Wollensak Stereo Camera & others — 3D printed accessories

It is not difficult to notice that accessories for Revere or Wollensak stereo cameras are not easy to come by, even on the largest online marketplace. I did not even secure the full original instruction manual.

I have decided to recreate the accessories myself. The first thing was a pair of lens shades, 3d printed, replicating the original. They just press onto the lenses. Cheap and easy to replace. Matte black acrylic paint covers the inside to prevent light reflections.

The next accessory was a lens cover with Wollensak logo. Pretty useful, took a few tries to get a good fitting. The original had convex logos, but they take so much longer to print, so I’m using concave, embossed logos on the cover for now. I mean, it’s still doing its job just fine. Besides, the original was white, and I ran out of the white filament.

I also had to create a custom adapter for the flash hot shoe. The hot shoe in this camera has a huge contact in the middle. It’s about 2mm high, preventing the use of any modern accessories. I do want to make a functional, hot adapter, but so far I just need to attach my pocket light meter, so the adapter is cold. In the hindsight, I should have designed the shoe for light meter, not an adapter — it would’ve been more compact.

For Yashica Mat cameras, I made a right-angle attachment for pocket lightmeter, a spare lens shade and a special lens shade that is also an adapter for Cokin A system. Using it, I can use Cokin A graduated filters. Of course, it works through the rather imprecise method of “eyeballing” the cutoff line. I need to test using it on the viewing lens to set and transferring the assembly to the taking lens. Maybe it will work…

Lastly, an accessory that I made out of necessity was a Mamiya Six lens hood. I tried to incorporate a small filter thread in there, but I haven’t screwed in any filter with success yet. I left it as is in the project file and keep printing them for sale, since no one makes them.

Mamiya Six are awesome folding cameras, very inexpensive and of great quality (at least the later “Automat” versions). They do feel more flimsy compared to Zeiss, but the ergonomics win. I can compose and focus with the camera folded, then quickly open it, set the shutter/aperture, wind (which also cocks the shutter), shoot and close. With Zeiss, I’m much slower. I did not see noticeable difference in sharpness when stopped down to f/5.6 or 8.

Back to the stereo Wollensak. The original leather belt stains the shirt and leaves a lot of small leather crumbs. It may be time to stop using it and get a new case for it, to preserve the original one from further wear.