[LargeFormat] Wollensak Extreme Wide Angle Lenses

[Richard Knoppow]

-------Original Message-------
From: Clive Warren <Clive.Warren@megacycle.co.uk>
Sent: 04/21/03 04:21 AM
To: largeformat@f32.net
Subject: [LargeFormat] Wollensak Extreme Wide Angle Lenses

> 
> At 23:19 20/04/2003 -0600, Tim Atherton wrote:

> > awful. My Super-D Graflex has a 190mm Optar, made by Wollensak,
> > which is again an excellent lens. Who knows?
>
>As is my Wollensak 159mm 12.5 Anastigmat Extreme WA - a great little
lens.
>
>tim

Tim,

Essentially your f12.5 WA Wolly is a protar lens - I have always wondered 
about the faster version. I have the f9.5 version which is called a 
Wollensak Velostigmat Wide Angle Ser III which is a bit easier to focus 
than the f12.5 version. I have read that the lenses are of a different 
construction. Counting the reflections, the f9.5 has four elements in the 
front and rear groups. The protar design would have two elements in the 
front and rear groups.

Looking at the 5x7 version (marked Wollensak 5x7 Series IIIa EX.W.A 
f12.5  4 5/16") of your 8x10 Wolly lens this does indeed have two elements 

in each lens group.

I would assume that the f12.5 version has better contrast than the f9.5 
version if only because there are fewer lens elements in the f12.5 version 

and both lenses are uncoated. I seem to recall seeing a version in an 
alphax shutter that was coated and I think this was the f9.5 version.

Cheers,
            Clive




  The f/9.5 W.A. Velostigmat is a unique design. It appears to be a compounded double gauss with each of the four components consisting of two cemented elements. At a guess, this was done to obtain the performance of some glass types which were not available, but I have no actual information on this lens. 
  The four cemented surfaces must have made them expensive lenses to make. I've never had one so have no idea of how good (or bad) they are. 
  A number of other WA lenses are essentially double Gauss types. The Kodak Wide Field Ektar, for example. The Bausch & Lomb Metrogon and Zeiss Topogon can be seen as also derived from the double Gause type.
  It seems that a number of lens makers copied the Zeiss wide angle Protar types. They are surprizingly good lenses although modern WA types are clearly much better than any of the pre-WW-2 WA lenses. 

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