I found this old Spezial aplanat 1:8-F-135mm on a broken camera, and it fits just fine in the lensboard for my camera which is a swiss arca 4*5. Is this an ok lens for my camera?
I havent taken any pics with it yet since i'm waiting for a new tripod that would arrive this week.
It's useable, at least to start with. Don't expect any stellar performance though, nor much in the way of movements: It was made to cover 9x12cm in cheap box cameras, and will give soft corners even there unless stopped down to f:22 or so.
There are some Aplanats which are stunningly good, but the Erkos Spezial-Aplanat is probably not one of them.
Your 135mm lens probably came off a European camera of the 9x12cm format.
It won't cover a 4x5 frame with a good sharpness at anything wider than f22.
Beyond the area of the 9x12cm frame the outer edges of the frame are going to lose definition rapidly. There are also effects like field curvature and astigmatism.
just try it and see what the results are like.
If the shutter cane be fired without re-cocking you can build the exposure with multiple firings to compensate for there being no slow speeds.
If you use the lens wide open with a back-lit scene you might just get a case of the swirlies. I have seen this with a Bausch & Lomb aplanat of similar focal length taken from a Kodak 1a Autographic. At that aperture only the center of the frame is going to be approximately sharp. Contrast is going to be lower than with a modern lens. With B&W film you can always tinker with the film speed rating and process times.
Experiment and have some fun.
Actually Neil even with re-cocking you can build up the exposures. Look at the work of John Blakemore.
Try it and see Gote at worst you'll be disappointed but then you could also be surprised so have some fun with it.
Ian
Thanks for your info. I got the lens for free so i will test it and if i don't like it it hasn't cost me much.
This objective - simple "Periscope"...
Andrey might be right - Thiele lists it as an Aplanat, while David lists it as a Periskop.
An f:8 Periskop could be a fun lens giving "pictorial" results.
At me is broken "Spezial aplanat 1:8 F-135mm". There only two lenses.
Here its back lens. Simple meniscus.
Hi,
I have a bellows camera with Spezial aplanat 1:8-F-135mm lens. Please if you can give me some details about it. Here are few pictures with my camera : http://oldbellowscamera.blogspot.com/ . I apologize if it breaks any rule admins with this link.
Thanks,
Probably the original lens/camera set-up. As you can see from the back, this is a Welta camera - a big producer of these 9x12cm . This is their economy model with no expansion bed and the vario shutter. A google search on Welta will probably find its brothers!
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