Kobell

From Camera-wiki.org
Jump to: navigation, search
This article is a stub. You can help Camera-wiki.org by expanding it.
This article needs photographs. You can help Camera-wiki.org by adding some. See adding images for help.


The Kobell is a coupled rangefinder camera for 6x9 plates and film, made by Boniforti and Ballerio in Milan from about 1952. It can be used with plate holders or film packs. In addition to a coupled rangefinder, ground-glass focusing is also possible.[1]

The camera has interchangeable lenses, which have in-lens leaf shutters. There is also a cloth focal-plane shutter in the camera, with speeds 1/20 - 1/1000 second, plus 'B' and 'T' (from 1954, the camera was also available without the focal-plane shutter).[2] The standard lens is a 105mm f/3.5 Schneider Xenar in a Synchro-Compur shutter, giving speeds 1 - 1/500 second, plus 'B' and 'T'.[3] Dario Mondonico states that lenses from 65mm to 360mm were available.[2]

In 1955, the Kobell was redesigned as the Kobell Film, making ten 6x7cm images on 120 roll film.

Only about 400 Kobell cameras were made.[2] Mario Giacomelli used one.[4]

Notes

  1. A page at the Japanese-language Fotocamera Italiane, 28 September 2013) shows a picture of the Kobell with a focusing hood.
  2. 2.0 2.1 2.2 Boniforti e Ballerio cameras including the Kobell, with a picture of the Kobell with three lenses, at Dario Mondonico's Mistermondo.com site.
  3. Kobell with 105mm f/3.5 Xenar sold at the seventh Westlicht Photographica Auction, in May 2005.
  4. Photograph (by M. Martino) showing Giacomelli with his Kobell (archived) at Mario Giacomelli's website.


Links

  • Kobell with 165 mm f/6.8 Angulon (a strange choice; a wide-angle lens used below its native format as a long-focus one) offered for sale at 26th Westlicht Photographica Auction (now Leitz Photographica Auction), on 22 November 2014.