Did you see the Sphaerogon?--
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=7607996399
Did you see the Sphaerogon?--
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=7607996399
OMG! $6655? Wow!
Wow! That's amazing. Guess I should have held onto to my big 18¼"/30¾" shutter mounted Series VII Protar and 19" Dagor for a few more years. I ended up selling them both a for a few hundred dollars each. Wonder what they'd get today.
It is interesting that the only bidders to bid more than $777.77 were Chinese (the second highest bidder lists his location as United States, but I bought something from him recently and it was shipped from China). That confims two things - there is a growing interest in ULF photography in China, and the Chinese economy has brought new found wealth to those who wish to pursue this interest.
There are already a lot of large format cameras and accessories being produced in China. I wonder if they will start producing new lenses to support their ULF needs.
After all the doom and gloom posts last year about the impending "death of film", it's nice to see the world demand for large format and ultra large format products growing.
Kerry
Guys, its a 632 mm 90 degree lens. More coverage than most of us can begin to use. It has only four (4) air-glass interfaces, so should have low flare, i.e., still usable. And its earlyish, mid-WWI. So it should have great appeal to users and it should appeal to collectors.
At better than even odds, its was one of the lenses in the confiscated "Zeiss collection" and so of even greater appeal to collectors.
The Sphaerogon is likely also part of the collection, a prototype, ... The proverbial very rich collector's dream.
Hot damn! I think that it is absolutely wonderful that prices for quality LF and ULF products are garnering such interest because it completely disproves all of the negativity of the longevity of analog materials because clearly there is a growing interest in the arena.
It is prices like these that will bring more of these products to market and just maybe even get a few more folks that walked away from the business to consider coming back.
Cheers!
There are already a lot of large format cameras and accessories being produced in China. I wonder if they will start producing new lenses to support their ULF needs.
I'm not sure how big the German sources for glass are, but when people buy optical glass these days it comes in volume from one primary source: China
It's only a matter of time before your speculation regarding new ULF lens production comes true.
These are such silly prices! I wonder if they are being purchased to reverse engineer them?
Speaking of heavy weights for heavy money, the great dagor77 has a Rodenstock APO Ronar CL 1000mm f16 on Ebay that is at $2800 right now and with more than a day to go...
Some amateur astronomers often grind their own mirrors and sometimes a refractory objective.
At these prices, I wonder if any resouceful photographers are grinding their own lenses.
I know of a LF enthusiast that mounted an electronic focal plane shutter, removed form a Minolta 35mm camera, between lens elements. (The lenses were removed from an unrepairable lens/shutter.)
I also know a guy who built his own drop shutter (part of a class assignment) modeled after a 1900s 8x10 camera.
The hard parts of grinding lenses, from what I've read, are a) getting the glass, b) recalculating the prescription to match the glass you can get, c) keeping concentricity and controlling wedge so the lens will perform, and d) matching the curves of cemented surfaces. A Tessar would be at least 8 times as much work to grind and figure as a small mirror (8 surfaces), plus all the additional involved in the above list of "hard parts".
No, not out of the realm of amateur opticians; I've know people who made refractive elements for telescopes, and camera lenses aren't *that* much harder (though some of the optical glasses needed are much harder to get than the common crowns and flints needed for telescope objectives). But given the issues with mounting and such after all the optical work is done, and that the end result is an uncoated lens unless you're willing to send it off to Svema for coating, and the cost of large chunks of raw optical glass, it's not too surprising that folks who aren't in it for the making of the thing (as opposed to most photographers, who want to use the lens as a tool) would much rather pay for a factory-made lens than make their own...
If a contact print at arm's length is too small to see, you need a bigger camera. :D
Oh I aggree, except that given the amount of curvature on a camera lens its probably 8 times more work for each surface. But again, looking at the ebay prices mentioned, it makes you wonder..
(At one time I worked (summer job) in the stock vault for raw glass at Kodak's Hawkeye Plant. I weighed out various types of glass fragments which were they remelted to make a lens blank with known optical characteristics, based on a paper requisition. (These were used for government contract special lenses.) I have ground a 6" f/8 telescope mirror so I realise it would be way more difficult.
I would think that making a grinding machine would be a must .. Let me see -- my wife has a glass Kiln for her stained glass business ... Hmm, I better quit while I'm ahead.
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