An old Kodak folder lens on 4x5

Last November, I acquired an Intrepid 4x5 camera from my fellow photographer, Russ Young. I’ve already written about my re-acquaintance with large format back in April.  A month or so ago, I found an old Kodak Kodex No. 1 lens/shutter assembly in a drawer. I’m pretty sure that it came from a Kodak Pocket 1A folding camera that was in bad condition, so I just saved the lens from it.  I never thought about putting it on another camera until recently.  My first thought when I looked at it was, “Will it work with 4x5?”

Lensboard with 32mm center hole.

It needed a lens board though, before I could do anything with it. My buddy Bill Pivetta cut a lens board with a 32mm center hole for me from a sheet of gray plastic that I had in my garage. After some final sanding and trimming, I mounted the lens and attached the lens board to my Intrepid camera.    When I looked at the ground glass, it appeared that the lens does in fact, cover 4x5.  A few shots with the lens confirmed that. The photos below were taken on Arista Ultra 100, at apertures of f/22 and f/32, with a time of 1 to 2 seconds.

This lens is a 111mm Meniscus Achromat, with numbered aperture settings of 1,2,3,4.  The shutter speeds of T, B, 1/25 and 1/50 are sufficient for low ISO film.  Now, what are those numbered apertures?  From what I’ve found 1= f/11, 2= f/16, 3= f/22, and 4 = f/32. This is NOT a fast lens, and was likely found in the least expensive version of the camera.  At the maximum aperture of f/11, the image on the ground glass is quite dim, and even more so at f/22!  Of course, this lens was used on the original camera with a reflex viewfinder (which are not bright, either), and the camera had set positions for subject distance.  Using this lens on a bight day isn’t too bad, though.

Yes, it covers 4x5!  f/22 @ 2 seconds

The whole point of this exercise was to see if I could use this lens on my 4x5, and I was successful in that.  There are better lens/shutter combinations available on those old Kodak folders that may yield better results.  This lens, at 110-111mm is on the wide end of 4x5, and I’m looking at my Kodak Vigilant Six-20 with its 101mm lens and Kodak No. 1 Supermatic shutter and maximum aperture of f/4.5 and I think I’ll have to try that one next on my 4x5.  In fact, while writing this, I took a half hour to remove the lens from the Kodak Vigilant Six-20 and mounted it on the same lens board. It fit perfectly, and now to do some more testing.

Now, to try this one out. Stay tuned.

The fun thing with 4x5 is that I am able to easily experiment with old lenses, and it takes just a sheet or two of film to see the results.  There are a lot of old folders out there with beat-up bellows and extinct film formats. Why not give it a try?