I just got a 7' aero ektar but its missing its retaining ring. Besides scouring ebay, doe anyone have any ideas on how to mount it?

The original mount is a gigantic chunk of aluminum that attached it to the camera. Really big. Really useless. I just took one to the dump last week. The only thing I can think of that wouldn't be as big as the camera is a custom machined ring. Then the only thing big will be the lens and the bill.

a 7' aero, that would be one heck of a lens, I don't think that would even work on big bertha!!!

Dave

You just need to take Bertha with you to help hold the thing up. I have one of those and I mounted it in a reversed recessed board from a Calumet CC400. It's just barely possible to drill the board out to fit the Ektar. NO room to spare. I then filled the recessed side up with hot glue, AKA melted plastic.
Not an approved mounting method, but it works. The aluminum board fits a 4X5 Speed Graphic in it's reversed state. My lens has bad coating on the front element, otherwise this is not something I would have done to it. Someday I'll take a test shot to see how the nasty coating affects it's performance. Maybe.

Yeah it is one really big mother, I know it has low radition too so I am going to store it in a lead pouch. However, I got the idea from the Photographer of the month on this site David Burnett I think his name is; he is lugging one of those around mounted on his pacemaker and the results look good. This sucker is even heavier than the 15" tele-raptar i have too. Thanks for your feedback. I am going to keep searching and experimenting.

I found a digital readout caliper at Kragen Auto Parts (Checker;Schuck's;Advance Auto Parts;CSK Auto), it reads in inches or millimeters to three decimal places for $20.
Now, all US based thread designs use the inch system while the rest of the photo world use the metric system.
So, why not take a good caliper and measure the Outside Diamater of the lens at the center of the threads for mounting, then measure the threads. Us threads are stated in threads per inch while metric are stated in millimeters per thread.
Then with the correct size you might find a mount ring to fit.
Or you could send me the lens return postage prepaid with a green thank you enclosed and I could measure it for you.

I just bought a couple of the 7" Aero-Ektar lenses (I got them cheap, less than $40 for the 2 of them).

Luckily both of them have their retaining rings, and even they're big, with an OD of around slightly less that 3-3/4 inches (I'd be more exact, but I don't have my reading glasses handy, and can't see the fine lines on the ruler) and an ID of around 3", and it's about 5/8" thick!

I'm going to mount this beast on my pre-anny speed, and luckily I have a solid alumium lensboard here, so what I'm going to do is go to a machine shop tomorrow, and have them bore a large enough hole for the lens to fit thru, then drill 4 mounting holes to match the mounting holes in the mounting ring (ok, technically it's a mounting flange), and mount the flange on the front of the board, as it won't fit thru the opening in the front standard, and as the board is aluminium like the flange is it should be strong enough to handle the weight of the lens.

I don't know if this flange is original to the lens or not, but both of them have identical ones, and they have an interesting 'feature'. On one side there's a slit cut, and a screwhole that's only threaded on one side of it, so it acts as a lock, you can thread the lens onto the flange as far as you want it to go, then turn this screw and it will lock the lens in place.

Has anyone successfully mounted an f:2.5, 7.5" Aero Ektar on a Graflex camera? In a 4x5 Graflex, it seems that the rear element of the lens would be likely to be in the way of the mirror. With a 3x4 Graflex, the lensboards are small.

I bought a 3-1/4 x 4-1/4 Graflex (I forget the model) which came with an Aero Ektar lens.<p><img src="http://www.syzygyst.com/JoePhoto/grafaeroek.jpg"></p><p>The lens had separation in one of the groups and I took it apart and recemented it. Before that was done I had sold the camera which wasn't in great shape but it appears that it was a succesful mount job. It looked like the hunk of aluminum mentioned above was cut like a lensboard. I've mounted that aluminum to a C lensboard and can get it on my Anniversary Speed but I haven't taken the time to shoot with it yet. </p><p> If you want to measure threads there are gauges that look like a set of feeler gauges with teeth available in metric and English sizes. You just match the teeth to the thread and read the pitch.

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<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: joephoto on 2004-07-10 07:41 ]</font>

Rangemaster;

I guess nobody has your keen insight to grammar, but you're right, a 7 foot aero ektar would be a BIG lens, even bigger if it were kept at f2.9! Probably would cut down on the payload a great deal too! But the contact prints would be somethin to see!

( "=inches ' = foot)

JoePhoto,
Thanks for the response. The 7" Aero Ektar looks impressive on that 3x4 Graflex. Do you happen to remember which Series Graflex it was? Clearly not a Series B.

I really don't remember much about the camera only that I didn't think I'd be able to use it. It's probably too late to check my past eBay buys to find any info. I don't even remember how much I got for it. I just saw the lens attached to it and had to have it. That photo is the one the was in the eBay ad.

Hey, I just joined, and I know it's been a long time since this thread was last writen to, but... I had a 7" Aero Ektar, and found a white plastic sewer fitting at Home Depot that was a perfect fit over the threads: the plastic was soft enough that threads were ground into it when it was screwed onto the lens, but solid enough to support the lens, and thick enough to attach the lens board with machine screws. I don't remember the exact fitting, but it was white plastic (3"?), which I painted flat black inside.

I got rid of the lens because, first, it was radioactive! Second, the glass had "browned" over the decades (from the radioactivity), and was useless for the color astrophotos I wanted to take.

Quote:

On 2004-09-10 20:46, pauleyk wrote: Hey, I just joined, and I know it's been a long time since this thread was last writen to, but... I had a 7" Aero Ektar, and found a white plastic sewer fitting at Home Depot that was a perfect fit over the threads: the plastic was soft enough that threads were ground into it when it was screwed onto the lens, but solid enough to support the lens, and thick enough to attach the lens board with machine screws. I don't remember the exact fitting, but it was white plastic (3"?), which I painted flat black inside. I got rid of the lens because, first, it was radioactive! Second, the glass had "browned" over the decades (from the radioactivity), and was useless for the color astrophotos I wanted to take.

Um, you need not have got rid of the lens. Not carrying it in a pants pocket and not storing it under your bed would have been enough.

About that staining. Long exposure to UV light will bleach it. I read about this trick in posts on, I think, photo.net, by Michael Briggs. He reported that a month of basking under a BLB fluorescent tube, wattage not specified, cleared one for him.

I have some lenses -- not AeroEktars -- that were similarly stained. So I bought a 20w BLB tube and put my lenses under it to bask. Sure enough, after a month they were clear.

Cheers,

Dan