[pure-silver] Re: Advice on an 150mm enlarging lens.
- From: "Richard Knoppow" <dickburk@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: <pure-silver@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Mon, 13 Feb 2012 10:15:32 -0800
----- Original Message -----
From: "Joseph O'Neil" <joneil@xxxxxxxx>
To: <pure-silver@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Monday, February 13, 2012 8:59 AM
Subject: [pure-silver] Re: Advice on an 150mm enlarging
lens.
>> Cheers, Bogdan
I have a 163mm Wollensak Enlarging raptar in near mint
shape that is my favourite enlarging lens. I do have
Rodenstocks, el-Nikkors and Schneiders in all sizes form
50mm to 1450mm, but I don't know why, that Wlloensak is my
favourite of them all. Bear in mind this is NOT the
same lens you ahve, so I don't know how it compares - you
ahve to try and see for yourself.
I know that sounds almost like heresy, but I think
Wollensak gets a bum rap for two main reason. First, they
made a wide range of lenses from excellent to poor
quality. Secondly the Wollensak lenses, like Kodak
lenses, were the "workhorses" for many years for school,
street level commercial labs, press photography, and so
forth. As a result, it is very hard to find a good
Wollensak or Kodak anything in near mint shape. But if
and when you do, you will be amazed at the quality.
My old Kodak monorail was used 2-3 times then put away
and forgotten about for over 50 years. Using it brand
new - what an incredible camera, when everythign works on
it. Also I ahve an old Wollensak - 15" I think -
telephoto lens for 4x5, again, in near mint shape, and
amazing lenses to use.
So if you get the right one, some of these older lenses
can be amazing, but it is a matter of some trial and
error, and also finding one that hasn't been shop worn to
death form use
joe
I can't tell about the lens you have but I've evaluated
a number of Raptar and Wollensak made Graflex lenses and all
had the same fault. I am speaking of the f/4.5 series lenses
supplied for press cameras. I also have an f/5.6 Optar on a
Graflex Super-D, this was made by Wollensak and is an
excellent lens as are a couple of Tele-Raptar lenses I have.
I have no idea what happened to the Raptar/Optar series or
the Enlarging Raptar but all I've encountered had problems.
I've also found that the Xenar lenses made for Graflex leave
something to be desired and are not the same as the Xenars
found in Rollei cameras.
Note that Graflex contracted with other manufacturers
for "Optar" lenses so not all are Wollensak. The later ones
appear to be mostly Rodenstock lenses.
Wollensak lenses were not cheap so that is not the
explanation of what went wrong.
Kodak made outstanding lenses, both from a design and a
quality control standpoint. They were also not cheap. The
Ektar and Commercial Ektar series were intended to boost the
sale of color film so were designed to have excellent color
correction. The Commercial Ektar, while not an apochromatic
lens is pretty close to it. Kodak seems to have concentrated
on Tessar type lenses for large format. They made some
excellent Heliar type lenses for focal lengths of around
100mm but not greater and do not seem to have ever made any
Plasmat types.
--
Richard Knoppow
Los Angeles
WB6KBL
dickburk@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
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