This is something i've been thinking about for while, and with Schneider releasing two new "monster" lenses aimed squarely at the fine arts community, with the brass engravings and surely the price tag to go along, it got me thinking...
And I know that it might spark some interest in this group...

Modern lenses are not aimed at ULF shooters, very few of them have coverage larger than 8x10, and to go larger usually requires to use process lenses or old lenses, or extremely costly modern lenses...

Now, using old lenses is fine, and in fact from the end of the 19th century there have been lenses designed to cover quite a bit more than 8x10 (mammoth plates, anyone ?) but those old lenses are now ridden with problems, after more than a century, no shutters, watherhouse stops, fungus, scratches on uncoated glass, etc, etc, etc...

What if we were to revive one of those old lens design, put it in a good shutter with coated glass, and put it on the market ? Cooke optics did it with their soft focus lens and their convertible plasmat, Wisner did it with their casket set, (and in theory with the Hypergon...), so why don't we do it with a more "conventional" lens design ? Something long enough and with moderate coverage to act as "normal" lenses for the ULFers ?

I know that many optical corporations (Jenoptics, Dokter, Cooke, Angenieux, Zeiss, Nikon, etc...) offer "on commission" lens designs and production, usually for scientific or technichal applications, but would it be possible to commission a few "old design" lenses (so no devloppment costs...), get a production line going and get ourselves new lenses for our big cameras ?

Do you think that it's feasible ? What do you think the cost of such a thing would be ? Would you be interested in getting a brand new "old design" lens ?

If people are actually interested, i might just launch a new line of lenses "Classics, by Jan Van Hove"...

PJ VH