ROSS 10 inch HOMOCENTRIC

[Simon Benton]

I purchased on impulse a 10 inch Ross Homocentric - mainly sentimental because an uncle of mine in England who was a professional photographer used to own and use one.

I cannot find out much about this lens on the web or I have been looking in all the wrong places. Can anyone tell me about coverage of this lens, bokeh, flare and any other pertinent information? Thank you.

[CCHarrison]

1922 ad

Dan

www.antiquecameras.net3

[CCHarrison]

more at seth's site

http://www.cameraeccentric.com/html/info/ross/p23.html

[seawolf66]

well now I know who got it!

[Ernest Purdum]

Kingslake says that it is a double gauss pattern. With eight air-to-glass surfaces, you would have to be careful of lens shading and light control to avoid flare, but Ross was an excellent maker, so you probably have a good lens.

[Chauncey Walden]

I have a Ross Telecentric of similar vintage and it is definitely a good lens. Of course, no one would even look at it today because it is not MULTICOATED;-)

[RJ-]

I purchased on impulse a 10 inch Ross Homocentric - mainly sentimental because an uncle of mine in England who was a professional photographer used to own and use one.

I cannot find out much about this lens on the web or I have been looking in all the wrong places. Can anyone tell me about coverage of this lens, bokeh, flare and any other pertinent information? Thank you.

Hi Simon,

Lovely to hear the name Ross resurface on this forum. The original factory in Clapham, London has long since disappeared with few traces. Their legacy with their medium format Ensign cameras and lenses is much greater than the more obscure Ross large format lenses. I gather this may have been due to Ross' producing glass extensively for various other manufacturers.

The Homocentric lens is beautiful: I use a 15 inch version Homocentric which is very distinct from other lenses of its era including the Lancaster Rectigraphs and modern rectilinear type lenses. Even compared to the Ross Extra Rapid Symmetricals, the Homocentric lens has an unusual background rendition. Its aperture is almost perfectly circular in all apertures with at least 16 aperture leaves. I think mine is optimised for f22 (range f8-f45) and it covers whole plate with greater movement capacity than my current whole plate camera. If yours is an f8 variant, then you may be very pleased at the tonal quality and resolution of the lens too.

The Vade Mecum has quite a large entry on the Ross Symmetricals and Rectilinears although it has only a few comments on the Homocentric. It seems it may have had a short life due to other lens developments and the movement towards more modern type rectilinear lenses. With the Luc (?) or Silens (?) front shutter, I've not found flare particularly challenging yet.

Kind regards.

[Jon Wilson]

I truly like the images my 10 inch Homocentric Ross will produce. It is in an old Optimo shutter, but has a dual aperture scale which indicates it is a convertible....but I have not tried it as such. Does anyone have a Homocentric Convertible lens? This one has an aperture scale marked f6.3 and f4.5; The front cell is marked 10 inch f6.3
Any insight is appreciated. Jon