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Thread: huge voigtlander & sohn lens help

  1. #21

    Join Date
    May 2007
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    23

    Re: huge voigtlander & sohn lens help

    Holy moly, you guys have really planted some seeds here. I get teased sometimes at school about how much time I spend just looking at some of this stuff on eBay, but I'm hooked/fascinated. And so glad the summer is here so I can spend some time really looking into all of this. I also got a couple of other lenses from another lot that this auction house was selling--a 40cm with a dial on the barrel for the iris and a small, unmarked petzval type (w/3 waterhouse stops) that is unfortunately a little foggy at the rear element. May still get me some cool images--moody and such. The 40cm is marked No 2456 Aplanat extra rapid 1:5 No 4 Fer 40cm L. Renaux, Basel and is clean as a whistle. This is the one I got to work with my 12x15 because the guy who sold that told me said it had a 13.75" Hugo Meyer lens on it. Looking at it more closely, I see it's actually marked 17.75". Not as clean as the 40cm though. The lot with these other two lenses only cost me about $200, so Bill can't cast any disparaging remarks about my shopping habits on that one. Can't hurt to have a bunch of these, right? I may not be anywhere near where Jim is, but I'm going to have a lot of fun trying to get to that place! So now I'm looking at 11x14 cameras WITHOUT tapered bellows so that this monster can fit onto something. I guess without a shutter though, I won't be taking portraits.....

    Thanks a lot for all of the help people (and the laugh or two)!

  2. #22

    Join Date
    Dec 2000
    Location
    Tonopah, Nevada, USA
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    6,334

    Re: huge voigtlander & sohn lens help

    Quote Originally Posted by kelzo View Post
    Holy moly, you guys have really planted some seeds here. I get teased sometimes at school about how much time I spend just looking at some of this stuff on eBay, but I'm hooked/fascinated. And so glad the summer is here so I can spend some time really looking into all of this. I also got a couple of other lenses from another lot that this auction house was selling--a 40cm with a dial on the barrel for the iris and a small, unmarked petzval type (w/3 waterhouse stops) that is unfortunately a little foggy at the rear element. May still get me some cool images--moody and such. The 40cm is marked No 2456 Aplanat extra rapid 1:5 No 4 Fer 40cm L. Renaux, Basel and is clean as a whistle. This is the one I got to work with my 12x15 because the guy who sold that told me said it had a 13.75" Hugo Meyer lens on it. Looking at it more closely, I see it's actually marked 17.75". Not as clean as the 40cm though. The lot with these other two lenses only cost me about $200, so Bill can't cast any disparaging remarks about my shopping habits on that one. Can't hurt to have a bunch of these, right? I may not be anywhere near where Jim is, but I'm going to have a lot of fun trying to get to that place! So now I'm looking at 11x14 cameras WITHOUT tapered bellows so that this monster can fit onto something. I guess without a shutter though, I won't be taking portraits.....

    Thanks a lot for all of the help people (and the laugh or two)!

    Kelzo, the shutter is easy. When you find the camera to hold it up and the resulting giant lens board (you already have) you simply mount a 8 1/2" Packard shutter behind the lens and you can do anything you want. Even studio flash is possible.

  3. #23

    Join Date
    May 2007
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    23

    Re: huge voigtlander & sohn lens help

    Don't know if anyone is still checking in here or not, but when you guys were talking about reflections, I assume you mean what I see in the front and rear elements, right? The reflections in the rear elements are kind of concave and the ones in the front (although difficult to see because of the hood which doesn't seem to come off) are flat. The slot for the stops, while not exactly in the middle, is very close to it. It does sit nearer to the board though. Next I'm going to have to figure out exactly what it is I have to do to figure out the focal length....

  4. #24

    Re: huge voigtlander & sohn lens help

    Kel,

    "--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

    Don't know if anyone is still checking in here or not, but when you guys were talking about reflections, I assume you mean what I see in the front and rear elements, right?"

    With a petzval if you insert a stop and shine a flashlight into the front you should see 4 reflections, at the rear you would see 8. With a Euryscope you would see 4 front and 4 rear.

    "Next I'm going to have to figure out exactly what it is I have to do to figure out the focal length...."

    Fast and easy way, hold the lens in front of a white wall and focus a tree or something .5 miles away, then measure from the wall to the waterhouse slot. Not perfect but close enough for most uses.

    You did need the workout, right?

  5. #25
    All metric sizes to 24x30 Ole Tjugen's Avatar
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    Mar 2002
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    Norway
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    3,383

    Re: huge voigtlander & sohn lens help

    Correction:

    In the front you'll see two strong and one weak reflection, the rear has four about equally strong - in a petzval.

    And an Euryskop will have the same two strong + one weak in both ends. Also both ends of a Euryskop will look almost exactly the same.

    If you move the lens (or your head, that might be easier with this lens) a little, the reflections will seem to move around in the glass. With a Euryskop, or any other Aplanat / Rectilinear, they will all move in the same direction - but the weak one will move slowest.

  6. #26

    Join Date
    Feb 2007
    Location
    Van Buren, Arkansas
    Posts
    1,941

    Re: huge voigtlander & sohn lens help

    A rough and ready way to figure out approximate focal length is to stick the lens in a doorway looking out to a bright outside scene with some distant objects in it. Take a white piece of paper and move it around behind the lens (in your darkened house) until you focus those distant (near infinity) objects. Measure distance from waterhouse stop hole to paper. In inches, this is the focal length. Rough translation to millameters is 25mm to the inch.

  7. #27

    Re: huge voigtlander & sohn lens help

    Ole,

    "Correction:

    In the front you'll see two strong and one weak reflection, the rear has four about equally strong - in a petzval."

    See attached phots, 4 in the front and 8 in the rear. I guess Voigtlnader didn't just build their lenses to match technical drawings made public in their patent application and kept their trade secrets well.

    Nameplate, front bare bulb, rear w/flashlight (a whole galaxy), rear barebulb.

    Good morning people.
    Last edited by Paul Fitzgerald; 20-Oct-2007 at 09:25.

  8. #28

    Join Date
    May 2006
    Posts
    1,817

    Re: huge voigtlander & sohn lens help

    Paul,

    That's a beautiful Voigtlander lens. And one with aperture blades! A Voigtlander in such mint condition is indeed rare!

  9. #29

    Join Date
    May 2007
    Posts
    23

    Re: huge voigtlander & sohn lens help

    Okay Paul, I'm going to have to try this with a bare bulb tonight when I can get my husband to hold the lens for me as I shoot pictures to post here. Oops, I said "husband" didn't I? I think I may have blown my cover as someone referred to me as a "he" sometime earlier. Watch out boys, there's woman on the board and she's packin' some pretty big guns! And you can take that anyway you like I suppose! :0

  10. #30

    Re: huge voigtlander & sohn lens help

    Hugo,

    "That's a beautiful Voigtlander lens. And one with aperture blades! A Voigtlander in such mint condition is indeed rare!"

    Thank you, it is pretty, works well too. Spotless glass.

    Rare? Those are not aperture blades Hugo, that's a Studio shutter, it was sent back to the Wollensak factory in 1926 for a refit when it was 75 years old. I guess someone else liked the look it has, way back then they could have just bought a new Vitax.

    I did open it for cleaning and it is a standard Petzval arrangement, doublet in front with 2 singles in rear, so I don't know why the reflection pattern is different.

    Kel, a little secret, Mag-Light 2AA flashlight, the head unscrews and becomes an electric candle, a barebulb. GREAT focusing aid stopped down.

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