Plaubel Makina

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The Plaubel Makina was a series of medium format cameras manufactured by the Plaubel company in Frankfurt am Main from 1911 to 1953 .

Hugo Schrader and his idea

Hugo Schrader, the company's senior boss, had the idea for a compact plate camera early on that would replace the unwieldy 13 × 18 cameras that were common at the time. The best way to do this was to use the principle of the scissor-type camera, in which the camera housing and front panel were connected to one another by means of scissors-type braces. The extension change necessary for the distance setting was brought about here by shifting the spreaders.

Schrader's idea was to move the drive for the struts from the rear camera frame to the front part of the camera, in the front panel. From here, the upper and lower struts were moved uniformly by a common drive and the permanently necessary parallelism of the front panel and ground glass was guaranteed.

Plaubel Stereo-Makina

The first Makina appeared in 1911, in line with the preference for stereoscopic recordings at the time as Stereo Makina. The recording format was 4.5 × 10.7. A stereo camera required particular precision both in the coordination of the two identical lenses and in terms of their synchronous adjustment.

Plaubel Makina

As early as 1912, the market success of the Stereo-Makina meant that the Plaubel company now brought out a Makina for single recordings in the 4.5 × 6 format (now called "Baby Makina"). Even the first devices showed the basic shape of the Makina, which was almost unchanged for many years. In other words, the camera frame and front panel were connected to one another by two pairs of scissor struts, the adjustment of the scissor struts was effected by a drive button on the left of the front panel, the release of the shutter took place at the top right of the front panel. The position of the camera was determined by this structure: the fingers of the left hand operated the distance setting, the fingers of the right hand the shutter release, the camera itself was supported by free parts of the hands.

Plaubel optics were also used back then: a Makinar with a speed of 1: 4.2 at a focal length of 7.5 cm. Its light intensity was exceptionally high at the time. The simple viewfinder, the elements of which were still mounted together on the rear part of the housing, had a blue lens that was supposed to dampen the color effect of the subject. These models were made until around the First World War in 1914.

After the end of the war, in 1919, work began on further developing the camera. The Makina 4.5 × 6 already appeared with the Plaubel-Anticomar 1: 4.2, a four-lens, cemented anastigmat and in the same year the first Makina 6.5 × 9, also with Anticomar 1: 4.2 whose focal length was 10 cm.

In 1921 this type was further improved: Instead of the compound closure previously used , the Compur closure was installed. This had a separate wheel for setting the times.

The year 1924 brought the light intensity 1: 3 on the non-cemented three-lens Anticomar, in 1929 the increase in light intensity to 1: 2.9 followed. This model also showed the telescopic viewfinder with a long optical axis, i.e. That is, the negative lens was now on the front plate and the blue eyepiece converging lens on the rear camera housing.

In 1929 a slightly modified model appeared, in which the shutter was combined with a forward mechanism manufactured by Plaubel.

In 1930 the Makina appeared with the advance Compur and the time scale on a large ring around the lens. At the same time, the Compur clamping lever was moved to the left side of the front panel. The double time scale of the shutter, which made it easier to read in every position of the camera, also appeared on this model.

As a technical further development, the improved, now four-lens Anticomar came in 1931 and the possibility of seeing the meter scale at the same time as the viewfinder image. The release lever has been converted into a springy button on the right side of the front panel. This model already had the Compur S, i.e. the lead time for self-recordings.

Plaubel Makina II

All models mentioned so far are now known as Makina I, because the successor model, the Makina II, appeared in 1933. It differed from the earlier models in that the coupled rangefinder was added. It enabled correct focusing almost automatically. This further increased the important advantages of the Makina, namely its precision and the excellent quality of the optics.

At the same time as this model, the chrome-plated Makina II appeared, in which the front panel, which was otherwise painted black, and the normally nickel-plated metal parts were equipped with a matt chrome plating. The chrome-plated Makina was always equipped with parallax compensation on the viewfinder, an improvement that could also be added to the normal Makina later.

Plaubel Makina II S

In 1936 came the Makina II S as a further improvement, in which the various lenses could be exchanged in one piece directly from the front thanks to a new and precise quick-change mechanism. In this model, all lenses were in front of the Compur shutter and had their own iris diaphragms, while the shutter itself was without a diaphragm. This new lens holder shortened the flange focal length by 16 mm and made changes to the lenses necessary. This particularly affected the Tele-Makinar, the focal length of which was reduced from 210 mm to 190 mm and was now called Tele-Makinar S. The rangefinder windows were now both rectangular.

Plaubel Makina IIa / Makina IIb

In addition to the above, there are two more unusual variants, both of which appeared shortly after the Second World War .

The Makina IIa had a Compur-Rapid shutter, which was arranged between the lens halves and offered exposure times of up to 1/400 of a second. This variant also had a black lacquered front panel and built-in lenses: either a Plaubel Anticomar ƒ / 4.2 10 cm or a Schneider Xenar ƒ / 4.5 10 cm.

The Makina IIb was a savings model that had a fixed Plaubel Anticomar ƒ / 4.2 10 cm on the black front plate and a shutter without a progressive mechanism, the time series of which extended to 1/200 second.

Plaubel Makina III / Makina IIIR

The Makina III, built from 1949 to 1953, replaced the Makina IIS and was the highlight of the model range. Essentially, it differed from the previous model in that all lenses were now located in front of the central shutter, the forward drive was omitted.

The Makina IIIR appeared in 1953. It differed from the III by the built-in Compur-Rapid lock. The R in the model name indicated the rapid shutter, which offered exposure times of up to 1/400 of a second, B and T as well as flash synchronization at X and M. This shutter made it possible to use suitable flash bulbs to flash even with the shortest exposure times.

literature

  • Dr. W. Kross: The book of Makina (p. 18 ff.), 1937. Wilhelm Knapp, Halle.

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