I came across a new lens the other day that a dealer has had in stock for a few years. It seems to be a cheapo Chinese/Japanese lens, called a 'Hege'. It's a 210mm in a Copal No.3 shutter. It's a very slim design, but obviously quite a l arge diameter. Any specs would be most welcome, mainly the image circle. I don' t know what format it would cover, and we didn't have a camera to try it on.
David: Just speaking in generalities, 210mm is considered a normal lens for 5x7 film so I suspect it will cover that format. Most of the low cost lenses I have seen have been based on the four element tessar formula. The tessar formula can deliver good results if manufactured to close tolerances.
You can figure out the approximate configuration of the lens by viewing the reflections of a single light source on the air:glass and the glued glass:glass interfaces of the lens elements. The reflections on the air:glass interfaces will be relatively bright, while those on the glued glass:glass interfaces will be much dimmer. Doing this you can, at least, determine the number of air-spaced elements and the number of grouped elements. You can probably determine if the lens is a tessar, plasmat, gauss, etc design.
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