Pneumatic Shutter--CLA

I think my large Copal 3 only goes to 1/125th second and it's a pretty new shutter. The Cook & Taylor lens is pretty cool, and very sought after. You might try Flutos or SK Grimes (both have websites). See this directory for some ideas: http://www.largeformatphotography.info/resources.html. I don't believe either of the companies I mention will do camera repair, but they both work on shutters.

Kent, talking about the period 1900 - 1930 the fastest shutters in cameras of that period are usually focal plane shutters. In a leaf type shutter such as you have on your camera to get higher shutter speeds the blades need to be moved faster. So you need either to make the shutter blades lighter or use a stronger spring. For example Compur used a stronger spring in the Compur Rapid to get to 1/400th. Without the extra spring the top speed for the Compur was 1/300th and that seems to be about as fast as you can get with a simple leaf design. Post-war Compurs and later current Copal shutters used in large format lenses have a top speed of 1/500th.

In the focal plane shutter the faster speeds are achieved simply narrowing the gap between the blinds. This shortens the time the film is exposed but all the parts move at the same speed so no extra mechanism is needed..

However because film emulsion speeds were very low by modern standards, probably around the 8-25 ISO mark, high shutter speeds were not usually needed anyway. In addition lens apertures were typically slow. So only professional photographers and wealthy amateurs needed high shutter speeds or could afford fast lenses. This is reflected in the type of camera which had the fast focal plane shutters. These are the Press cameras typified by the Graflex (c 1910). The earliest camera of tis type in wide use was the Goerz Anschutz folding press camera. This appeared in 1894 and had a self-capping focal plane shutter invented by Ottomar Anschutz with speeds up to 1/1200th sec

One of the advantages of the Leica was its use of a miniaturised focal plane shutter which allowed a top speed of 1/500th in 1925.

Be very careful if using solvents (petroleum based) on early shutters. The iris and shutter leaves may be made of shellac (similar to 78rpm records of a century ago). The solvent will attack and destroy the components. I have this camera and have taken wonderful photos with it. My version dates from the 1920's and has a B&L Zeiss Kodak lens and this very same shutter. Firing the shutter at low speeds is blissfully silent. It works on an air retarding piston in cylinder. Very unlike the clockwork mechanisms of mechanical shutter escapements.

The 1/300 shutter speed on the Optimo is somewhat on the theoretical side. The reason is that the shutter efficiency is low, the blades move rather slowly. But because the blade is double ended, and doesn't have to reverse from opening to closing, they were able to squeeze a nominal 1/300 speed out of it. But it's only 1/300 with the lens wide open. Stop down much, and it's a lot slower, since the center opens well before the full aperture is open. (All leaf shutters have the shutter efficiency issue, it's just that the Optimo has more of a case of it than most.)
If the air piston on the Optimo isn't worn out or corroded, it's likely to be working. If it is worn out, it's toast.
Also, it's not really practical to recalibrate the shutter speeds, requires cutting a new shutter speed disk. Just have the CLA person tell you what all the speeds really are.
The shutter blades are not metal, they are a composite material. This is not a shutter to flood clean.
It's a nice shutter to use. The shutter release is very smooth and gentle. Cocking is a bit stiff, but not too annoying.
Carol Flutot will be glad to work on it. So would S. K. Grimes, but it would be more expensive.
It's a wonderful camera and lens, only the reflex finder stinks. Steal a Galilean finder from another 6x9 camera with similar focal length, and mount it on the side with foam tape.

I'm impressed with all the info above--I didn't find any of that with my google searches. I did know that Cooke, Hobson, Taylor was a premier lens maker during that period, and that made the camera even more attractive. I was thinking of adding a finder from a junker, or replacing the brilliant finder with another if this one is bad. I've been having a lot of fun shooting my vintage cameras and learning a lot too. I like the historical connection they bring me. I had no idea that there were shutters available in 1890s that could hit 1/1000s. I did know about the very low film ISO of that period and was thinking about that. It looks to me that the mid 1920s and early 30s were when photo technology really seemed to take off. Mostly, it seemed to be driven by Germany. That's ironic considering how chaotic their society was during that period. I love hearing about the details of early camera development. It gives me more appreciation for what we have today.

Kent in SD

Hi, Kent Congratulations on your acquisition of the No 1 Autographic Kodak Special, which 'According to Coe' should be a Model A. I have the same camera, but the lens is actually an F6.3 TTH-Cooke Anastigmat, not an F6.6.

Some points to bear in mind when it arrives, mate. Firstly, the sides of the camera body are made of dark brown bakelite and are often cracked due to bakerlite's alter ego of being more like 'breakalot'. The cracks are often very fine, but it's worth having a close look. Reputedly, this camera was the world's first to use the new miracle plastic but it didn't take EKC in Rochester to stop using it, because of its crack-prone reputation. When it did reappear on Kodak cameras, it was on the lower end stuff. Our No 1 AKS's cost $36 in 1915, which equated to about $750 in today's terms, so they were definately 'top end' cameras.

Secondly, you may find it difficullt to get the back off. It's quite unlike any other folder as the back door is actually in two halves which slide outwards. You'll have to look carefully at the lower section of the door, just below and central to the red window, for a slightly raised 'bump'. This is where the secret catch is hidden that frees the door. Push firmly against it with your forefinger, while pulling on the metal sides with middle finger and thumb and it should pull apart. You don't have to touch the bakelite sides at all, as they stay fixed. Good luck ..............

Lastly, some background on Wollensak pneumatic shutters. The US-market ones were labelled as 'Optimo' but you'll find ones on export Kodaks labelled as 'Velosto'. They appear to be identical in all other respects, and I reckon the reason was that somebody in Europe/UK had already patented that 'Optimo' name. Just a pet theory of mine, but I can't see any other reason why the same shutter should have different names in different parts of the world! Interestingly, there was another pneumatic shutter made by a guy called Kengott in Paris, called the 'Koilos'. It was upgraded around 1908 to the 'Koilos Improved', with a small central air reservoir. I've never taken either a Wollensak or Koilos pneumatic shutter apart to check for similarities, but strangely they both have 1/300 top speeds and go right down to one second. At last count, some six of my Kodak and Butcher folders have pneumatic shutters and all are still working just fine. However, I've been advised that they are very prone to speed variation because of weather temperature and humidity. So, the actual speed that the one sec and 1/300 settings give at 2F would be considerably slower than at 40F, but you just learnt to adjust things accordingly.

Hope all this is of some help! (Pete In A Wet Perth, Where We Finally Have An Election Result)

However, I've been advised that they are very prone to speed variation because of weather temperature and humidity. So, the actual speed that the one sec and 1/300 settings give at 2F would be considerably slower than at 40F, but you just learnt to adjust things accordingly.

That's just about guaranteed. The density of a given volume of air will vary considerably with temperature, humidity, and altitude. Colder and drier = more density. Warmer and more humid = less density. For a given volume of air at a given temperature and humidity, higher altitude above mean sea level = less density and vice versa.

Kent, with regard to the lens - (please pay attention now , this gets complicated!) Cooke was a British maker of scientifific and engineering instruments eventually becoming Cooke, Troughton and Simms. About 1890 the firm's chief optical designer was a Mr Dennis Taylor. He designed a very good trplet lens which was ideal for cameras but Cooke didn't want to market it as it wasn't their field. So they licesnsed the design under the name 'Cooke Triplet' to another English optical company - Taylor, Taylor and Hobson. Co-incidentally their chief optical designer was a Mr Cook. So you get Cooke lens designs being made by TTH and others such as Ross. As an aside TTH lenses were very much in vogue during this time (1920 - 1930) in Hollywood as cine camera lenses.

One of the reasons the Cooke Triplet is such a useful lens is that it has only three air-spaced elements and so only six air-glass surfaces. So it was very useful in these pre-coating days where every air-glass surface produced reflections, flare and loss of contrast. The Zeiss Tessar is very similar to the Cooke Triplet except that one of the three elements in the Tessar is divided into two and appears as a cemented pair of glasses. So the two desins are very similar with a slight advantage of additional correction being provided by the Tessar.