a Haber & Fink turret mounted on a Leica IIIC camera
Toronto. Greek mythology had the Cyclopes – a gang of scary giants with one eye in the middle of the forehead! Issue 23-3 uses a photo of an unusual “three-eye” turret device mounted on a Leica camera as its cover shot.
The third party device allows fast changing amongst three different lenses. Shown here mounted on a Leica IIIC, the photo is described as, ” A Leica IIIC (Wartime) camera body with a [Leitz] look-a-like HABER & FINK (c1949) three-lens turret facilitating an easy choice of screw-mount lenses. [Member] S. Chen shows it with a 50mm Summicron, a 90mm “fat” Elmar and one empty location.”
The turret was an effort to allow rapid change in lens focal length long before Zoom lenses became practical for the average photographer. The device seems to have had limited success. A Leitz accessory version was made c1948 (very few sold). In the 1950s, 35mm still zooms were exotic, slow, expensive and had a very short focal length range. Movie zooms covering a smaller half frame (1×3/4 inch) were around much earlier.
All this changed a decade or two later when third party lens makers in Asia designed, manufactured and sold far more reasonable zoom lenses. Modern day digital cameras usually come with a zoom lens. My old Sony F828 camera has a Zeiss zoom built in. Typical of zoom designs, this lens has serious geometric distortion – especially at either end of its focal length range.
A separate French computer program (DxO) ‘straightened’ the distortion with dramatic results. For some years now such digital correction has been automatic.
Visit our 2025 events (see PHSC EVENTS at right) to find interesting items for your collection. Next up is our May 4th auction. Questions? Email Clint at fair@phsc.ca.
