Need help with lens

[Dan Dozer]

Just got a vintage lens off of "that site" for very cheap, but don't know anything about it. I was hoping that all you lens guru's out there might be able to give me some information on it. It is by the Manhatten Optical Co. of New York. The only thing that Vade Mecum has is that the company merged with Gundlach in 1902. The lens is incribed "Manhattan Rapid Rectilinear" and also indicates it as No. 6, is numbered 3877, and is a 10 x 12 lens. It has in internal iris between the two lenses that ranges from F4 - F256, and appears to have a focal distance of approximately 17" - 18". The lens size is approximately 3 1/2" in diameter x 4 1/2" long.

I assume that as a rapid rectilinear, it would be a general purpose lens that would work for landscape work (which is what I mainly do) as opposed to portrait work. Does anyone know what the "quality" level of a lens by Manhattan might be, and what expectations or limitations I may have with it's performance on my 8 x 10 camera? The lens is in extremely good condition with no scratches or imperfections in the glass other than a slight edge separation on the rear lens.

There is no date on the lens. I assume that since it does not also have the Gundlach name on it, it would be safe to assume that it would date prior to 1902. I am normally only doing contact printing from my 8 x 10 negatives.

Thanks,

[Donald Qualls]

A Rapid Rectilinear is very good for landscapes and architecture because, as the name implies, it gives little or no geometric distortion. It's less sharp than a Tessar wider than about f/16, but at smaller apertures the two are essentially indistinguishable. Since both doublets are cemented, there are only four glass-air surfaces, which helps contrast. Coverage is smaller than a triplet or Tessar the same focal length, but not much smaller.

BTW, that iris is almost certainly on the old USA scale -- steps are by area instead of diameter, but USA 16 is the same as f/16 -- so your 4, 8, 16, 32, 64, 128, 256 is the same as f/8, 11, 16, 22, 32, 45, 90. And you'll almost never see a Rapid Rectilinear faster than f/8 -- I don't know of them ever being made faster, but can't swear they weren't -- because the image quality very quickly became unacceptable at larger openings, and by the time the technology existed to correct that shortcoming, there were other lenses that did everything better with much larger apertures.

[Dan Dozer]

Donald,

I was also wondering about the huge difference in the two extremes in the min. and max. f stops. The numbers you indicate from F8 to F90 make a lot more sense. I will be hooking up this lens with a Packard Shutter so will be shooting long exposure times and small f stops. Therefore, the sharpness at wide open aperatures won't normally be an issue.

Thanks for the imput.