Help Wanted: Camera with wide-angle lens to re-photograph 1920s Postcards

[Jim Jones]

Fortunately there are plenty of 100-year-old tripods available online for this project. However, finding just the right period clothing to wear on the job might be a problem.

[Daniel Unkefer]

Dan, the VM, which isn't always right, says that the w/a Orthar is a 4/4 double Gauss type.

Since you have one, please count reflections from either cell and tell us what you saw. 4 strong, no weak = double Gauss. 2 strong, 2 weak = dagor type. Weak reflections can be very hard to see.

Hi Dan,
Looks like two strong positives, it's a bit hard to tell for sure. So it's a 4/4 Double Gauss. Interesting.

[Dan Fromm]

Hi Dan,
Looks like two strong positives, it's a bit hard to tell for sure. So it's a 4/4 Double Gauss. Interesting.

Thanks for checking.

Many makers made them. Most recommended wide open for focusing, no wider than f/11 for shooting. And most claimed 100 degrees coverage. The exception is Kodak's WF Ektars, 80 degrees.

[pgk]

FWIW I was commisioned to undertake a similar project some years ago. I shot the same views on a small format digital camera since the original images were relatively small and there was no absolute reason not to shoot them on digital, or so I thought, as they were for an organisation which would display them alonside the originals (also digitised) to illustrate changes. Onr thing I did find was that many postcards showing buildings had been corrected in camera and would have required the use of a shift lens on the smaller format digital. This also suggested to me that the postcards were originally shot on larger format camers potentially placed to enable postcard sized crops.