Heliar Lens

[seawolf66]

I have the Vada Mercum on lens , I have gotten confused, I am researching a heliar lens I am looking at which nu8ber does one use as the serial number when the only numbers are on the shutter and on the lens ? So which is which !
[The shutter serial number is 742773 and Lens serial number is 3012024. The shutter speeds are from 1 - 1/75; Aperture from f4.5 to 32. ]
I thank you in advance for your help here!

[Gene McCluney]

Lenses and shutters are often of different vintage. To date the glass of a lens you need to use the serial number engraved on the lens barrels.

In fact, even though leaf-shutters are shipped with lenses installed, they are not the lens, they are the shutter. The lens, technically is just the glass elements and barrels.

When a person complains about his "lens" having erratic shutter speeds I chuckle. His "lens" is just fine, it is his shutter that is acting up.

[seawolf66]

Gene: I Thank you for your responce, now the problem will be to figure out the lens date, in the Vada Mercum 3012024 puts the lens about the 1947 ? but the vada mercum shows the heliar around 1900's !

[Toyon]

The Vade Mecum is right. The Heliar was in production by Voigtlander from the 1900's through at least through 1964 (follow this link: Http://www.cameraeccentric.com/html/info/voigtlandera/voigtlandera.html). Your lens is probably an early single-coated model from 1947. A nice portrait lens. By the way, you might want to proofread your posts before you submit them.

[Peter K]

Lauren,
the Heliar was made nearly sixty years long but your serial-number sounds like a late one. Up to 240mm the angle of view is 54°, the longer up to 480mm 45°. When the shortest shutter-speed is only 1/75 it could be a 300mm mounted in a Compound V shutter. The Heliar was popular in the field of portrait- and landscape-photography.
Peter K

[Paul Fitzgerald]

Lauren,

Heliars were produced from 1904 thru the 1970's, very well liked lenses. One of mine has serial #5,653,xxx. The Lanthars were 'heliars', so were the APO Skopars.

Good luck with it.

[Gene McCluney]

Lauren,

Heliars were produced from 1904 thru the 1970's, very well liked lenses. One of mine has serial #5,653,xxx. The Lanthars were 'heliars', so were the APO Skopars.

Good luck with it.

REALLY?? I have a 24" Apo Skopar that I thought was a process lens like an Artar.
This is very interesting, and makes me want to try the Apo Skopar out...it is
mounted like a process lens, barrel mount, has aperture ring, but also has slot
for waterhouse stops, just like most process lenses. Why would Voigtlander market
two "names" in lenses, the Apo-Skopar and the Heliar with the same formula?

[Peter K]

The Heliar was invented 1900 by Harting. It's a triple variation like many other lenses like the Tessar. As the name Heliar become famous, Voigtländer used it for many other triplet variations.

The Apo-Skopar is a process-lens and was produced in many focal-lenghts from 50mm up to at least 1200mm. It's also a triplet-variation with glued front- and rear-part but not a Heliar, Dynar or Ektar. This are names of other triplet-variations.

Peter K

[Ole Tjugen]

Note that except for the very first few years, "Heliars" are really Dynars. The main difference is the order of negative and positive in the cemented outer cells.

Also - for some reason the coverage is consistently stated for the original Heliar construction. The Dynar-type Heliars have more coverage!

To confuse matters even more, "Universal Heliar" lenses are true Heliars thoughout the period.

but Apo-Lanthars, like Heliars, were Dynars - and early Apo-Skopars were Oxyns (at least some of them), which has a front group like a Dynar and a rear group like a Heliar. Or was it the other way round?

[Dan Fromm]

REALLY?? I have a 24" Apo Skopar that I thought was a process lens like an Artar.
This is very interesting, and makes me want to try the Apo Skopar out...it is
mounted like a process lens, barrel mount, has aperture ring, but also has slot
for waterhouse stops, just like most process lenses. Why would Voigtlander market
two "names" in lenses, the Apo-Skopar and the Heliar with the same formula? Gene, the Apo Skopar is a process lens. But it is a heliar type, unlike the Artar which is a dialyte type. There are also tessar type process lenses, 4/4 double Gauss type process lenses, 6/4 plasmat type process lenses, and more complex types of process lenses.

That a lens was sold as a process lens has no implications for its design or for its performance at distance. That said, the Apo Skopar is not the only heliar type process lens and some of the others are very good at all distances. So give yours a try.

[Jan Pedersen]

Note that except for the very first few years, "Heliars" are really Dynars. The main difference is the order of negative and positive in the cemented outer cells.


And yet there are exceptions to that to. I have 210 3.5 Heliar in a compound shutter. The serial number dates it to the mid 30's and it is a true Heliar whereas the 4.5 from the same time i believe is a Dynar.

[Ole Tjugen]

Somehow I'm not surprised at all.

The last time I was surprised by Heliar design and differences, was whan I put a 150mm Heliar (1934) on a 5x7" camera. It came close enough to covering that I wouldn't hesitate to use it, unless I needed perfect sharpness all the way out into the last few mm in the corners!

which led me to the discovery that dynars have more coverage than heliars, and most Heliars are dynars, and so on...