[LargeFormat] cult lenses

[Richard Knoppow]

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Ole Tjugen" <oftjugen@online.no>
To: "largeformat" <largeformat@f32.net>
Sent: Tuesday, June 03, 2003 11:52 AM
Subject: RE: [LargeFormat] cult lenses


On the subject of cult lenses, I'd like to mention the
German versions:

Zeiss Protar
Zeiss Planar
Voigtländer Heliar
Voigtländer APO-Lanthar

They're good, but (having tried them all) not all that
outstanding...

  Which versions?
  I have a Zeiss Convertible Protar for 4x5 and 5x7. Its
good lens. The individual cells perform better than one
would think. I think they are actually a little better than
the cells of convertible version of the Symmar but the
complete lens is not.
  The Wollensak convertible Raptar is essentially a copy of
the Protar. Many of these lenses were made for the US
military to meet a specifiction written for the Dagor. The
other common lens built to meet this spec is the
Turner-Reich lens, made by Gundlach: they are second rate
lenses.
  I also have a couple of Dagors. I rather like them but
they are not the sharpest lenses in the world although for
8x10 the difference between the Dagor and a really sharp
lens, say an Apo Artar, is not noticable in normal sized
prints. While the Dagor was patented and sold as a
convertible anyone who has tried it knows it isn't. The
individual cells have a lot of coma, corrected by symmetry
in the complete lens, which requires the individual cells to
be stopped down to maybe f/45 to get any sort of sharpness
in the corners.
  I don't have a Heliar. I suspect the Voigtlander versions
are not much better than a triplet. Kodak made some
excellent Heliar type lenses so the type is capable of good
performance. Again, I don't have an Apo-Lanthar but from
comments from others it would appear to be not much
different than the Heliar. The Heliar form doesn't seem to
have ever been very popular with lens designers.
  The original Planar had problems. Note than a number of
lenses have been made by Zeiss under this name. They can be
traced back generically to Paul Rudolph's original Planar as
can most lenses of f/2 or faster but have many differences
from the original.
  I agree than none of these should be a cult lens. The
Convertible Protar is a very usable lens offering good
performance in a small package but is not the equal of
modern glass.
  Note that the Wide Angle Protars are of a different
design. They are the same as Paul Rudolph's original Protar.
Both the f/12.5 and f/18 versions were made in considerable
quantities by Zeiss and Bausch & Lomb and the type was used
by many others for W.A. lenses. My ancient B&L f/18 Protar
is a good performer for 8x10 and is tiny compared to modern
W.A. lenses but is no match for them in image quality.
---
Richard Knoppow
Los Angeles, CA, USA
dickburk@ix.netcom.com