Show me your Struss pictures

[Roger Beck]

Not of the lens but pictures taken with the lens.

[esearing]

Not of the lens but pictures taken with the lens.

You may not find many because the lenses are rare. Jim Galli mentioned in a thread that he had only seen 3 on ebay and others indicated ones seen are usually in terrible condition.
Check his site or PM Jim to see if he has any images to share.

Rarity thread: https://www.largeformatphotography.info/forum/showthread.php?43012-How-rare-are-Karl-Struss-pictorial-len-s

[Roger Beck]

Thanks. I had put a Wanted To Buy ad for a Struss lens. I had one offer of $12,000 and another, he loved his lens so much he couldn't bear to part with it or name a price, even though it was for sale. I understand that's how it with your favorite lenses. The images I have seen are low quality, naturally on the web, that I was curious to see what all the fuss/price is about. Its about rarity/collectability and unique image quality not so much. Russ Youngs thesis mentions that in pictorialism days, the prints were so soft and textured as well, that you could not discern a lot of details, and they were made that way on purpose. No one has ever seen a modern high resolution Strusss image! While they may have different properties, there is only so much you can do with a meniscus. I've been trying out other meniscus lenses and wanted to see if there was an amazing wow difference in the highlights, which is where you see how a soft lens really works. I'm pretty sure I can get the Struss look with another lens, if I had one for comparison lol. Jim Galli's comparison photos are no longer online (are they?). Galli says "I have an 1860's Darlot landscape meniscus that I use wide open at f6 and the effect is very nearly identical to the high priced spread." so there's my answer. In the book "Pictorialism in California:Photographs 1900-1940" they imply that one of the reasons pictorialist photographers switched from soft lenses to sharp lenses was that the soft lenses needed a lot of practice. Each lens is slightly different and gives slightly different results, under slightly different lighting where the sharp lenses gave immediate and predictable result. Soft lenses are fun to play with, and I'm glad to see the style is slowly but surely coming back.

[paulbarden]

Why not email Jim Galli and ask for his opinion?

[Jim Noel]

A -2, -3, or -4 closeup lens may get you pretty close the the same type image as a Struss. I have a -4 (250mm) which I screwed into the back of an Alphax shutter and use on the 8x10. Sharp in the middle with smooth but rapid softening to the edges of image.
A real Struss it isn't. But it does compare favorably to my friend's Struss.

[Bernice Loui]

https://www.largeformatphotography.info/forum/showthread.php?78953-Karl-Struss-Pictorial-lens-use-and-results

Based on past and present experience with Sorta-Focus lenses, lighting and subject has a BIG effect on the image results.
Some SF lenses from that era tinkered with chromatic lens correction -vs- photographic materials from that era to achieve a particular image rendering, or the intended SF result as and when the lens was designed-used will produce a different image result due to differences in spectral sensitivity of the photographic materials from then and now.


Bernice

[Roger Beck]

Why not email Jim Galli and ask for his opinion?

I almost put in a quote about the Three Blind Men parable and soft lenses - not looking for a description but actual hi-res images.

[Roger Beck]

https://www.largeformatphotography.info/forum/showthread.php?78953-Karl-Struss-Pictorial-lens-use-and-results

Based on past and present experience with Sorta-Focus lenses, lighting and subject has a BIG effect on the image results.
Some SF lenses from that era tinkered with chromatic lens correction -vs- photographic materials from that era to achieve a particular image rendering, or the intended SF result as and when the lens was designed-used will produce a different image result due to differences in spectral sensitivity of the photographic materials from then and now.


Bernice

thanks - there are some images I was looking for - from descriptions I thought the lens must have a mild soft look, delicate and refined where some sorta-focus lenses are really kinda blurry.

[Bernice Loui]

Use Extreme Caution to judge any lens results via the web as they cannot be truly representative of the print results. While easy and overly convenient to simply "look stuff up" on the web, it is IMO often nothing like the genuine item or in this case the Genuine Original Image.


Bernice



thanks - there are some images I was looking for - from descriptions I thought the lens must have a mild soft look, delicate and refined where some sorta-focus lenses are really kinda blurry.

[Tin Can]

Bernice,

Isn't there also a problem optically enlarging SF and/or pictorial?

Not the technique, but image quality?

[William Whitaker]

https://www.largeformatphotography.info/forum/showthread.php?78953-Karl-Struss-Pictorial-lens-use-and-results

...lighting and subject has a BIG effect on the image results.


This is a good point. My limited SF experience with Veritos has revealed as much. I've gotten pretty lucky a couple of times. Yeah, like dumb luck!

I can't even dream of ever using, much less, owning, a Struss!
I would love to see an optical diagram of the design.
I read the word "meniscus" used here at least once. And I wonder how one might compare to a Wollaston in use...

Cheers!

[Roger Beck]

Bernice Loui - I understand that part from shooting and editing fuzzy lens images and then prepping them on a computer for the web and print. I can see image qualities as long as it is a reasonable size and the ones in that thread were larger than most. But I agree, there is nothing like a print. The hard part is seeing a comparison of different lenses under IDENTICAL conditions. Or seeing the difference between panchromatic and orthochromatic film under identical conditions.

[LabRat]

Another big part of these is how they are used, and the process...

Look up work done by Karl Struss, and you will see he probably severely underexposed the scenes, then printed the images dark and smokey on black rich papers of the period...

Most SF lenses of the past would benefit from this style of printing, as many lenses will produce flat contrast with inflated shadow areas that need to be printed down well for some semblance of contrast... Severe studio lighting helps, as it is difficult to find outdoor scenes with lighting ratios that make the image "pop"...

For enlarging, a wave of a diffuser such as Saran wrap plastic wrap on a small cardboard frame or a clear CD jewel box during a portion of enlarging exposure will soften the blacks and give them that pictorial dark "glow"...

Steve K

[esearing]

Have you see Tri Tran's lenses? https://www.tritranphotography.com/tt-signature-lens