View Full Version : c.1900 American Lens Brands
I'm doing a presentation on early Dakota photographers next week, and was going to talk a little about what lenses a successful pro photographer would most likely have been used 1880--1910. (Portraits, postcards, stereoviews.) I'm thinking they would have mostly American brands due to cost & availability--B&L would be a no-brainer. I assume a B&L rapid rectilinear would be very common 1880 to 1900, and after that a B&L Tessar? What else would be top choices back then?
Kent in SD
I could be wrong but I doubt there were any agents in Dakota selling their own branded lenses, so anything would have been purchased either in person on the East coast or by mail order. I suggest you look through the period catalogs for what was available. Photographers then as now bought the best they could (as a status symbol as much as for quality), so if your hypothetical commercial photographer was successful then he probably bought English or French lenses.
The most successful photographer in the Dakotas was F. Jay Haynes. I saw his camera gear in a Montana museum last summer. He had rapid rectilinear lenses from Ross, a Voigtlander for a 20x24, and a few B&L lenses including a Rapid Universal. Most of his lenses looked to be rapid rectilinears. He was active 1876 to about 1920. Seems like every town big enough to have a hotel had a photographer out here, and I don't think many of them were all that successful. Many seemed to shoot post cards with a 120 roll film camera and simply contact printed that onto a 3x5 card.
Kent in SD
Leszek Vogt
30-Dec-2016, 20:32
Couple that I'm aware of: Scovill - Waterbury Lens.....and Voigtlander Collinear Series II #4. Surely, Jim has to have some up his sleeve.
Les
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