[LargeFormat] Wollensak 15" Telephoto (was re: Shooting Landscapes with 305mm)

[Richard Knoppow]

-------Original Message-------
From: Clive Warren <cocam@blueyonder.co.uk>
Sent: 04/20/03 07:47 PM
To: largeformat@f32.net
Subject: [LargeFormat] Wollensak 15" Telephoto (was re: Shooting Landscapes with 305mm)

> 
> At 9:59 pm -0400 20/4/03, Stuart Phillips wrote:
>Is the Wollensack a telephoto or do you have long bellows?
>

Hello Stuart,

The Wollensak is indeed a telephoto in an Alphax shutter and a rather 
fine lens. There is an example photo taken with the lens attached to 
a Speed Graphic of Tintern in South Wales, UK. The photos were taken 
from a precarious position about two miles away in the surrounding 
mountains.  There are sectional blow-ups of the resulting trannie 
showing the limitations to be grain of the film rather than 
resolution of the lens!

The photos are on the f32.net Discussion Forum at the following URL: 
<a target=_blank
href="http://www.f32.net/cgi-local/discus/show.cgi?tpc=6&post=530#POST530">http://www.f32.net/cgi-local/discus/show.cgi?tpc=6&post=530#POST530</a>

Cheers, Clive

  FWIW, the same lens was sold by Graflex as the Tele Optar. The barrel mount cells will mount directly in a #4 Wollensak Alphax shutter. 
  For some reason Wollensak designs are quite variable. The telephotos are excellent, some of the Optar/Raptar lenses for press cameras have excessive coma, and Enlarging Raptars are awful. My Super-D Graflex has a 190mm Optar, made by Wollensak, which is again an excellent lens. Who knows?

  

Richard Knoppow
dickburk@ix.netcom.com
Los Angeles, CA, USA