Digaron 50mm HR
• Rodenstock Digaron 70mm HR
• Rodenstock 28mm Sinaron Digital HR

Interested in both the standard and tilt/shift versions.

Please PM me if you have any of these items available for sale.

Thanks
Warren

 

[anyone]

There are some third party mounts on Ebay - Did anyone try them out? Would be nice to hear opinions.

 

[f8orbust]

The Cambo 'lens cones' on eBay should be ok as long as they're machined correctly. But be prepared to shim your lens in order to get it bang on.

I've seen original Cambo mounts for sale, but they are as rare as anything since Cambo don't sell them on their own, so they only come up when someone takes the lens out for whatever reason and decides to sell the mount. I've never seen a T/S mount for sale on it's own.

 

[anyone]

I wonder - at the price point of those third party cones you probably could also walk into a local metal shop and tell them what you want. Or go for original: mounting a lens costs about 900 EUR at Cambo.

 

[f8orbust]

The eBay ones are $480 including a helical, so pretty competitive. But they're not mounting the lens for you and then testing it, so it's down to the user to figure all that out. Beyond the quality of the components the biggest issues are i) is the length close enough that shimming can correct for any tiny discrepancies, and ii) is the plane of the helical parallel to the film plane? Not a huge issue if you're shooting film (assuming only a small discrepancy), but shooting digital it could be a nightmare since it's not easily corrected.

I have seen a user on GetDPI who shot an Alpa with eBay sourced lens mounts, so the things can work. That said, not sure if he was using a DB or film back.

 

[diggles]

There are some third party mounts on Ebay - Did anyone try them out? Would be nice to hear opinions.

I haven't tried them out, but I did look into it. They said…

"because we do not have corresponding scales for 32mm, 50mm, 70mm, the final lens cone scale may be different from the lens scale, but it does not affect the use, but the scale number on the lens cone is different."

So it sounds like the the numbers on the helical won't be correct, but the lens mount will function correctly. As far as mounting the lenses, they said it is just like mounting on any other copal mount. A photographer that I bought a lens from on ebay a few months ago had one for sale so I asked him about it. He said that it works well at normal focusing distances, but the helical gets stiffer as you focus at closer distances.

The eBay ones are $480 including a helical, so pretty competitive. But they're not mounting the lens for you and then testing it, so it's down to the user to figure all that out. Beyond the quality of the components the biggest issues are i) is the length close enough that shimming can correct for any tiny discrepancies, and ii) is the plane of the helical parallel to the film plane? Not a huge issue if you're shooting film (assuming only a small discrepancy), but shooting digital it could be a nightmare since it's not easily corrected.

Agreed, which makes me a little skeptical, but since I have a few lenses to mount I may try it on one of them. If nothing else, it will be interesting to see how it works.

My main lenses are the 32, 50, and 70 HRs so I definitely want to get the Cambo mounts for those. If nothing turns up on the forum then I'll be getting them mounted through a Cambo dealer.

 

[anyone]

One thing to consider, I came across that issue when mounting a 90mm lens to my 617 camera: the lens wrench used to tighten the counterring on the copal shutters can be difficult to get into the cones. I had issues with it. And I wouldn't dare to mount a 32mm Rodenstock by myself, given the tight tolerances the lens has.

 

[diggles]

I was thinking about how it could be difficult to tighten the countering on the copal shutters in the lens cones, I ran across a spanner wrench that SK Grimes sells that could be helpful in that endeavor.

 

[f8orbust]

The SK Grimes spanners are very well made - as you would expect - and the legs can be reversed so the tips point out, making accessing the retaining wring inside a deep lens cone easier. But there are cheaper alternatives like these which should work just as well, and being straight are already well suited to the task. I would wrap some electrical insulating tape around the tips of whatever spanner you use to stop it scraping. Mounting a lens is fairly straight forward, the things to look out for are i) small locating 'pins' on the underside of the copal shutter (which stops it twisting when tightening the retaining ring) - if your mount doesn't have a small hole to receive it, you either have to make one or unscrew it - if you leave it in place and tighten everything down the lens won't be parallel to the film plane, ii) don't cross-thread the retaining ring as it can be a royal PITA to undo, and iii) have some shimming material handy in a variety of thicknesses, it can make life easier than trying to adjust the helical to account for minute discrepancies, although you can do it this way if you want (with S/K helicals at least). N.B. this is different from the shims that are sometimes in the lens - usually between the front group and the copal - which are there from the factory to account for minute differences in the distance between the two groups (front and back), usually due to machining tolerances of the copal.

 

[diggles]

Ended out getting the 32 and 50 with cambo mount from a forum member and sent the 70 off to cambo to get it mounted properly. Not sure I'm going to proceed with the 28 and 90, thinking about it. Now I have a 32 and 50 mounted on Copal 0 to sell!

Thank you for the helpful info and suggestions!