Do I have something special?

[campy]

Does anyone know if these lenses are high quality and what would be the usage of these two lenses?
180954
180955
180956

[Oren Grad]

A reminder that per Forum guidelines, valuation requests are not allowed. As always, discussion of the uses and large format relevance of lenses is fine.

[campy]

I edited the question.

[Jac@stafford.net]

The top one, #301-105-000-1 was an aerial photography lens for medium format from the Sixties or so.

[Dan Fromm]

Campy, I hope you didn't pay much for those lenses.

The Elcan type C-138 was used on several aerial cameras that shot 6x6 on 70 mm film. 6x6 is all it covers. It can't be put in shutter. Its back focus is 1.60 inches. I had one. Its too fat to be used on a 2x3 Speed. The only way I could see to use it was on a 4x5 Speed Graphic. For shooting 6x6, and pretty pointless. It might be usable on a mirrorless digicam. That said, they sometimes bring silly money. If you want to learn more, I b'lieve there's a link to an Elcan aerial lenses catalog in my list. Use it.

If I'm not mistaken, the 300/5.6 S-Tessar is a fixed aperture copier lens. I've never come across an account of someone using one as a photographic objective. Questions about that, yes. Reports on how well it shoots, no.

[Jac@stafford.net]

Many thanks to Dan Fromm for his contribution.

[LabRat]

If I'm not mistaken, the 300/5.6 S-Tessar is a fixed aperture copier lens. I've never come across an account of someone using one as a photographic objective. Questions about that, yes. Reports on how well it shoots, no.

I mounted one up on my whole plate to 4x5 Noba I use for a studio still life camera, and the results were just like using a modern plasmat, but with no iris... Very sharp, contrasty, with that very modern look, but I was looking for old world look that I get with old lenses... There is a nice focus falloff in OOF areas, but the modern look does not seem to mesh with it for me...

The front element alone will extend forward which will cause softening with other Tessars, but it still shoots contrasty, cold, and sharp like newer lenses...

It's very good, but not my taste...

Steve K