Vinten 'K' 35mm camera, lens mount ?

John Salim · July 8, 2016

Does anybody know what type of lens mount the Vinten K 35mm camera uses ?

It's turret is usually fitted with three prime lenses ( Cooke and Dallmeyer ).

Any info would be appreciated.

Many thanks,

John S ;)

Dom Jaeger · July 9, 2016

I think like a lot of early cine cameras the mount was simply the back end of the focussing helical, screwed onto the turret. Whether the helical diameter and pitch matches other camera mounts of the time I don't know.

There's a Vinten stored out back of the rental house I work for, I'll have a look next time I'm in, though it's a different model.

You could ask on the facebook page of someone like Movie Cameras Inc, or contact the vintage specialist cinematographer John Adderley.

John Salim · July 10, 2016

Thanks Dom,

Any information would be welcome.

My guess is they used their own screw size.

I might just contact Cooke Lenses to see if they know.

Thanks again,

John S

Dom Jaeger · July 11, 2016

I checked the Vinten we have, it seems to have the same mount as a model K, just a single one rather than three on a turret.

Having trouble uploading an image from this computer, but its the back end of a focussing helical as I said, the O.D. being 1 15/16 " (about 49.2mm), with an internal Acme thread with a pitch of 1/4".

Like many other early cine lenses, the lens (a Wray 1.9/50mm) is housed within the mating helical, with an iris actuator at the front. I don't know if lens manufacturers like Cooke, Dallmeyer, Wray, Ross et al housed their lenses for the appropriate camera mount, or whether the lens came as an optical block and was housed by the camera maker.

By way of comparison, we have a Newman Sinclair here from about the same period (and also British), which has a mount with a much smaller helical diameter but the same 1/4" pitch.