A Pecoflex

I enjoyed Photographica this year. Well, I always do, but this time there seemed to be a lively atmosphere, lots of young people, some sunshine creeping into the hall but we weren’t cooked. And yes, I did buy something - a Pecoflex. A strange camera if you don’t know it, a merger of a studio monorail camera and a box-form SLR. It came with a 6x9 back for 120 film, but I think its native form, 9x9cm with slightly rounded corners on 5x4” sheet film, would be particularly nice to try. So if anyone can spare a 5x4 back for it - it’s the same Plaubel back as for the Makiflex and the larger Peco Jr - please give me a call! I haven’t tried a film it it yet, but it came with a 152mm f/2.9 Pentac and a 210/4.5 Voigtländer Heliar, and I bought a Lomo 300/9 process lens (Apo-Tessar clone, I guess) from Ukraine to go on the spare lens board. Actually 152 - 300mm is more or less the feasible focal length range. The 152mm lens will just focus on infinity with the bellows squashed right up - no movements of course. The 210 and the 300 allow movements, of which there is a comprehensive set on the front standard (none on the back). Even 152mm is rather long as a standard lens for the format; it must mainly have been used for advertising setups - pack shots. It is the only mechanical camera I know with an “odometer" to count shutter releases!

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