[rollei_list] Re: Tell the tales of Triotars
- From: Marc James Small <marcsmall@xxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: rollei_list@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Sun, 05 May 2013 16:52:50 -0400
At 04:12 PM 5/5/2013, Chris Burck wrote:
WRT the Triotar and the Tessar as well, ZI seems
to have followed a fairly conservative and
methodical pattern, beginning with f/4.5
versions (actually, f/6.3 if you want to reach
all the way back) and progressing thru f/3.8
intermediates to the final f/3.5 aperture. The
80mm Tessar seems to be the exception to this
pattern. The difference in speed *is* pretty
slight, but If you consider the slow film in
those days, I can see how it might be important to some photographers.
Georges Giralt, there's little difference
between the Triotar and Apotar. They are both
fine triplets, though over the decades the
Apotar seems to have gained a stronger reputaion
(if online testimonials are any indication), in
terms of sharpness and corrections. The best
reputation of all the triplets, in medium format
at least, appears to be enjoyed by the Trioplan made in Gorlitz by Meyer Optik.
A couple of quick points.
First, Carl Zeiss is a lens company. Zeiss Ikon
(no hyphen) was a camera company. They were both
owned by the Zeiss Foundation but they are not
the same company and it is important to keep that in mind.
Second, the original six-element Planar was a
product of Paul Rudolph from 1896. It was an
almost perfect lens in terms of correcting
aberrations but it suffered, due to its many
surfaces, from flare, so Rudolph sought a more
reasonable compromise and introduced the Tessar
in 1902. That lens, with only four surfaces, was
less prone to flare but originally could only be
stopped down to f/6.3. Rudolph spent his last
years at Zeiss working on that problem and got it
to f/4.5 before he retired. (He went bust in the
immediate postwar mess in Germany and was to
later surface as a lens designer for another
company, but that is a tale for a different
day.) Rudolph turned over lens design to Ernst
Wandersleb, who eventually got the aperture
opened to f/3.5. Then Wandersleb turned the
project over to his assistant, Hans Sauer, who
got it down to f/2.8. Wandersleb was married to
a Jew, so his life was ruined by the Nazis, who
tossed her into a Camp. He broke down and, while
she survived, he was a finished man, and so he
lived out his years until the late 1950's as an
appendage of the Communist-run Carl Zeiss Jena
(yes, even Marxists can have heart on occasion!),
passing a year or so after his wife.
Hans Sauer was brought to the west by the US
Army, thanks to the 80th Infantry Division, my
former unit. He had with him two sets of
designs, one for the f/2.8 Tessar and the other
for the five-element Planar (sound familiar, Rollei People?).
I knew people who knew Hans Sauer, and, through
him, Ernst Wandersleb and Paul Rudolph. But, for
that matter, I once shook the hand of Willy Ley,
who had shaken the hand of Werner von Braun, who
had often shaken the hand of Adolph Hitler. But,
then, Ley had also shaken the hand of those
fathers of astronautics, Hermann Oberth and
George Goddard, so I guess it all balances in the end.
Third, the recomputed Postwar Triotar for the
Contax RF is generally regarded as a gem of a
lens. Mine certainly performs superbly. But we
were speaking of Prewar Triotars, weren't we?
Marc
msmall@xxxxxxxxxxxx
Cha robh bàs fir gun ghràs fir!
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