Bausch & Lomb 4x5 Planatograph 6 1/2 inch f8

[Gene McCluney]

I was hoping someone could tell me something about this old lens. It is a Bausch & Lomb 4x5 Planatograph 6 1/2 inch, f8, mounted in a simple brass shutter from Gundlach with 1/100, 1/50, 1/25, T, B. settings. It has a pneumatic cylinder for a bulb type cable release. I would guess it came from a folding camera from early in the 20th century.

Planatograph...never heard of this lens name before, is it similar to a Rapid Rectilinear?

The shutter has two aperture scales:

f8 to f64,

and

a scale marked "WA" and numbers from 1 to 5, with 1 corresponding to f22, and 5 corresponding to f64.

I'm just curious.

[GhoSStrider]

Can't add a lot, but I think Planatograph was just another name for Aplanats/RR's.

[Gene McCluney]

Can't add a lot, but I think Planatograph was just another name for Aplanats/RR's.

But...I have a Bausch & Lomb Rapid Rectilinear from exactly the same period, mounted in an almost identical shutter, thus it would seem that this might be another type of lens design.

[Ole Tjugen]

http://www.largeformatphotography.info/forum/archive/index.php/t-21226.html

I just got a small "Combination Lens" in the mail, which looks similar to a RR. But looking at the reflections the outermost elements are almost planoconvex, not concave as in a RR. This construction doesn't have a name, but it's what was "Rectilinear" before the RR's - and they're the reason the RR's were called "Rapid".

Look at the reflections: Both types have two strong and one weak reflection per cell. When tilting the lens the reflections will move too - in a RR all reflections move in the same direction, the weak one much slower than the other two. In a "slow Rectilinear" the weak reflection moves in the opposite direction, and faster than the other two.

dead easy when you know how... :)