Don H Marks

Last lens for the turret is the Switar 35mm. Again, this one uses the Series 4.5 filters that are held in place by the lens hood. I don't have the optical diagram for this lens, but I believe it is 6 element. I guess there are a lot of different ways to focus and frame from gestimation, to gate focus, rack-over, etc. What I frequently do is to use this lens as a rangefinder and read the distance from the barrel and transfer it to the shorter lenses.

I think the f0.9 is a little optical marvel. Ten elements in five groups.

There is like a 4 blade overlap, but the ends of the blades are held in place by the outer ridge, so the free ends can be rotated to easily see the hidden attachment points. Once the blades are in place, they stay in place pretty well, so it can be re-assembled with just a little twisting to get all the pins in the grooves.

The optics in the f0.9 Switar were in excellent shape, but the aperture was hard to turn. I did inspect and clean the blades to make sure it was not binding on the blades and destroying them. Turns out all the binding was in the barrel, the blades were moving freely. Initially looks a little daunting to get the blades back, but there is a ridge on the end cap that holds all the blades in position until it is fitted. Once fitted, the blades come out from under the ridge or lip and are free again. So every time you take it apart, the blades do all fall out. I guess if not interested in re-assembling the blades, don't remove the end cap!

Next lens I found was the Switar 13mmn f0.9 Visifocus. This lens is the key to making the Non-Rex practical to use. The extra wide aperture combined with the slower effective shutter speed (1/50 vs 1/60) of the Rex make the Non-rex a better low light camera. Even more so because the Octafinder is so much brighter than the REX finder.

With persistent scouring ebay I was able to get a second Series 4.5 Bolex branded filter. It was in pretty good condition too. I had to pay stupid money for it, however.

I'm mostly a still photographer, so even the 12 to 13mm lenses are 'long' to me, so the first upgrade lens I wanted was the 5.5mm Switar f1.8. This lens was not particulary hard to find or very expensive. Since I use exclusively B&W, and the H8 does not have the behind-the-lens filter holder of the H16, I needed to track down the lenshood so I could use my neutral density filters. It takes series 4.5. I got the filter about 15 years ago from Chambless, when it was no big deal to order a new Series 4.5 ND filter. Now it seems these little 'Series' filters are almost impossible to find on the used market.

My H8 Non-Rex came to me with two Yvar three-element lenses. These are ok but since my other two H8 RX cameras all have Switar optics, there was not much reason ever get out the Non-Rex camera. So it mostly sat on the shelf. These two D-mount lenses were pretty common back in the day. The Yvar 13mm f1.8 Visifocus is not a bad lens, being already an upgrade from the Yvar 12.5 f2.5 with the standard DOF scale. These lenses fit all the Bolex Dual-8 cameras. The bottom lens is the Yvar 36mm f2.8 Visifocus. Slower than a Switar, but still a nice lens.

Wow, what an improvement. Now that I can see to focus, it makes using this camera so much easier to use.

After assembling all the components, the eyepiece was adjusted to center the image.

With everything clean, it was then a matter of figuring out which parts were different between the two finders and assembling one good H8 finder from the best components. One of the main differences was an extra bracket and spring in the H8 finder. The focusing block between the two was different also. Though this is not shown in this version of the service manual.

To my surprise, all the glass surfaces cleaned up just fine. No fungus etching or permanent haze.

The uncoated optics in the 'new' finder looked pretty bad...

Eventually I found a complete finder, however, it was for the H16 and the lens elements were opaque. My original H8 finder is in the foreground.

I have been working on one of my Non-Reflex H8 cameras. This one came to me with a broken eye-level finder. Apparently the camera was dropped at some time and it hit the eyepiece. This broke it off and a lens element fell out. A few years ago I cludged togetether a temporary fix by attaching a free lens element to the out side of the finder. Still it was a blurry image and difficult to use. I had seen the eye-level finder was offered as an accessory, so I searched for a few years to find a new one or at least a new eyepiece.

New pin was cut to about 7mm from some 1.25mm rod.

Friction grease and a thicker wavy washer and success! Nice firm friction on the knob. Counts all the frames!

Remains of the sheared pin. Measured diameter 1.25mm. (H8 Non-rex SN132921)

These are the parts I have found. I might need a better wavy washer.

It is not clear to me what causes the friction between the rotating shaft and the knob to turn to knob to advance the frame counter. Error above, should read..."It is not clear to me what causes the friction between the rotating shaft and the knob so that the knob will advance the frame counter."

I don't have an answer for the OP but I just saw this thread and am pleased to view the picture and the parts diagram. I'm repairing a Declic that is otherwise fine except for a missing safety release lever (BX 2830). I see now that this piece will be quite easy to duplicate.

I'm currently repairing a Bolex H8 non-Rex with sheared off pin on the 1:8 shaft. Not sure how a prior owner did it but the shaft was smooth all the way around, at first I could not even tell where the pin was. Only with 25x loupe could I make out where I could press to get the pin remnant out. Anyway, the original washers were long gone, but I had some metric washers that appear to be the correct size. A washer on top, a wavy washer and a washer on the bottom from what appears in the 1961 service manual. Problem is, after re-assembly with the new pin, there is no friction between the shaft and the knob to rotate the counter. I wonder if I'm missing something or just need a stiffer wavy washer. It is not clear to me what causes the friction between the rotating shaft and the knob to turn to knob to advance the frame counter.

Amazing simple mechanism to allow two revolutions of the focus ring.

Here it is with the proper 2mm ball bearing in place. Now, of course, it will seamlessly go into the macro range as it should.

This is the lens as I got it. Looked OK to me at first, but infinity is really the line above the 200m.