Visoflex III/Bellows

[AlanJW]

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My dealer has a Visoflex III and bellows that is enticing me. Understandably, he wants to sell them together. I am hoping that some of the knowledgeable people here can answer some dumb questions: Is the purpose of the bellows to substitute for all the various focusing mounts that have to used with the Visoflex? Can it be used to focus to infinity with a 75mm (CV)?, a 50mm ('cron)?. Is there some other advantage or disadvantage to the bellows vs. focusing mounts? Thanks

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[carstenw]

You cannot focus to infinity with normal lenses. Most of the adapters are simply to fit the various lenses onto the Visoflex, some of them directly, some just the head. A few of the special macro lenses have focusing adapters, I think. The bellows does two things, as far as I can tell: if you move the rear screw, you are moving the whole assembly, which focuses. If you move the front screw, you are changing the enlarging factor. The bellows has a much larger distance to the camera, of course, which gains you some flexibility.

 

What price is he asking? Make sure it is a Bellows II. Btw, if you don't want the bellows, there is any number of people around here who will take it off your hands.

[tobey bilek]

You would want the bellows in place of the SHORT focus mount if you need a greater focus range, ie get closser. The normal long focus mounts will not allow infinity focus with the viso.

 

65, 90 4.0- 90 2.8 -90 2.0-125 2.5-135 -200- 280 are the common lenses that can be used on a viso with the proper short focus mounts or lens heads +adapters on a bellows ( no focus mount).

 

50`s and 35`s can be used on bellows but only for close work. Enlarging lenses Focotars work well for for close work.

 

Good luck finding all the rings/adapters/short focus mounts required to make this all work. It was tough in 1980 when I obtained all mine

 

Visoflex I

 

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[luigi bertolotti]

With the bellows, You cannot focus to infinity with lenses like 50 or 75; can focus to infinity, for instance, with "old" Leitz 135 lens heads (Hektor, Elmar, Tele Elmar, unscrewed from their focusing mount) , but this is not the reason you shall enjoy it: its real goal is macro use: with the proper adapters (lot of kinds, not difficult to find) you can mount lot of lenses and have excellent results in macro also at strong ratios : some results (with M8) have been posted in this forum. Much better is that is a Bellows type 2, with double rail: more versatile than Bellows I - single rail - for you can finely adjust focusing without modifying lens-focal plane distance.

If Viso III is mechanically good, the viewer (prism, I suppose) clean, the Bellows fine (beware of tiny holes in leather...) that is an outfit TO BUY: for macro use, an add-on vertical magnifying viewer can be useful.