Re: [Leica] ELCAN lenses

["Robert G. Stevens" <robsteve@istar.ca>]

Pascal:

I was in my dealer last week and saw a small black box with a lens on it.
He said it was a gun camera from fighter aircraft and uses 16mm film
cartridges.  We have all seen the pictures from these in the documentaries
on TV.  He has some at home made by leitz. 

These were a standard issue for the Nato palnes and were made under
contract to spec by various manufactures.  The one I saw was by Bell and
Howell, made in 1950's and was about the size of a carton of cigarettes.
On it was a four or five pin connector that supplied the pover to run it
and the tiggering signal from the guns.

The dealer got them from war surplus and says the film people buy them
every now and then.  They are cheap and usally used for the pictures of the
fall from  buildings.  You just load them up, turn them on and throw them
off the building, or other dangerous filming activities.  Probably the
first disposable camera.

Regards,

Robert

At 01:29 PM 7/13/98 +0000, you wrote:
>
>Pascal wrote:
>>
>>I noticed a special outfit for military observations consisting of,   
>amongst
>>others, a whole battery of high performance observation lenses for air
>>reconnaissance at low altitude. These turned out to be ELCAN (Made in
>>Canada). Is that not a lens made by Leica?
>========================
>
>Pascal,
>The lenses were made by Ernst Leitz Canada of course and I think suited   
>to 70mm roll film, c. 6x6cm. These lenses turn up reasonably often and   
>some people expect a lot of money for them, I have a 6" f2.8 (bought for   
>40GBP), though in my local dealers they have another one of those and   
>also a wider version too (3"?). They have a very close rear focusing   
>depth, ie. the back of the lens mount is a lot closer to the film plane   
>than you might expect.
>I had initially hoped to mount it onto either my SL or Viso, but it is so   
>bulky the conversion would perhaps be more trouble than it would be   
>worth...
>If you can recall the specs. of the 'whole battery of lenses' I'd   
>certainly be interested.
>
>Jem
>
>
>
>