My Periflex

[Kai Griffin]

Nobody ever says much about the Corfield Periflex, so I thought I'd do a little show & tell here in my maiden post on Craig's new forums.  It's a genuinely weird camera, and not exactly the easiest thing to use in practise (at least, not these earliest models where you have to look down to focus, and straight ahead to compose).  This no doubt accounts for why nobody talks much about it!  I paid too much for mine, but I just had to have one, and I do like it a lot - no regrets.



More importantly, it actually takes good pictures with it's 50mm "Lumax" lens.



It'll take most LTM-39 lenses, as long as they don't protrude too deeply into the body (which would interfere with the little drop-down periscope).  So, if anyone is looking for something quirky and you happen upon one of these at a price you can afford, I recommend giving it a try!

Cheers,
Kai

[Dean Williams]

I've never seen one of these before.  The logistics of taking a vertical composition shot must be fun.  
So from your post it sounds like it's:

Down periscope,
focus,
up periscope,
look in viewfinder,
compose,
and take your shot?

Sounds like a sub-mariners dream :wink:

An interesting camera, for sure.  Nice shot, too, Kai!

[connealy]

What a great looking little camera.  Have you used it with any other LTM lenses.  From what you say, I suppose it wouldn't work with the Jupiter 12.

[Kai Griffin]

Hi Dean,
Yes, that's the sequence.  You lower the periscope by pressing a springy lever on the side of the focusing viewfinder, depicted below...



Oh, one more bit:  you really need to open the lens right up for focusing, else it's all a bit dark through the periscope.  Mind you, you get genuine depth-of-field preview (albeit only a fraction of the overall image) when you stop back up again.

Here's the periscope itself (looking into the body with lens removed)



Mike... that's right: the Jupiter-12 is out  

Cheers,
Kai[/img]

[nelsonfoto]

Great camera. Nice, thoughtful post of info as well. Im a sucker for "example" shots.

[Glenn Thoreson]

The photo certainly looks sharp. I see these on the auction site pretty regularly but never had any interest in them. Me thinks you have changed my mind. This is also the first picture I've seen of one. Now, I'm really stirred up.

[Graham Serretta]

Fascinating. I've also seen the name, but never associated it with having an actual periscope built in.  Where were these made?

[Peter Evans]

Made in Wolverhampton, England, I believe. Er, yes, very interesting, but for use I think I'd rather have a "Witness" (made by Ilford, I think).

[Kai Griffin]

That's right, Peter - Wolverhampton.

My first proper day out with it, I very quickly learned how awkward it really is to use.  It's hard to actually find what you're focusing on for starters - you sort of have to dance around like with a pair of binoculars, only made more difficult by the fact that you're bending over to look downwards into the periscope.  However, you really do start to get kind of used to it by the end of a 24-shot roll.  The other thing that makes it awkward to use is that the default 50mm Lumax lens has a reeeeaaaaly long throw - focusing from near to infinity seems to involve a lot of turning.  On the other hand, given it has through-the-lens focusing, you really have very accurate focusing for, say, macro shots -- using your Leica-mount lenses.  I'm not sure that there is any other camera that can do that.

Finally, it's easy to forget to re-set the aperture after focusing.  Despite all of this, it becomes fun to use after a bit, and makes any good shots you manage to capture with it all that much more satisfying.

[Graham Serretta]

Now why didn't they just make the periscope mirror hinged and a bit bigger and build a prism in above it so you could focus and frame your shot at the same time, lookung straight ahead.  Then they could have called it a SLR, and been ahead of the game.

[connealy]

After I read this thread, I headed over to ebay and turned up nice one (at a price that was way beyond my means).  I believe it had some kind of angle attachment on the periscope so you could do your focusing at eye level.

Seems like hanging an Elmar or the Industar equivalent on this camera would make it very easy to pocket.  A lot of the advantage of small camera size is lost when there is a fixed lens out front.  On the other hand, the image shows that the lens that came with the camera is a very capable performer.

[connealy]

After thinking for an extra moment about what Dean posted earlier, I made the connection to what he was saying about the vertical shot -- one would actually be facing 90 degrees away from the subject while focusing through the periscope.  That does seem like it would be a bit tricky as you would then normally have to turn to face the subject to compose through the viewfinder.  Perhaps the upside would be that the periscope could be used as a right-angle viewer for stealth shooting.

[P C Headland]

There's a nice write up and history of the design in the UK Black and White magazine.  Said the company wanted to make a camera that could take Leica screw lenses, due to the crippling import duties at the time.  Foreign cameras were really expensive, but there were plenty of s/h lenses floating around.  They didn't have the money to develop an RF mechanism (couldn't they have used an uncoupled RF?), so they went with the periscope.

Interesting concept, but I can't help thinking rather heath robinson like.

[Dan Fromm]

There's a nice write up and history of the design in the UK Black and White magazine.  Said the company wanted to make a camera that could take Leica screw lenses, due to the crippling import duties at the time.  Foreign cameras were really expensive, but there were plenty of s/h lenses floating around.  They didn't have the money to develop an RF mechanism (couldn't they have used an uncoupled RF?), so they went with the periscope.

Interesting concept, but I can't help thinking rather heath robinson like.

Paul, this spring one of my old friends handed me a Periflex 3 with the request that I sell it for him on eBay.  So I did.

Anyway, the 3 is rather less heath robinson than the original since its periscope is integrated into the top cover, which is taller.  The 3's periscope descends to the viewing position when the shutter is cocked, rises to the taking position when the shutter is released.  Odd odd camera.  

Cheers,

Dan

[Kai Griffin]

Yes, those subsequent Periflex models were easier to use, since they bent the periscope beam out the back of the camera.  Still oddballs, of course.

Mike - I think I saw that ebay auction, too - the one with the angle-viewer attachment.  The made those angle viewer attachments probably in recognition of how clumsy it was to focus.  I wish I had one, but that's the first one I've ever seen, and I'm certainly not going to fork out for another one of these cameras just for that little piece.  Maybe I'll figure out how to make one some day...

Anyway, the idea about stealth shooting is spot-on, and I did use it like that for a couple of shots (that didn't quite work out, for other reasons).  I can see real potential for that.

By the way - on the Elmar/Industar, they do mount, but don't completely collapse.  They do collapse far enough to make the thing pretty compact.  There is an internal baffle which prevents protruding lenses from going past a certain point, so there is no risk of damaging the periscope.

Kai