What is the perforated ring inside a Polaroid Land Camera 150 lens?
Asked 10/11/2018
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I noticed a perforated metal ring inside a Polaroid Land Camera Model 150 and was curious what it does. Is it part of the shutter, a timer, or the aperture system? How does this camera control exposure?
Originally by Photography Stack Exchange contributor. Source · Licensed CC BY-SA 4.0
Photography Stack Exchange contributor
7y ago
2 Answers
15
That particular ring, by itself, is the aperture stop. The normal operating mode of the Land Camera (150, at least) was a coordinated exposure system that coupled particular shutter speeds and apertures using the EV system.
From the Land Camera 150 user manual,
The shutter dial adjusts the camera to the right combination of shutter speed and lens opening for the particular scene. Your Polaroid Exposure Meter PR-23A tells you which number to use, and you just turn the shutter dial until that number show isn the little window above the lens. Your camera has numbers running from 10 to 17. Notice the letters "EV" above the window. This means that your camera uses "EV" (Exposure Value) numbers,
Later in the manual, the Conversion Table For Lens Openings shows the f-number and shutter speed for the dialed in EV setting:
#10 = f/8.8 at 1/12 sec.
#11 = f/8.8 at 1/25 sec.
#12 = f/8.8 at 1/50 sec.
#13 = f/8.8 at 1/100 sec.
#14 = f/12.5 at 1/100 sec.
#15 = f/17.5 at 1/100 sec.
#16 = f/25 at 1/100 sec.
#17 = f/35 at 1/100 sec.
Notice the long arc on the bottom half of the wheel in your image, that doesn't obscure the lens. That corresponds to the fully open aperture of ƒ/8.8 in the #10-#13 EV settings in the table.
The gearing around the rim of the wheel is driven by the shutter dial just visible to the upper left on the other side of the exposure mechanism in the photo.
Originally by user11924. Source · Licensed CC BY-SA 4.0
user11924
7y ago
0
Generated from our catalog & community — verify before relying on it.
It’s the aperture stop (part of the diaphragm/exposure system), not a timer.
On the Polaroid Land Camera 150, exposure was normally set using an EV (Exposure Value) system that linked shutter speed and aperture together. Instead of choosing shutter speed and f-stop independently, you set an EV number on the camera, and the mechanism coordinated the correct combination of shutter speed and lens opening for that scene.
So the perforated ring you see is associated with the lens opening control. By itself, that ring is the aperture stop; in normal use it works as part of the camera’s coupled exposure mechanism rather than as a standalone control like on many later cameras.
In short: it’s part of the aperture/exposure control system, not the shutter by itself and not a timer.
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